Why disaster means different things to different economic segments

 Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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When fire strikes a premium residential apartment there are embedded fire fighting system in place, disaster management plan in place, near real time fire fighting response, insurance in place for compensation, legal framework to identify concerned accountable, Committee established to improvise future statutory regulations, life-savings to help get back households to second lease of life at the earliest.

When fire engulfs a squatter settlement or slum there is no insurance company to pay compensation, no architect to hold accountable, no firefighting bylaws to look for discrepancy, first fire fighting response is rarely able to navigate to fire incident spot, no post incident assessment wrt to fire regulations as who cares for statutory needs of squatter settlements, there is no handy financial reserve with households to get back on their feet sooner.

Though loss of any kind due to any disaster is unfortunate irrespective of economic strata, and there are layers of institutional, financial and community support available in such situations for both of them, still those at the lowest economic strata of society are clearly in much disadvantageous situation.

Citing illegality of squatter settlements and slums across the world the statutory and life saving needs of such habitats are completely ignored since decades; how ironical it is that while in one part of city the building plans are not approved by competent agency if they are not compliant to fire code and building bylaws and in other part of same city i.e. in squatter settlements and slums there is no policy in place or regulatory thinking neither any mechanism or physical measures to safeguard lives from fire for instance. Will they let inhabitants of squatter settlements and slums stay vulnerable to threats and disasters of all kind just as it seems overwhelming to deal with or whether something can be done, until everyone is rehabilitated, until there are no more squatters and slums in a city.

Author: Anoop Jha

www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha

#urbanplanning #city #townplanning #squattersettlement #poor #propoor #fire #disaster #disastermanagement #firefighting #policy #governance #economy #slum #architecture #bylaws

Life-cycle gap in architectural services being offered!

 Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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A typical house requires to go through not just periodic renovation but also series of remodeling across it's life cycle as a function of household's life events, lifestyle changes and life adjustment requirements. Home remodeling prompted by changes including but not limited to arrival of kids in life, children going to school, children getting married, parents getting old, realisation of yourself getting old and so on. These changes though obvious and imperative but neither being acknowledged nor getting addressed by architects and one time architectural services being offered, while home owners are left on their own to do the required readjustments to house, think of space planning and redefining space usage.

It's worthwhile that architecture fraternity give a serious thought to this challenge and gap that exists in rendering architectural services. Whether one time architectural service being offered can factor in all above requirements or whether architects can handhold their clients for lifetime or something else.

Author: Anoop Jha

www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha

#Architect #architecture #design #building #realestate #urbandesign #urbanplanning #townplanning #city #smartcity #future #profession #corporate #business

 

Skewed and limited perception of project essentials, budget, timeline and professional fees in developing countries!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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The notion of urban development and architecture in a developing country is more or less, civic amenities, public facilities, parks, road, paving, brick and mortar etc. and 3D simulation to either publicise welfare achievements or to lure investors. We see in both public and private domain one such project after another lined up, debated, recognised, argued, praised, awarded or dropped and trashed.

While most of such projects get executed anyways even in developing countries and cities, but most of these projects certainly, sometimes purposefully miss one or several or most of following fundamental elements of urban planning and architectural practice which are part and parcel to developed country's usual planning and design practice, including Heat island effect analysis, Shadow analysis, Wind tunnel test, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, shading analysis, traffic noise simulation, sustainable city/ neighborhood development practice, Low Impact Development (LID) planning, waste heat recovery, building heat load simulation, green building design, solar passive design, and many more.

It's difficult to understand the root cause of same, whether it is lack of knowledge and awareness at city administration and client level or lack of capital or unavailability of technology or lack of technology know how or inertia of decades of mediocre planning or simply ignorance or reluctance to growth. Whatever be the reason it's high time that city administrations, planning professionals and architects increasingly adopt to good essential planning and design practices, advise clients to consider these and projects must allocate additional budget to integrate these while consultants, consulting firms and advisory firms must be paid judiciously to integrate and adopt to above mentioned necessary measures. Accordingly project timelines should also be increased to make room for adopting such good practices.

Author: Anoop Jha

www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha

#urbanplanning #architecture #sustainability #simulation #smartcity #design #townplanning #development #projects #technology #consulting #municipal

Historic shift in city planning approach!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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When cities first started getting planned, it was more of a mechanical, analog and hardware approach, i.e. provision of basic minimum urban palpable elements driven by understanding of functional, social and cultural requirements of specific time period in history, configured in either abstract to subtle to articulate manner. City planning outward appeal, urban fabric and urban growth pattern kept getting readjusted as per need of changing time including industrialization, high speed mobility, migration, environmental awareness etc. but the approach of urban planning more or less remained same as always in spite of all the buzz, talk and interpretation by intelligentsia labeling same as new age of urban planning.

Historically only two major, distinct and realistic but mostly invisible shift in planning approach were felt in true sense; one when country administration changed from monarchy to democracy in multiple parts of world and the other when city planning approach shifted from analog to digital - where former shift in approach prompted a whole new set of governance redefining context, perception and necessity of urban planning while impact of later approach is yet to realise it's full potential.

Author: Anoop Jha

www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha

#urbanplanning #townplanning #smartcity #urbandesign #iot #ict #digitaltwin #digital #urban #cityplanning #publictransport

Solving the Age-old Dilemma!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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World has to come to terms with the fact that the panacea to collective misery of missed car pool, missed bus, missed train, missed flight, missed attendance, missed opportunity, missed deadlines and lingering sense of alienation on a remote ground is to always stay connected (on demand) to your collective personal, professional and support ecosystem made of family, friends, peers, financial/medical/ legal/ spiritual advisor, mentor, payment gateway, connected home and so on, through plethora of choices and virtual communication modes like text, audio, video, augmented reality, holographic twin and soon through immersive metaverse.

While there is no substitute to being somewhere in person, still its quite an archaic mindset and primitive notion in this unparalleled technological age, realm and time of history, that if someone is unable be at a designated place in any part of world at a scheduled time for any reason all their opportunities should be systematically ceased and declare them offenders. Instead if world moves to an always connected mode in times to come it opens up a world of unimaginable possibilities!

Author: Anoop Jha

www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha

#iot #tech #technology #urbanplanning #city #town #smartcity #connectedhomes #ar #vr #metaverse #transport #transportplanning #mobility #history #future #alterego #hologram

Democratizing the process of urban planning - crowdsourcing of ideas!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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"Too many Cooks spoil the Soup" May not be the right connotation when it comes to urban planning, we require as many minds and diversified experiences as possible to do the justice to a city which is either yet to be planned or being redeveloped. Community participation and early brainstorming is the key to a successful city planning, like secret ingredient of an exceptional recipe!

In terms of community participation the focus should be scale, hetroginity and intensity of citizen engagement in planning process. In terms of early brainstorming, all concerned citizens - "considering every citizens is a stakeholder and a client" - can be given opportunity to participate in urban planning process, that too very early when the plan is still in nebulous state, not only after draft masterplan is ready. Also, urban planning process should either come out of planning studio amidst community or planning studio should open it's door to welcome community and individual user level ideas.

For example, thinking of people who could not contribute or has limited say in urban planning process till date except some advanced countries, but they do have specific expectations from their city like all the workforce who are involved in navigation (drivers), delivery (courier and food delivery guys) they can contribute in re-strategising ease of navigation and legibility of city; those in healthcare (doctors, first responders) they can help define/ redefine emergency response routes and ease of healthcare access in terms of landuse structuring and PSP facility locations; those in safety and security (police, traffic police) can help in vulnerability and black spot mapping of city and forming corresponding spatial security and surveillance requirements; those in F&B industry (mall owners, retail, restaurant owner, cook, food vendors) can help redefine new age of intensive urban cultivation, shortening farm-to-plate food supply chain, and propose innovative ways of urban organic agriculture for self-reliance and food security; those in science (mathematicians) can help streamline city traffic by running complex mathematical models and deep algorithms; those in creative fields ( artists, designers) can help reboot, reactivate and conserve cultural and artistic heritage of a brownfield city or can lay the foundation of a new vibrant culture for a greenfield city, and so on; all above inputs to be curtated by urban planning professionals.

Additionally, there is need to make use of unfathomable descrete or curated data that already historically exists around specific city and embodiment of empirical data that exists around the world wrt city planning affair in general.

Author: Anoop Jha

www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha

#urban #urbanplanning #city #townplanning #syatemthinking #utopia #smartcity #governance #idea #crowdsourcing #architecture #streets #publictransport #bicycle #transportplanning #sustainability #foodsecurity

 

A-B-C of Design Project Management!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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[Keywords - Urban Planning, Architecture, Engineering Design, Infrastructure Planning]

[A] - Aspiration gives the purpose to a project, do not let it diminish over time.
[B] - Budget is the governing factor, do not consider it as limitation; you have to innovate to incorporate many things, still fitting it into budget
[C] - Clients speak volumes, but they can be good listener as well. Clients show flexibility if advised for betterment of project.
[D] - Design is the core success factor. Spend more time to design it right in first go, allocate substantial brainstorming time into workplan of design project.
[E] - Estimation of all kinds helps avoid surprises
[F] - Follow up on crucial matters
[G] - Gather the best team who are animated with same spirit
[H] - Highlight exclusions and dependencies early
[ I ] - Identify project risk and mitigation measures
[J] - Judgement has a key role to play. Analysis gives you insight but tough and final decisions are based on judgement.
[K] - knowledge has no substitute, but no amount of knowledge is enough, every design project is a learning experience
[L] - Leverage organisational experience, possibly your firm was hired for the job due to it's experience only
[M] - Monitoring is essential for project, monitor and record every aspect
[N] - Negotiations are the integral part of process
[O] - Organised effort is required to run a design project with multidisciplinary team, budget and time constraints
[P] - Performance of work and resources must be measured throughout project life cycle
[Q] - Quality is paramount in terms of design, communication and output
[R] - Resources has to be optimised and is often the most crucial, challenging and thrilling part of the project management
[S] - Stakeholder's need to be met and know that there can be more stakeholders than the obvious
[T] - Technology contributes to success; best is class tech, software and tools are empowering
[U] - Uncertainties has to be factored in, know that you can't foresee everything on day one, exceptional circumstances arises and need to be dealt with
[V] - Vision and credo is the guiding force, stick to same
[W] - Work Plan is to be honoured, it's not as easy as it sounds but there are ways to adhere to same like creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), innovation, resourcefulness, project tracking etc.
[X] - X-REF all design work, adopt a system of
cross-referencing, benchmarking and standardization
[Y] - Yearning for excellence is what differentiates you from others
[Z] - Zero Waste Design to be encouraged. It's no more a luxury but necessity in today's world.

Author: Anoop Jha

www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha

#projectmanagement #workplan #Consultancy #designprojectmanagement #design #infrastructure #engineering #consultingengineering #construction #qualitymap #p6 #budget #urbanplanning #projectmanager #multidisciplinary #teamwork