Walkability demands flexibility : new approach to neighborhood planning

By - Anoop Jha

Number of available choices defines quality of urban environment and experience

Walking and jogging  trail

Image shows actual walking trail around a lagoon in some part of Santa Barbara, with different route options for people to choose from, one shorter complete loop around waterbody and other longer route which also includes dotted segment. Close view  of lagoon is an incentive to walk extra length of dotted route otherwise people can take shorter route if they are in hurry or tiered. There has be different available exit choices for people, to make any pedestrian or walkable plan successful whether its planning of park or commercial complex or mega exhibition pavilion.

[Handpicked Books]

Why city forms are like the way they are?

By - Anoop Jha

Inspecting reasons of changing development patterns from core city to contemporary development.

Morphological Differences in old & new development

While issue of changing city morphology across time is being discussed its imperative to ask what difference does a time span induces which alters the physiology and psychology of urban development?

After analyzing several old and new city developments patterns, some catalysts which emerge as possible reasons of change since Old Town to New City Era can be as follows - 

Rise of Multi-nuclei development

Multiple developer entities

Multiple governing agencies

Rapid mass housing requirement

Stringent Fire Norms

Increased Building Height

New construction materials & technologies

Changed mode of private & public transportation

Landuse classification restructuring


[Handpicked Books]

Utility distribution requirement

Landscape requirements and norms

New active climate control tools for buildings

Easy exposure to international benchmarks

Increased requirements of privacy

Changed Living style and  social interaction  pattern

New trend of concept based development

Targeted development to please stakeholders

Feeling pressed against time for getting products or services of daily use?

By – Anoop Jha

You need a better landuse plan and new typology of neighborhood hubs

Specialized service and commercial hubs have advantage in case of volume trade and optimized choices with better shopping and services experience due to many options available to choose from while mixed Landuse development has advantage of convenience shopping and saved time.  Taking time off to visit a specialized market hub to get a small product or service of daily use which you cannot get in neighborhood shop due to its little specialized nature might be stressful for many, due to lack of time in busy city life.

There are two distinct categories of people in city one who will go anywhere and to any extent to save a single penny on any product or service, these are the people apart from wholesale marketers who go to specialized hubs so that they can negotiate on product or service pricing due to available market competition in such hubs, other kind of people are those who are ready to pay any amount in lieu of convenience and due to shear lack of time and motivation as long as price is in the acceptable limit and surprisingly it has nothing to do with laziness, it’s just because they don’t have enough time from their packed daily routine, it’s simply not worth sending time to go to some specialized market like electronic or electrical market or hub of mechanical goods or big car service hub located far away from your home just to buy a new exhaust fan for your kitchen or a new tap knob, or to get a minor repair work of your car’s fm radio set done.


[Handpicked Books]

The number of second type of people who value convenience over pricing in City is exponentially growing. There is an urgent need to consider requirements of this segment of people in Landuse planning; it has become necessity of time. They need to create small integrated specialized product and service hubs in neighborhood where one can go and buy variety of products and services in one place, products and services which are little specialized in nature and which you don’t generally get in neighborhood shopping centre or mall. An electrician or plumber provided to you by resident welfare association (RWA) of your society is of no good unless you have required basic electrical or plumbing products at hand which need  to be replaced.

How about creating a small “integrated specialized product and service hub” in every neighborhood of city which keeps all the basic household and daily use items similar to convenient shopping and those items which are specialized in nature like medicine and first aid materials, emergency products and tools, electrical and mechanical goods, and in term of manpower it can comprise of at least one doctor, one counselor, one security personal, one pet care specialist, one electrician, one plumber, one car and bike mechanic etc. etc.

Breaking the monotony of planning

By - Anoop jha

Interesting twist to parking plan

Parking Grid

Parking lot circulation showing innovative approach of planning grid which serves two purpose

1)It gives a holistic touch to industrial style rigid  parking grid with main organic collector route

2)It puts a desirable physical limitation on speed of car in parking area due to its curvature and alignment

What is common between Ahmedabad and Paris?

By - Anoop Jha


Quite apparent similarity in transport network at places !!!  

Transport network of any city tells story of its evolution. 

Similar City Transit Fabric 

IMAGE DISCRIPTION:

First - Road junction near Saint Lazara Terminal, Paris, France

Second - Mithakhali 6 Rasta. Ahmedabad, India

City evolves in course of time; there are many factors which shape the form and fabric of city, it can be climate or natural physiological constraints, or economy of city or prevalent transit mode, or land constraint etc. though there are vast difference in the built form of city of Paris and Ahmadabad there great similarity in the city fabric in terms of transit network, which is more apparent in terms of “road junctions” where many road arteries are radiating from the junctions as high as 6 to 8 across the city, possibly it is due to common circular and radiating overall form of city with a river dissecting it from the middle in both the cases, which makes it difficult to plan city in grid iron pattern. 

Induced Eureka moments

By - Anoop Jha

Using knowledge to validate the creativity

If you are one of those creative souls like writers, director, fashion or product designers, architects, interior designers or planners, you must have, at random times experienced those intentional or uninvited eureka moments of creativity when you think you have cracked the code. In that moment you are absolutely sure what you are up to and sure about where you are going.  One might think it’s just a matter of chance, a coincident. Think again, it might be subconscious mind working unconsciously on the project you got last fortnight but couldn’t get time to sit and draft a blueprint. It might be your active eyes looking for inspiration into the hidden recesses of surrounding or on the bright facades’ of city streets, without you noticing it and it suddenly manifests itself in form of idea or solution which you were looking for.

Apparently it’s possible to increase the frequency of occurrence of those creative eureka moments by remaining consciously vigilant to surrounding environment while identifying existing problems and possible solutions and getting inspired by the dynamics of environment at the same time.

One can increase the probability of finding right solution by conscious and frequent encounter with ever increasing and freely available creative resources like online data repository. The more you explore more you become confident about what you are aiming for and at the same time you open the door for creativity surge. You got to find out and see every existing or proposed green skyscraper and sustainable development project first, if you are set to create a green architectural or planning masterpiece for example.  

Science of Ideas and art of decision making!!

By Anoop Jha

It only needs intelligence and intuition

Going back to drawing board again and again is not going to open the door to some big bright ideas which one is looking for; ideas either for a glittering space age skyscraper or a promising blueprint for a future city.  It needs intelligence, to gather right information in right time and intuitions backed by inferences derived from that information to make right decisions, intelligence to explore and filter voluminous information out there as quickly as possible to arrive at some sane decision. Extraordinary ideas just cannot be result of shear creative surge of individuals; it involves hard work of in depth research in given domain and beyond. Don’t worry about creativity it’s always there.