Feb 7, 2015
Urban development is contagious, keep an eye and let it spread!
One gear triggers other and whole
machine gets activated.
Process
of urban development is spontaneous, sometimes sluggish sometimes fast but
always forward looking, if left on its own it will automatically morph and
mutate and expand, to cater, to accommodate, by utilizing whatever little or
more they have, by seeking and digging what and when they require. And we are
not talking about another Squatter!
Left
on its own city might sustain and prosper or it might entangle and be a mess, but
it will grow for sure, that’s how we have made our journey from jungle to
habitat spanning centuries. We need planning upfront today different from mud
house age since our needs have changed and so the externalities, otherwise
natural mutation of habitat or city should technically be sustainable a
phenomenon.
Development
has inertia of growth inbuilt we just don’t know in which direction, though we
really don’t have to push is so hard we have to just push it to keep it rolling
and have to give it a logical direction.
Upfront
capital being a key constraint in urban development sector, an example of mutating
self-sustaining habitat can be an additive model of shelter where you give only
that much of infrastructure which is basic but with provision of ample spatial
flexibility and assistance at disposal, and letting them build further on their
own, based on their capacities, choices and needs. Creating some rules to play
with and giving them an assistive hand when and where they require.
A
favorable environment, assistive and vigil governance and a scientific approach
are what we need to see this natural development phenomenon unfold and sustain.
Dec 16, 2014
Photography = Skill + Timing + Luck
Being there at that very moment is more important than which camera you are using, which reinstate the fact that anyone with a reasonable sense of aesthetics can be a good photographer. #theywalkamile #insearchofwater
Ladies with water vessel |
or follow on Twitter @urbanoregional
Aug 19, 2014
A lesson from a drifting feather!
So, while he was walking slowly, lost in casual thoughts suddenly a floating white feather caught his attention, it was tiny but was in its full glory and was slowly drifting in light breeze towards a nearby fountain in a gravity defying act. Anyway it gracefully landed on the clear sheet of overflowing water and suddely its motion was seized but only for a moment, it was like feather finally found its ground only to realise it was a slipping, drifting ground again. It appeared that this otherwise serious flowing water sheet was happy to receive that feather friend. Though in a fraction of second that feather was mobile again with the flow of water, only to reach its next destination. Possibly "keep drifting effortlessly" was mantra by which feather was living, it was full of life in its lifelessness, and possibly it touched the conscience somewere leaving a life lesson - a lesson of effortlessness even in its full dignity, even in its constant motion!
or follow on Twitter @urbanoregional
Aug 4, 2014
Jul 29, 2014
An autonomous "data system" inspired by "life system" would look something like this-
We are probably living in the best times of history when it comes to freedom of knowledge. In very near future a storm of data is going to overtake individual supremacy and idiosyncrasies and going to demolish hard earned monopoly of handful of experts. Knowledge in form of data was never in such an abundance and never so easily accessible. Lets make use of it in best way possible.
A DATA SYSTEM INSPIRED BY LIFE SYSTEM
- Has to be replicable
- Has to be a Non
- Linear System
- Has to be a Non-coplaner System
- With a Beginning and End
- Should mimic external environment without any actual physical threat
- Pyramid as building block with vital information at its Tip and Archive at its base
- Archive plane further arranged in segments of 24 or 54
- Information tissue cubes made of 6 Pyramids joined at Tip
- Volume of Tissue cube arranged in 3d Grid
- Vital information distributed in space
- An auto learning system
- Data mining with sixth sense filtering
- With Functionally adapted parts - Varying activity intensity
- Available on Demand - Customisable to Client's need without intervention
- Waste generation (junk) to maintain the envisaged size of system
- Idle period to revive and conserve energy
- Alerts and Filters are key to system's tangible success
- A mirror backup data-set-" Advantage over living system"
Future of Data mining and Data analysis is here! |
Author Brief: Anoop Jha is an Urban and regional Planner with a keen interest in exploring possible role of new Data and Technology in city, social, and economic planning and having vision to take planning to whole new level through integration of Policy, innovation and ever-growing knowledge base of world.
or follow on Twitter @urbanoregional
Jul 24, 2014
Creating dynamic street environment- A cure for repetitive monotony of city!
If you try recollecting past experiences, you will realize that an element of surprise can help you cope with the city stress- traffic, crowd, or simply say hectic repetitive chaos and it need not be scientifically proven.
So can we think of creating everyday surprises - pleasant of course, but can be weird sometimes - along the much traded route of our cities - a suddenly changed striking colored building, pink or florescent or yellow; a sudden surge of artificial wind in a subway, a sudden burst of soft rock music at bus shelter; a glowing bus or a decorated tree and so on, its like taking street performance to the next level which includes whole environment rather than just performer.
or follow on Twitter @urbanoregional
Jul 13, 2014
Jun 24, 2014
May 25, 2014
May 13, 2014
Lets restore the lifeline of city called River! #LetsRestoreRiver
Riverfront
development as a tool for ecological revival.
River-edge development is about confronting the centuries of
neglect towards lifeline of city called river.
It is about restoring the natural dignity of river while
making some commercial sense out of it.
That riverfront was anyway thriving ecologically before city
invaded the river edge.
River edge
development is just an effort to restore the past equilibrium.
[Post by- Anoop Jha]
Apr 26, 2014
Art on Autopilot - Since you dont have time!
Long back read that some sculptor spent his whole life making several sculptures for a large garden, sounds cool but what a waste of life, seriously! In case you paint a Monalisa or something than you might think its worthwhile, since you made a masterpiece for generations to come, but all of us ain't Vinchi.
With whatever capabilities we possess we can have two possible choices to make, one is to make a masterpiece to be remembered or to create abundance of art for yourself and for humanity. Abundance can give you instant opportunity to channelise your creative energy rather than waiting to make that one masterpiece for which you are waiting since last 10 years. And we are not talking about just fine arts, it can be anything, any form of creative affair which you love to be engaged in, you see even pattern of numbers is art for statistician, that's art for her!
So how will you create abundance when art is not your bread n butter and you are ever occupied with inexhaustible to-do list for your lifetime. Solution is to put your art on an autopilot mode. Making art anywhere everywhere, art which consumes least amount of time but is still an art to your satisfaction.
To keep your thinking wheel rotating an example can be like; take a complex peice of sculpture or object or take simply a junk, spill a bucket or mug of water in front of it, see the amazing reflection in water, now click or capture or paint or draw that reflection or the whole environment or simply observe and feel blessed to see your creation, additionally spill some paint in the water or add a mirror in the backdrop if you want or just do anything you like and your are ready with your art piece.
Idea is that it might take substantial time to create that very sculpture or art piece for example, whose reflection you are trying to capture but the moment you added thin film of water or a mirror for example the whole dynamics changed, now the whole setting is complex enough to qualify for an art, your personal art. See Master Artists used to paint pomegranate and guava to create classic masterpiece called “Still Life”, you simply cut them in half and one-click-capture the intricate pattern or just cut-n-shape them in cube and you are ready with your modern piece of art.
The best thing is that it’s you who have created this art, and you own this art; at least it gives you satisfaction to see your creativity manifested, in a blink of eye almost. This shortcut of art is just an example, because you were really running short of time to be devoted to art but you really wanted to create some, now you can think of infinite possibilities to dump the excuse that you could have created something only if you had time. This is how you beat the art!
Apr 17, 2014
Public spaces: transiting from interactive to addictive spaces
They talk about interactive public spaces, yeh, but its been long playing with this concept. Landscape architects, sculptors, Urban designers, everyone has done there bit fulfilling their fantasy of what an ultimate interactive public domain can be. It takes creative genius and sometimes state-of-art technology to make it happen. As for now they have succeeded in making the public spaces interactive enough through different tools like interactive sculptures, screens, kiosks, light, ambiance etc. but as a planner of urban space, as artists, as designers, as software developers and so on, we need to push is further, further to transform the difinition of public spaces from interactive to addictive, afterall addiction of public spaces and landscape and nature and parks and plaza is not a bad habit as such!
If that tiny puzzle, that mobile game, that vedio games, play station, that music can be so addictive, why can't a public space with all its hardware, bandwidth, characters, ambiance, familiarity, nostalgia and infinite possibilities be an addiction. Afterall bringing people to interesting and safe public domain from comfort of their couch is job of those who help design city. Imaging a kid who has spent most of his childhood staring at tv or vedio game screen finally getting in touch with nature getting into public space!
Mar 7, 2014
City of Portrait hunters!
City, such interesting place it is with such interesting people. City, where every day is another odd day for accidental encounter with interesting people, subject of inspiration, portraits!
Every thinking face on a street and every thought engrossed expressions on a public transport here is portrait worthy character it seems. Expressions with hints of accumulated experience still hidden behind unfathomable layers of time, and wrapped under imposed smile, only occasionally revealed by the true talkative eyes. City filled with such inexhaustible supply of interesting characters is a true shrine for portrait hunters whether artists, photographers, writers or movie directors.
Feb 9, 2014
Key traits of future cities! #futurecities
[Post By- Anoop Jha]
A complete new mindset is needed to craft future cities-
Focus on judicious use
of resources rather than creating abundance.
Focus on leveraging
and channelising externalities rather than eliminating it.
Harnessing untapped
second hand energy.
Eliminating wastage by
design rather than repeated appeal and imposing penalty.
Waste to be
increasingly viewed as resource rather than burden.
Focus on eliminatingneed of artificial day-lighting instead of promoting LED.
Engineered to the very
core to sustain.
Decide your own
workplace rather than “walk to work”.
Jan 24, 2014
Unfathomable data: are you still scratching the surface?
Take for instance images!
If you have reached at the end of Google image search page, while looking for a random object or word like say "chair" and if you think this is it, here we are staring at the last image of chair in world ever uploaded online and you start having this feeling that lets change the key word to "modern chair" and next changing it to "modern designer chair" ; probably you are going in the wrong direction, probably you are approaching it too casually. Online research is a serious business whether its data or image. Its far easier to get lost or get disorientated in the convoluted maze of online data while it needs a serious approach and focused objective to reach where you want to.
Just to get the hint of quantum of information that is floating out there freely online, if you are searching for any image for instance on Google you might get few hundred results now if you search using each of those images using this option called "search by image" you will get another few hundred distinct results for each original image now if you use a combination of "search by image" and "text" -any text of your choice - you will get another thousand results now if you keep changing the text or combination of text you will keep getting different new results even if you don't change the image used in "search by image". Easy, we are not done yet. Now if you keep changing the "choice of color" offered by Google search results you will keep getting further unique results. Other option of image search is to use "random" text along with "text of your choice".
Just to get the hint of quantum of information that is floating out there freely online, if you are searching for any image for instance on Google you might get few hundred results now if you search using each of those images using this option called "search by image" you will get another few hundred distinct results for each original image now if you use a combination of "search by image" and "text" -any text of your choice - you will get another thousand results now if you keep changing the text or combination of text you will keep getting different new results even if you don't change the image used in "search by image". Easy, we are not done yet. Now if you keep changing the "choice of color" offered by Google search results you will keep getting further unique results. Other option of image search is to use "random" text along with "text of your choice".
Now another way is to search for photographs instead of images. Are they any different? Yes, and we are not even talking about twitter or instagram photograph;we are talking about photograph search through Google. Millions of photographs out there, all you have to do is to search for your choice of text or subject with the several dozens extension names by which different brands of cameras save their files.
True, while still looking for chair, you might not get only "chair" in your search results if you search using above methods but possibility is that you might come across things in course of your search which will inspire you to the core and which might give a whole new direction and meaning to your research, which you can call accidental learning. We haven't talked about ever flowing ever growing image database of flicker, twitter or instagram even. We haven't talked about text search yet.
Its not just about research, its about the real fun part of it. Just take a dip in the unfathomable ocean of data its addictive. Be a smart netizen.
or follow on Twitter @urbanoregional
Jan 20, 2014
Digital art is so convenient
You can paint or draw on a touch screen, on the go, deriving primitive sense of satisfaction by applying paint with your bare hand; without need of arranging the paint brush canvas logistics and all of this without getting your hand wet. Only drawback is that you will miss the fresh raw smell of paint and oil. Go for it!
Dec 27, 2013
Nov 16, 2013
Art from Archive - I
A decade old or so..
In that very creative moment availability of tools at ones disposal seems immaterial, it was made by oil paints applied on paper like water color that time, probably water was also used instead of oil just to somehow spread the colors on paper, or may be a bit of fabric color as well. One could have created something like this even with charcoal, or eyeliner or toothpaste, or shaving cream, or tomato catch-up or may be with some combinations of them. Its that very urge to create something that one feels is art, getting caught up in arranging the perfect colors or brushes or tool or a perfect setting in merely postponing the creation of Art.
In that very creative moment availability of tools at ones disposal seems immaterial, it was made by oil paints applied on paper like water color that time, probably water was also used instead of oil just to somehow spread the colors on paper, or may be a bit of fabric color as well. One could have created something like this even with charcoal, or eyeliner or toothpaste, or shaving cream, or tomato catch-up or may be with some combinations of them. Its that very urge to create something that one feels is art, getting caught up in arranging the perfect colors or brushes or tool or a perfect setting in merely postponing the creation of Art.
Oct 29, 2013
Habitat Automation - Can our computers generate architectural concepts on their own?
Automation of Architecture seems to be the only way to fulfill this world dream of a home
for everyone!
We
all know computers are really good at visual simulation, 3D Modeling and
Rendering etc., but when it comes to architectural concept design part can we also
assign this task to computers or do we still have to rely solely on architects,
for may be another century. We can’t really afford to wait even for another
decade considering the handful of Architects in world and ever mounting
unattended architectural needs of millions and more across the world, resulting
in epidemic architectural indiscipline, in forms of unorganized colonies,
squatters etc. You see the problem is the moment we tag these habitations
as squatter or unorganized it becomes a taboo, government and architects tend
to lose their interest in such settlement thinking they will deal with it
later, they simply let it happen blaming the scarce current resources, letting
it morph and mutate, left unattended and when it becomes unmanageable, planners
and NGOs come into picture doing their standard Slum Networking and
Regularization stuff. Don’t you think if these guys would have collaborated and helped those guys in the beginning while they just started
making their home on their own, in absence of any substantial external
assistance and in absence of contextual building bylaws, things would have been
very different? Though we know that one of the major reason of such unorganized
growth is demand supply gap of skilled manpower specially architects and
planners. This gap will always be there so what will we do?
We
can’t design and build home for everyone on earth with these limited skill
supply, but we can sure help everyone design and build their home on their own
with some robust mechanism in place, with very little assistance so that
everyone in this world has a place called home. If there isn’t enough
architects and planners in world than we will have to find out some external
tool which will assure a home for everyone! We will have to automate this very
process of architectural design making it universally accessible at almost no
cost, and please do consider that we are not at all talking here about mass
housing or government welfare scheme or something. We are talking about
knowledge transfer, relaxed, easy to understand and innovative and stratified
building guidelines, innovative use of locally available materials and most
important of all - automation of architectural design process itself. We are
here talking about shear intelligence of computer to do more than 90 percent of
architectural design including concept design and delivery part while
architects and governing body to take up the rest 10 percent or so of task just
to assure the quality of delivered options, rectifying fundamental issues, if
any!
With
millions of reference images floating freely on internet in form of
architectural plans, schematic views, sectional profiles, site plans,
neighborhood plans, area plans, city and regional plans, while many millions
coming soon, along with almost unlimited supply of architectural and settlement
patterns in form of satellite imageries, it won’t be a Herculean task for
present and next generations of computers to understand the logic of all this
and to produce a somewhat rational building or neighborhood plan and form on
its own through its embedded logic and algorithm. Little bit of last mile human
intervention and everyone in this world has a blueprint for their home.
Imagine
feeding a set of crude data like your architectural wishlist, site location,
plot dimension, uploading few pictures of site, surrounding and neighborhood,
stating your financial position and budget, then exploring computer generated
wonderful building options based on your data input, customizing it within the
defined domain if you feel, choosing final one and downloading your own home in
pendrive, or mailing it to competent authority or architect for few minutes of
final approval. Now, here you are printing plans for execution on site within
couple of fun hours, club this phenomenon straight with 3D-Printing thing and
here is your home ready to move in, in another couple of hours.
As
policy makers we need to be very realistic about finite resources at hand and
look for new ways to complement the conventional process, while breaking away
from certain self-imposed dogmas and diehard utopian dream built around human
habitation needs and conventionally defined standards, dogmas evident from the
fact that we have elaborate building bylaws for brick and mortar, and steel and
glass, but no clear set of guidelines for houses made of thermocol, plastic sheet,
tin sheet, gathered from here and there by poor urban sections. No efforts of
technology, innovation and knowledge transfer yet to such populous, just because
policy makers across world have a utopian dream of slum free world after some
odd decades later, meanwhile intentionally forcing millions to live in
squatters and unorganized colonies by not making simple and easy to understand
guidelines and relaxed bylaws, utilizing whatever minimal resources and
materials are at hand. Caught in the centuries of dilemma of idealism Vs
realism! Since these limited human interventions with limited skilled manpower
supply haven’t been able to solve this world habitation scarcity and
architectural indiscipline, may be its time we should look out somewhere else
to fulfill world habitat needs - may be towards machines may be computers!
You might also like to read another post:
What planners of urban environment can learn from online environment?
Oct 27, 2013
Decoding secrets of good visuals - What makes some images and photographs stand out from the crowd
Some tips, tricks and subjects of images,
graphics and photographs which is bound to cast a spell
1) B&W background subject with semi-transparent
bright techno/pop color in foreground
2) Picture with range of depth and focus
3) Green appeal in innovative way
4) Lush rainy/moist green landscape in terra
incognita
5) Realistic corporate affair capturing the mood of
subject and vibes of business minus ( - ) plastic smiles
6) Simple things in perspective view
7) Pattern or geometry unseen before
8) A well framed shot of pets or wildlife with
serious engaging looks
9) Capturing Interactive and playful pets
10) Green appeal in innovative way
11) Bird’s eye view of Rooftop innovation
12) Well framed commercial subject
13) Black & Yellow Composition
14) A well framed worm’s eye view of skyscraper or
anything towering
15) Caves or any undulating interior, lit with
bright morning sun displaying excellent interplay of light and shadow
16) Translucent colored containers
17) Hand drawn-water color effect in this era of 3D
Simulation
18) Morning sun rays filtered through simply
anything
19) Innumerable colorful interplay of sunlight and
cloud at dawn, dusk further accentuated if captured in hills
20) Laughing giggling girls
21) Asymmetrically captured frame of symmetrical
building or symmetrical something
22) Translucent building glowing from inside -
filtered hint of colors further acts as charm
23) White doodle on black background, call it old
school blackboard nostalgia or whatever!
24) Futuristic ambiance and setting seemingly within
reach in near future, not just another fancy unreachable idiosyncrasy
25) Anything overwhelmingly luxurious and classic
specially interiors
More to come….
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also like-
Oct 22, 2013
Check out new Blog Page dedicated to World Education
Educ@ti.ON - Rethinking Education for a "lightened up world"!!
Click on image to go to page-
Visit Page at following Link: http://planningurbanoregional.blogspot.in/p/eduction.html
More Coming....
Oct 6, 2013
Why architectural clients should be more demanding today?
Need of "Creative
demand" and false in-vogue benchmark of "what is good!"
In a time of century when you should be asking for interactive customizable
digital walls for your indoors as a client you are still busy choosing wall
colors and wallpaper patterns, in a time when you should be demanding multiple
mood lighting possibilities for your every room you are apparently happy and content with your stylish off-the-shelf chandelier and much propagated energy saving CFL lighting fixtures, when you should be asking your architect what
kind of living experience he or she is envisaging and designing for your home,
you are busy asking what would be the effective sqft area of your house, when
you should be deliberating about multi-tier security system for your hard
earned asset called home, you are busy choosing stylish looks of your
door knob, when you should be looking for indoor ambiance inspired by your sun-sign,
you leave this design choice to the idiosyncrasy of architect after little
deliberation, who will now design "your" house inspired by his or her
"own" sun sign traits - if you believe in such thing called sun sign! And there are ample other examples which demonstrate you are more or less content will "Less" when it comes to Architecture for your home.
You
do demand as an architectural client but mostly in a wrong direction. And you
know, you only get what you ask for. You
really need to channelize your demands towards design, ambiance, technology
integration, customization and personalization and to the little architectural
elements which is going to make your life better and effortless at home. All you
need to do is to be little more creative in your demand. Also you need to shed
this notion that “popular is good”, that’s not the case when it comes to
architecture because you as an individual or a group of family might have a
totally different needs and aesthetic perception than your friends, or neighbor
or that guy with million dollar Mansion, so your house need not necessarily be
exactly like others no matter how tempting those options are.
You see, if you are of this opinion that insisting your architect for your favorite pink or blue color for your living room wall makes you a good client, then you need to take a look way back to realise that those cave men were more creative for their homes, decorating their caves with such amazing cave paintings or drawings, even after thousands of years later you are still struggling to decorate your living room wall with pink or blue or some painting of great artist! Have you really evolved in this large span of time or are you repeating the same old story in some way or other. That full clad digital living room wall which you can color customize everyday or on which you can write your daily to-do-list or which can remind you of unpaid bills in a flash or where you can leave a message for your loved ones while leaving home is just an example to make your realise that there are no boundaries which defines and restricts architecture or interior design.
The best part is that architects like challenges, so if you demand "more" as a client in terms of stretching the possibilities of design and innovation, they would be more than happy to help you and probably will give you something many shades better than your expectations, all you have to do is to be little more creative in your demand.
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Sep 28, 2013
15 things I learned in 10 minutes about photography - Flipping through a reputed travel guide book
Amazing revelations about
Photography-
1) It’s not just about Iconic structures or monuments it’s about capturing their interaction with the people
2) If you are capturing a lively street,
capturing an element of motion is a must (people, car etc.)
3) When capturing sculptures or carved
details in the open sun, wait for the right time of the day for the perfect shadow
which accentuates the dimension and details of subject
4) Capture the clouds in the background
(particularly at dusk ) and half the job is done
5) Capture water fountain in the foreground and half the
job is done
6) Capture someone capturing others (seems
a cheap trick though)
7) If you capture street dining you must
capture some element of service - something being served or by someone who is
serving the thing
8) If capturing museum or exhibition
you must capture the chemistry between the exhibit and spectator, capture someone
quite still and who is trying to understand and appreciate the meaning of exhibit
9) Capturing the public spaces,
capture the people and their behavior at the very intersection of daylight and shadows (it naturally
captures the human dilemma of judgment whether to go out in open sun on stay in
the shadow)
10) When capturing motion you must have
something static for reference, but for best results “that static one” has to
be the one of the vary things which are moving (people, car etc.)
11) Capture a glass building at dusk at the very
moment when it gets illuminated in the evening while it is partially illuminated
from outside as well from setting sun
12) There is at least one definite
location from where the famous sculpture or display (or structure) looks
perfect (and usually it’s the most abused one as well, since whole world seems to
capture the shot from the same point)
13) When taking a shot of any high end
restaurant dining scene, don’t just
capture the food and luxury, and candlelight, you need to capture the people
having supper, with their interactions
and their exaggerated animated expressions
14) When in vegetable market capturing a vendor
interacting with customer, a price list smudged with chalk or otherwise in the
backdrop is must.
15) Shop display window + scripted shop name
typo + passer by = classic shot without fail
Another
series of interesting observations will be part of upcoming posts, Join me on twitter @urbanoregional for updates. Your view and experiences are most
welcome.
You
might also like following post :
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