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According to data available with the
UN, 2008 marked a turning point in human geography
with more people living in cities than in rural areas for the first time in history.
South Asia, though not the most urbanised, is amongst the fastest urbanising regions in the world.
The FAO, on the other hand has proclaimed that arable land is shrinking at an annual rate of 1.6%
due to urbanisation and land degradation.
Design in such an era needs to sensitively handle
the sometimes-conflicting demands of the agrarian village and the industrialised city.
The world is moving towards a pattern of excessive consumption due to an increase in affluence.
These trends have been concurrent with a steady depletion of resources in the natural
world. While the development in material culture has been heralded as a sign of progress,
depleting natural resources have caused worldwide concern. Design, in this context, requires
a sensible approach that can maintain the fine balance between economy and ecology.
Developing nations see themselves as engines of growth.
What is growth? Does it necessarily
entail the idea of plentitude and therefore increased consumption? People aspire towards
a ‘better life’ and the idea of better life usually involves more material comfort.
How valid is it in such a situation to ask people to use less, to curb their desires.
Design in such a context needs to look at sustainability not from a reductionist point of view
(of using or possessingless) but rather as efficient use of existing material consumption.
India is witness to another phenomenon marked by a struggle between different modes of production,
a phenomenon that is echoed in the debate of tradition vs. modernity.
The craft tradition practiced by the artisan continues to thrive due to a rich history backed by a strong labour
pool. On the other hand, rapid development has heralded and era of mechanised mass production
that provides a different sets of benefits.
Both these modes of production are currently seen in the building industry.
Maintaining a balance between the two is a prime concern.
Indian society does not view these seemingly opposing forces as an either-or choice.
This is due to the multiplicity of value systems prevalent in the Indian society.
This multiplicity is evident in the apparent chaos of Indian cities.
What appears, as chaos to the outsider is actually a robust balance between multiple conflicting needs?
Such an approach is possible due to
the acceptance of manifold reality. The design solution, hence, does not necessitate making a
polarised choice; it is the skilful interweaving of the seemingly contradictory demands that will
lead to a contextual urban habitat.

The intention of this workshop is to create an awareness of the complexity of Indian urbanity
and issues related to its growth; and to highlight the need for a sensitive and holistic approach to habitat design

uncommon to see cattle and sheepherders allowing motorized traffic to negotiate through their herds.
Can these supposedly conflicting demands of the agrarian village and the industrialized city be seen as a
continuum and an opportunity for an ecologically sensitive resource management?
How do we
blur these distinctions between urban and rural?

Perhaps nothing reflects the diversity of India better than the contemporary City.
The coexistence of temporary and permanent and the variety of grain within the Indian city in comparison
to the western city may be interesting to compare.

Collective direction and Individual action with neighborly negotiations-
Development of Indian cities usually happens in piecemeal form mainly through initiatives of private developers.
Town planning schemes only lay down the road network and related
infrastructure due to which there is a lack of development vision for cities.
Given the fractured
development of sites what should be the nature of negotiations between adjacent plot developments,
and at a much larger scale what common vision should such developers work towards?

Context cannot be seen as a unidirectional flow of information from outside within; a
process whereby surroundings influence and determine design decisions in a project.
Context also implies a study and an understanding of the influence of design decisions of a project on its surroundings.
The area of intervention might be limited by the plot, but the sphere of influence is much larger
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The craft tradition practiced by the artisan continues to thrive due to a rich history backed by a strong labour pool.
On the other hand, rapid development has heralded and era of mechanised mass production that provides a different sets of benefits.
Both these modes of production are currently seen in the building industry.
Maintaining a balance between the two is a prime concern

Densities prescribed by Indian planners reflect standards that were often conceived in other cultures for other societies.
Traditional and spontaneous settlements in India reflect another reality.

The idea of scale and the economics of production. It is often assumed that large formal production in factories is the generator of the economy.
However recent studies indicate that small scale informal production actually is the greater generator of economic wealth.
*

Boundaries between formal and informal, between monument and fabric, between bazaar and home are never clearly defined in our context.
These ambiguous edge conditions offer interesting anomalies and paradoxes whose explorations may reveal interesting interdependencies
and offer examples of sustainability.

Founded in 1411AD on the eastern banks of the Sabarmati river by Sultan Ahmed Shah, Ahmedabad
is a city with a rich urban character and a particular neighbourhood structure refered to as ‘Pols’.
The residential typology that makes up these ‘Pols’ are an exceptional response to the harsh climate of the region.
Though on the river bank, this city has historically depended on a network of water bodies which are fed by the contours of the topography,
for its perennial supply of water.
The seasonal nature of the river has led to a perception of it being a part of a natural system of drainage for the region
rather than a feature of the landscape.
With each of the localised water bodies - Talavadi’s there is an agricultural settlement. The talavadi, their catchments, the village and their
agricultural land form the basic unit of settlement, linked together by agricultural markets and routes of trade.
Ahmedabad as a city grew with the consolidation of such settlement into a larger urban organisation planned
under influence of both Islamic and Hindu ideas of city design.
Needless to say topography and
drainage play a vital role in the structure of the city.

In the phenomenal growth that Ahmedabad has seen over the last couple of decades,
the South West corner of Ahmedabad has been witness to substantial change.
From a national highway lying on the edge of the city the Sarkhej Gandhinagar(SG) highway today is an up market major
city road. From its earlier avatar with villages and the city elite’s ‘farm-houses’ flanking it, today
it consists of car and furniture show rooms, multiplexes and malls and now IT related and corporate
offices. The initiating of Town Planning (TP) schemes by the Development Authorities on this
western periphery of the City have further fuelled a property boom and large numbers of housing
complexes abut and engulf this portion of the city.
Though the TP schemes are successful tools for the growth of serviced urban land, several issues
remain unaddressed by them. The topography of the land and natural watersheds within it
are given short shrift in these layouts. The tradition of carefully locating human habitats in correspondence
to water run-offs, its collection and drainage is completely ignored. Thus leading to the
failure of larger natural systems. Substantial increases in infrastructure costs are then necessary
to address this systemic failure by engineering and technology with limited success.
The project site is located in the southwest corner of Ahmedabad’s rapidly expanding periphery.
On it’s East, it abuts the historic Sarkhej Roza Tank, now encircled by the city, the tank, which was
located to capture the monsoon run-off is now perennially dry. In fact if anything at all goes into it,
it is sewage from the adjoining village and shanties that surround it from two sides. On the west
extremity of the project site about a kilometre away is another monsoon lake, which may disappear
in the near future as its catchment is built over.
The focus of this studio will be to deal with issues of water in all its myriad forms, for the sustenance
of human life, including agriculture and wastewater will be dealt with. The studio will attempt
at reviving the magnificent water harvesting structure of the Sarkhej Roza and protect existing
lakes in the vicinity, not only in terms of their primary function of storing the monsoon run-off
but reviving them as civic spaces for this part of Ahmedabad.
Each student group will select there own sites of intervention within this kilometre stretch between
the Sarkhej Tank and the lake on its western edge and suggest appropriate uses with associated
civic amenities, taking into consideration amenities also required by the existing development.
Deriving mixed use residential typologies with sufficient densities to reflect the nuances of the
Indian city will be part of this exercise.
It is intented that each group of students will be dealing with a minimum of 150 housing units and
their necessary civic amenities. In addition, city level amenities that may fall within their location
will also need to be incorporated within their area of intervention.