Category: Urban

Urban Landscape of Bithoor: Between its Pratha and Praja

7/9/2020

Separated by a thousand kilometres of land, connected by the moving water of river Ganges, Bithoor and Kolkata, both, reflect the historicity of Indian water-aligned towns. Curiously, Bithoor was the last seat for the Marathas and Kolkata canal system begins with the 'Maratha Ditch' to keep the Marathas out of the British town. Both the towns witnessed water integral to the development of their civilization. On one thread of history, Kolkata has thrived through its geopolitical location and vibrant ecosystem, on the other, Bithoor subdued as its last patron, Marathas, lost to British. In the 1860s, British chose nearby Cawnpore (Kanpur) over Bithoor as one of the major railway junctions and trade centers, which did not help the town's future. While the rest of the book navigates through the channels of Kolkata as its physical context, this ethnographic photo essay makes an attempt to narrate the embedded warp and wrath of pratha (traditions) and praja (people) of Bithoor. A small settlement near the industrial metropolis of Kanpur and one of the oldest living towns in the world, Bithoor showcases another type of cultural landscape to add to the contextual and typological richness of the possible landscape urbanism discourses captured in this book. However, despite its rich heritage and glorious past, the town, today, laments the ignorance and abuse of its dwellers and users, much like the canals of Kolkata facing now. The author originally composed the narration in Hindi, the native speech of Bithoor. While following the native version closely, he has presented a bilingual narrative here for a wider readership.

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BReUCom Project Meeting at Danube University Krems

26/10/2019

As part of the School of Planning and Architecture Bhopal's BReUCom (Building Resilience in Urban Communities) project team, we presented the updates on the following four case studies being carried out at the institution:

Craft, Culture and Community - Learning Resilience from the Ziro Valley, Ziro Valley, Arunachal Pradesh
Transformative Resilience: The case of Two Communities in Transition, Gazdhar Bandh and Kalbadevi Mumbai, Maharashtra
Enhancing Institutional and Community Resilience to Climate Change Impacts in the Jodhpur City - Heat Stress, Jodhpur, Rajasthan
Enhancing Institutional and Community Resilience to Climate Change Impacts in the Jodhpur City - Water Stress, Jodhpur, Rajasthan

Building Resilient Urban Communities (BReUCom) is a project funded under European Union Erasmus+ Program in the field of Capacity Building in Higher Education. SPA Bhopal has collaborated with Danube University Krems Austria, University of Twente, KRVIA Mumbai, SPA Vijayawada, NIT Hamirpur (HP) and the Indian NGOs SPARC and CURE to develop case studies, courses and professional development programmes in the emerging field of Urban Resilience.

Note: This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Entries in the Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Design

28/4/2019

Please to share my Seven Entries:

in Edwards C (eds.) Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Design, London: Bloomsbury, 2019

Image on the left: The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design, Volume 2 by Bloomsbury Academic, 2016

Learning from Ziro

1/3/2019

It’s my pleasure to report our Study Trip to Arunachal Pradesh and Asom, undertaken with 17 students of Master of Design students (Feb 17 to Mar 1, 2019). The tour focussed on the Apa Tani Cultural Landscape of Ziro Valley in Arunachal Pradesh which features itself in the Tentative list of World Heritage Site, bolstering the claims of the richness of indigenous knowledge systems at various scales. The continuum of its everyday life and belief systems including its agriculture, land use practices, natural resources management and conservation, festivals, material culture, objects and crafts, has been exemplarily sustainable and can be interpreted in the modern education and policy frameworks.

The studio was undertaken under the MDES203 Design Studies, with ‘Design Anthropology’ (Salvador et al., 1999; Gunn et al., 2013; Murphy, 2016) as the theoretical framework operating at four levels as:

Product Practices: The relevance of designed products in everyday life and traditions of the Apa Tani people including the furniture, craft, textile, jewellery etc.
Spatial Practices: The making of everyday space along with its cultural logics, meanings and technology
Communication Practices: The unique communication practices from the region as symbols, types, communicative artefacts etc. and its socio-cultural relevance along with the contemporary media like radio, newspapers and magazines
System and Services: How everything in part contributes to the broader cultural system which makes it socially and ecologically resilient, e.g., agriculture, healthcare, education, public mobility etc.

The seven days of field work involved enquiries at above levels with ethnography, visits to various institutions within, detailed interviews and a formal community interaction hosted at our stay. The students are expected to come up with a small exhibition on the documentation and reflection from the tour within the semester. They can also further derive ‘Design Projects’ to pursue their interests.

I would like to thank Prof Sridharan who accompanied us in the first leg of the trip to Naharlagun, where our institution signed an MoU with the Rajiv Gandhi Central University and further travelled to the Ziro Valley to assess the future academic possibilities. I want to express my sincere thanks to Prof Sarit Chaudhuri (Director IGRMS and Professor of Anthropology, RGU) and our local guide Mr Chobin Punyo (Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at RGU). Their insights on Apa Tani cultural practices in Ziro enriched us with an efficient orientation.

We are also thankful to the people in Arunachal Pradesh who helped us during the unexpected political turmoil during the last few days of our stay. I would also like to thank Prof Ravi Mokashi and Prof Udayakumar, Department of Design IIT Guwahati, who hosted us at IIT Guwahati along with presentations by Prof(s) Keyur Sorathia (HCI), Pradeep Yammiyavar (Usability), Sougata Karmakar (Ergonomics).

यह मेरा शहर! कब आएगा मुझे नज़र?

10/11/2017

दिल्लीवालों को समर्पित।
यह मेरा शहर! कब आएगा मुझे नज़र?
यह मेरा शहर!
कब होगा मुझे इस पर फ़क़र?
यह धुँध कब छँटेगी,
कब आएगा मुझे कुछ नज़र?
लगभग दो करोड़ लोगों का घर,
ये दिल्ली शहर,
अब दर बदर,
दर्द भरा मंज़र।
हर तरफ़, बस बुरी ख़बर,
ना दिखती कोई डगर,
हिंदुस्तानी इतिहास का सबसे निराला नगर,
आज चिमनी क्यूँ बन गया पर?
साँसे है रुक गई,
पास है दिखती क़बर,
धुआँ धुआँ सा है,
इंसान ही का है ये क़हर।
गाड़ियाँ अब भी दौड़ रही,
स्कूल क्यूँ बंद है मगर?
सियासत की रोटी सेकते राजा वज़ीर,
पर प्यांदे क्यूँ खाए ज़हर?
जब धूप सुहानी आ जाए,
उस वक़्त बता देना पहर।
यह मेरा शहर!
बस आ जाए मुझे नज़र?
- सौरभ तिवारी
10 नवम्बर 2017

Just Launched - Blue Lines of Kolkata

8/7/2017

Kolkata’s original canal (Khal in Bengali) network, the backbone of the drainage system in the city for about three centuries, has deteriorated over the years. Unchecked growth and related land-fill, lack of periodic maintenance, poor management of waste-water and solid waste are few of the reasons. Kolkata suffered terrible water-logging for over a week in September 2006. Situation has been better since then, yet there are lots to be done. Besides that, most of these water channels and large drains are stinking, dirty and unhygienic negative spaces within the city.

The workshop recognized potentials of these drains/ nullahs/ canals, and, taking inputs from multi-disciplinary intellectual exchanges, explored ideas and proposal to convert such unused spaces into environmentally sustainable and socially appropriate public places and mobility corridors.

This book, a collection of the said ideas and proposals, is arranged in two parts: the one with articles situating the project (taken up in the Workshop) in the larger urban context, and the other with concept drawings and sketches depicting ideas and explorations undertaken by the diverse groups of participants in the workshop.

Book Launch: Blue Lines of Kolkata

28/6/2017

Images from the Book Launch Event of Blue Lines of Kolkata, the first from the Search Landscape Urbanism Series. This book I have co-edited with my teacher from undergrad days Dr. Suptendu P Biswas.

The book was launched by Prof. Parth Pratim Chakraborty, Director, IIT Kharagpur with a personal note. A panel discussion on 'Future of Canals of Kolkata,' followed the book launch, consisting of Kalyan Mukhopadhyay, DC Traffic Kolkata; Prof. Samiran Datta from SRFTI Kolkata; Somnath Biswas, Civil Engineer; Abin Chaudhuri, Architect from Kolkata; moderated by Dr. Suptendu Biswas, Architect & Urban Designer from New Delhi. It was a fantastic learning experience through the diverse panel discussion and Q&A session as rarely you see such a passionate audience as Kolkata.

Blue Lines of Kolkata, emerged out of ideas and proposals from the Search Workshop 16 and selected contributions from various experts, initiates a discourse on shifting the focus to Landscape Urbanism as a method to reimagine and rejuvenate the city. Interestingly, nine of the forty-two participants in the Search Workshop 16 organized by SEARCH and RCGSIDM, IIT Kharagpur, were from various levels and departments from SPA Bhopal.

Image Credit: Subhadip Biswas, Saurabh Tewari, Anshuman Abhishek Mishra and Oxford Bookstore Kolkata

Search Workshop 16 at WIEZ 2017

7/1/2017

Comments

Today, Dr. Suptendu P Biswas and me, presented the context, framework and outcome of the recently concluded Search Workshop 16 at WIEZ2017. We represented Trust for Search and our respective institutions at this International Symposium organised by IIT Kharagpur and Columbia University. This is another step towards the dissemination of the idea of Landscape Urbanism and our workshop on the subject. Next in queue is a publication and an exhibition of all the proposals. Thanks again to all the associated; partners, mentors and speakers, and especially the participants of the Search Workshop 16, who will carry forward the baton.

Comments

Search Workshop 16

28/12/2016

As the coordinator of the Search Workshop 16, I would like to thank each and everyone involved, participants and mentors, speakers and associates, sponsors and partners, technicians and vendors, who contributed in making Search Workshop 16, a meaningful and memorable experience. It was 21st January 2016, when I went to meet Dr. Suptendu P Biswas at his home and first conceptualised this workshop. Aur fir log judte gaye, kaarvaan badhtaa gaya...