Since his appearance on earth, man has constantly transformed the environment for his own convenience, at an almost impossible pace. This process has become faster in the past 50 years, especially in areas of civilisation and city planning. When man creates, he usually destroys the natural, forgetting that he and the rest of nature need to co-exist in harmony with each other. The only imperative for living in harmony with nature is "mutual respect" early in their existence humans stayed very close to nature, their intimate understanding relationship led to harmonious or at least, balanced interaction. As time passed they grew in numbers, with that th came in more knowledge which led to better technology. Their attitudes changed, and blinded by feelings of superiority and power they became nature's enemy. Instead of understanding that they themselves were a part of nature they completely disassociated themselves from nature constantly trying to control her. They encroached upon everything natural, the natural surroundings, the ocean, mountains, rainforests, etc. Humans impact on nature is like "Midas' touch", everything he touches becomes dull and lifeless losing every meaning of existence. Nature starts shrinking away, curling up and dying due to mans intervention. A major part of Human history has been about conquering and taming nature in order to survive. There have been wars all along, man trying to conquer man, man trying to conquer nature. In order to create any civilization nature had to be pushed back for buildings, roads, and water projects. Forests have always had to be cleared in order to plant food crops. Mostly everything we do has a parallel in Primate behaviour. But do we need to destroy our own habitat for our survival? And to what extent? What I'm asking is; Is it now part of our genetic programming to keep ďŹ ghting nature even though we have obviously won the battle for survival? It is today, not our necessity but our greed to grow; to deforest and reclaim more land, to build more, to develop, to multiply our empire. We change countryside to cities, forests to industries and all of this is achieved by in some way harming our environment. Man in his greed has exploited nature so much that the balance of nature has been greatly disturbed. Urbanism has encroached and eaten up into the natural surroundings to an extent that what enc is left of nature in the present scenario is merely an "encroachment into the city" "It's about too much development and too much ďŹ re suppression building up fuel over the past 50 years... In some ways this is the great war that will be fought here in the 21st century." This project is neither a recrimination of 'cultural evolution' nor a dark criticism of the errors committed by mankind since architecture and city planning moved 'against nature' it talks about nature's vengeance and how as an architect I would play a small role in helping nature through the same. This could be either by creating a space we can breathe or by carving out a space where nature not only enters the domestic world of a city but dominates it. Since we have now reached a point where we have exhausted our natural resources. and all the destruction and the attacks on nature will be answered to. We have tested nature's patience for too long, and it is time she hits back. And when a force as powerful as nature hits back there is nothing the human species can do. Nature has a way of setting things right. Just the way wounds can be cured naturally, diseases can be created naturally too. If the ecology is forced to change from its main course, then nature can ďŹ nd ways to adjust it. But man, will be on the receiving end of this fury of nature.
CONCEPT
Nature In Urbanism - Green Terrorism LOCATION : BANDRA KURLA COMPLEX CONCEPT: Nature takes over The would be a war, a war between There nature and humankind. Nature will reclaim what was hers, the balance of power between the city and nature will be inverted. It will be a war so powerful that it can wash out life from the face of earth faster than any nuclear weapon ever created by man. Imagining nature having a personality and a conscience of her own which makes her hit back at the city. This war of nature on the city could mean uncontrolled growth of trees, moss and other plant life through the city, e animals entering the domestic world of humans, subways being turned to subterranean streams, stadiums as natural ecosystems supporting plant and animal life or even more impactful strategies like oods, earthquakes and other natural disasters. And I as an architect would pave this path of revenge for nature. The proposal would consist of smaller ideas and schemes to empower nature in her war against urbanism. Reclaiming parts of the green which have been engulfed by concrete blocks, restoring li to dead spaces in the city, recylife cling and dismantling buildings and using weapons like seed grenades and green bombs are just some of the strategies which could be adopted. These smaller strategies and interventions would propagate the attack against insensitive development.
Most parts of Mumbai are built over reclaimed land. Even now people are constantly moving closer to the coast. The purpose of this strategy is to drive people away from the coastal area. The main idea is to create channels which bring in sea water into the foundations of the existing buildings. Over a period of time capillary action takes place through the building, which forces sea water to rise upwards. Sea water contains a high content of salt which leads to corrosion of iron. This corrosion takes place through the buildings creating cracks in the concrete and ta forcing it to fall o. Being a slow degradation process, it gives a chance to people to move out of these coastal buildings.
GREEN BOMBING THE CITY:
PIPE BURSTS THROUGH THE CITY: An algae al which multiplies in water is added to the pipelines of the city. This moss grows inside the pipes blocking water passage through the pipes and clogging them therby leading to pipebursts in the city. This strategy aims at disrupting the transport system which is the main conectivity throught the city. The algae eventually empties into the nala where it helps re-generate oxygen and bring life in an anaerobic polluted water body.
g Planning green attacks through the city. Areas which have been deforested for urbanisation are attacked with green grenades. These bombs are dropped onto the buildings creating a wild landscape over the city skyline.
SITE ANALYSIS SITE 2
BANDRA KURLA COMPLEX:
BKC is known for its tall glass structures. What is not known is that these glass structures are doing more harm to the area than good. The temperatures in this area have been measured to be much higher than the other parts of the city. This is because of the reflective nature of glass. The carbon footprint of these buildings too is extremely high and hazardrous to the environment. A device is proposed which fixes onto the existing glass buildings acting as a spaceframe, it allows landscape to grow onto these. This landscape helps to add a green layer to the city and also acts as a shading device to the building.
SANJAY GANDHI NATIONAL PARK
SITE 1
Mumbai is the only city in the world with a National Park in the heart of the city. But urbanisation and the growing population have led to encroachment of the park by residences and other commercial activities. order to stop this encroachment a moveable street lamp is In o proposed. This acts as a defence for the park as well as adds a natural urban element to the city. The street lamp responds to proximity of humans to the wall surrounding the national park. helps to guard this wall by enclosing anyone who gets too It hel close to the wall in order to either destroy the wall or cross it. With the help of the lamp the compound wall acts as a fort around the national park. SEWRI FLAMINGO POINT Creating Awareness: This stategy involves degradation of an abandoned building. Bringing salt water into the foundation of the building and letting it rot over time. This could serve as an installation showing humans how nature can eventually take over everything built by man. A tensile skin is added to the building on which the salt is allowed to crystallize. This installation is aimed at creating an awareness about “Death of man-made due to natural processes.” The site in sewri is a famous flamingo spotting point and could serve to be a major attraction.
SITE 3
SITE 4
DHARAVI SLUMS:
The slums of Dha Dharavi are an illegal addition to the city. These slums lead to various environmental problems. The idea is to green attack these slums and in the future when the seeds have grown into trees, propose a new way of co-existing with the landscape. The proposal involves designing treepods which can be built on trees and used by slum dwellers. This would eventually solve the problem of housing without harming the environment in any way.
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ELEVATION (OPEN COMPONENT)
ELEVATION (CLOSED COMPONENT)
EXPLODED AXONOMETRIC VIEW
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MATERIAL DIAGRAM
Nature In Urbanism - Green Terrorism
This diagram show the reflective properties of various materials. Glass being the most reflective material, solar rays are reflected off the building facades increasing the surrounding temperatures, adding a layer of green to this facade decreases glass surface area thereby decreases reflection.