En Route Concrete Utopia - A Society Idealised and Imagined
The reality of this anguished world can be hard to confront, we continue to reside in a society threatened by grave issues such as wide-scale environmental degradation, social stratification, hunger, poverty, endemic corruption, inequity; a list which doesn’t seem to cease. It will be comforting to fantasize about a dream world where such societal evils are non-existent a utopia. Depicted as a fictional island society by Sir Thomas More in 1516, the word “utopia” was unfolded to reimagine any community with political and societal perfection cities that improve the mundane lives of their citizens.
The year 2020 marked the onset of a new decade, which variegated our concerns from inevitable catastrophes to yet another wide-spread pandemic which revealed the excavated primordial system to be broken and cracked over the years of constant withering. Inevitable fissures exist in the current system, a system that was never molded correctly. Within these cracks persists a disintegrated mound of discrimination and differences, deeply rooted within our cores, slowly eating away the entire structure and functioning of our currently lopsided society.
Capitalism is the chief vehicle of exploitation today. The top 10% of the Indian population confine 77% of the total national prosperity.73% of the wealth produced in 2017 went to the affluent 1%, while 67 million people, the unfortunate half of the population saw only a 1% increase in their wealth. The relation between capitalism and architecture remains tricky. As with everything capitalism encounters, there is the calamitous likelihood of exploitation. Even so, rarely do architects stand in direct conflict with capital.
The Urban centers of India are currently magnets for the human influx. An exponential migration of people to cities has been observed after the early 90s as the Indian economy opened up its pursuits as being a global capital. According to the World Bank, the population residing in urban India increased from 11.4% in the 1901 census to 28.53% by the 2001 census and is currently 34% in the latest 2011 census.
There was much optimism about the ability of our citizenry to partake in the wealth that was to be created but it turns out it got poorly distributed in the savage urban cores. These so-called sources of a new economy got infiltrated with a high Heterogeneous population with an unequal distribution of capital and urban space that brought with itself vicious avenues of inequity and discrimination where the margin between rich and poor has widened to overpowering extremes.
i)
SOURCE: Business Insider
ii) The promised rewards of capitalism, modernism and democracy seem to be reserved for a few privileged. One has to climb to the zenith of the socio-economic ladder to cherish them.
SOURCE: Business Insider
Mumbai- Utmost Poverty meets Utmost Wealth: A city of Imbalance
Mumbai with a whooping economy of 160 Billion USD ranks ahead of major urban centers like Paris and Toronto, the 12th richest city in the world. The city fails to accommodate 6.5 million citizens who reside in slums without sufficient access to light, ventilation and basic sanitation. These units are tightly crammed on sites that they end up looking like warehouses for people wherein one in ten residents suffers from TB and other respiratory diseases, and a recent COVID-19. This disparity is surprisingly a common occurrence across the globe as cities around the world become denser and more urbanized.
Manual Scavengers are often a Blind Spot in urban development discourse which is the most dehumanizing and degrading practice consistent with centuriesold feudal and caste-based custom that predominantly involves forced labor, despite all the available technology and alternatives this inhuman practice persists in some parts of our cities.
Representational image of manual scavenging in India
SOURCE: CNN
Speaking of inequalities apart from class and economic stature one has to face them in multiple areas of the schism that promote a bias, our spaces sometimes fail to accommodate users with different physical and cognitive abilities. According to Economic Times, only 3% of buildings are accessible to disabled people, even the slightest level differences, for instance, irregular pathways and potholes may seem like mountains when we look at things from the perspective of a physically challenged person who battles such obstructions daily.
Poor Urban infrastructure and unplanned areas offer fewer work opportunities thus people are forced to commute larger distances to avail employment opportunities, leading to traffic as well as habitable congestion, degradation of air quality, exploitation of resources, and disrupted quality of life exacerbating inequity and triggering turmoil and revolt. Poorly perpetuated public spaces, dark streets, ramshackle parks, and empty lots, badly maintained public spaces, incomprehensible signage, lack of public facilities. Isolation from the neighborhood and lack of communal interactions cause difficulty in accommodating, people of various gender, age groups, and sexual orientation, who often find themselves excluded from design and wish to be dignified and identified. Architecture should be considered more than a profession; rather it should be seen as a set of tools to understand the society in better ways. The contemporary social fabric makes us all a part of the common thread of society as a whole. Design knits our society with the past and the way we envision the future. The fissures in this social fabric can be mended through gathered knowledge from these set of constraints and restrictions and
their extracted meaning, .This calls for us architects, as creative professionals, to empathize and confront these colossal issues that aggravate our society, find imaginative and creative solutions to improve people’s quality of life taking us a step closer to our ideals of the Utopian vision
For communities to be transformed solely, all factors of architecture need to be built into more equitable spaces. Referring to spaces, people across the world seek a sense of dignity and identity through their homes, one of the most unaddressed and compromised issues in the concrete jungle; the shanty housing condition.
History narrates that enhancements in housing for people with subordinate incomes often happen not from compassion towards vulnerable populations, but out of the selfpreservation of the more powerful, against the extent of infection or to prevent rebellions For architects to make greater impacts in residents’ lives, better housing strategies with proper ventilation, access to light, and improved neighborhoods for newcomers, refugees, and long-time residents are mandatory. A pioneer in envisioning better housing, transport, and public amenities through his designs, Ar. Charles Correa who is known for his minimalistic designs, material honesty, user-friendliness, and practicality quotes “Market forces do not make cities, they destroy them..”. His new housing scheme at Belapur offers hope for a New Bombay.
Belapur Housing in Navi Mumbai utilizes and reelucidate conventional Indian urban spatial order, the project promises to exhilarate the satellite city’s formerly grim residential program. It holds lessons for habitation designs and fabrication for designers.
SOURCE: www.charlescorreafoundati on.org
The project was pervaded based on observation of vernacular Indian settlements evolved using a spatial hierarchy which ranges from private individual household spaces to the greater public space - the Maidan – the public boulevard of the community.
At Belapur, Correa has visualized his perception of equity plots. He suggests that India’s contrasting dichotomy between rich and poor could be conquered if house plot sizes were rationed to between 50 and 100 square meters. This habitable paradise is a distinctive example that proved the cooperative coexistence of both rich and poor as a united community.
The Ripple Effect: Designing for a Wider Impact.
The most rudimentary purpose of a building is to provide shelter and enrich people’s experience however; the impact of architecture and design on both individuals and society is far broader.
It is assumed that buildings have a ripple effect similar to that of a water droplet which propagates an outer impact to disturb an increasingly larger portion of the system, buildings beyond their walls and immediate site undoubtedly affects the society, These structures which take years to design are around for decades and sometimes even centuries, the impact that buildings have on the world around them is an indispensable aspect, however, the wider impact of architecture is sometimes neglected.
Complementary opposite forces: Positive and Negative impacts of a building on its surrounding
SOURCE: Designing for big impacts I Thomas Bryans I TEDxGuildford
Undoubtedly, industrialization and capitalism brought huge progress but the impact that it had on the evolution of our built environment resulted in negative externalities and unfortunate consequences, sometimes those consequences were obvious, for instance, large glass skyscrapers; some of which have managed to burn things in their surroundings. One such extraordinary example of positive propagation of ideas and change through buildings is the Ada-Khan award recipient Barefoot College, Tilonia, established in 1972 which now operates over 2000 villages and 93 countries globally with regards to community development. These state training and services associated with the building ripple out to impact the lives of more than 2 Million people, enabling communities’ access to pure portable drinking water, profitable livelihoods, and clean, renewable energy. The institute has excelled in creating a role model of management, development, and community control, which is a necessary component of decentralized systems of functionality. Barefoot sets a profuse example of sustainability concerning social, economic, and environmental aspects in the vicinity of Jaipur.
SOURCE: www.barefootcollege.org
SOURCE:
Richard Rogers once said, “There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges facing our cities or to the housing crisis, but the two issues need to be considered together. The well-connected open city is a powerful paradigm and an engine for integration and inclusivity.”
Buildings and public avenues are used by all demographics, age groups, differently-abled people, and people of all genders and ethnicities. Every country has a set of guidelines and design protocols that our spaces and designers must follow to make it inclusive. However, these authorities and designers seem to be ignorant in adhering to these laid design guidelines especially in cities with high population density. Inclusivity has only recently started becoming the fundamentals in modern architecture. The need of the hour is reforming in building codes and designs that provide access to proper daylight and ventilation, accessible barrier-free built environment for the disabled, gender-inclusive friendly public toilets and parking spots to improve the quality of our built spaces. Buildings must be designed with more empathy and unbiased intentions, these ideas which when become intrinsic to the design process while considering a bigger picture can create buildings that can do extraordinary things thereby resulting in the society as a whole heading to a more equitable future.
Hassle-free pedestrian pathway, ambient volume of greenery with piercing views through the foliage, of a proper light-rail transportation system. Mid-to-large size dwellings coexisting on each side of the wide lanes, Mixed-use, Cyclists, Runners, Families, Couples strolling their pets. Shared spaces with people of different classes; happy and indifferent. Beyond this capital’s cacophony en route Concrete Utopia - A Society Idealized and Imagined. The choice is yours
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) https://www.barefootcollege.org/about/
2) https://www.businessinsider.in/science/drone-photos-of-mumbai-reveal-the-placeswhere-extreme-poverty-meets-extreme-wealth/articleshow/66042988.cms
3) www.barefootcollege.org
4) Architecture and Utopia: Design and Capitalist Development Book by Manfredo Tafuri
5) https://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/with-just-3-of-india-s-buildingsaccessible-our-disabled-are-at-a-huge-disadvantage/storyRh2rd4QzNzw9kHpmaTPV1H.html
6) https://www.archdaily.com/364518/the-architect-and-the-accessible-city-the-prizewinning-essay
7) https://www.businessinsider.in/science/drone-photos-of-mumbai-reveal-the-placeswhere-extreme-poverty-meets-extreme-wealth/articleshow/66042988.cms
8) https://www.firstpost.com/india/indias-manual-scavengers-ugly-truths-of-unsanitarysanitation-work-an-open-secret-countrywide-law-needs-better-enforcement6791721.html
9) https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/richard-rogers-converting-offices-willnot-satisfy-londons-housing-needs
10) https://www.oxfam.org/en/india-extreme-inequalitynum-
bers#:~:text=The%20top%2010%25%20of%20the,1%25%20increase%20in%20the ir%20wealth.&text=There%20are%20119%20billionaires%20in%20India
11) The Art of Inequality: Architecture, Housing, and Real Estate by Reinhold Martin