KHUSHALI HAJI URBAN DESIGN PORTFOLIO
KHUSHALI HAJI
Bachelor of Urban Design| CEPT University | Ahmedabad, India khushali.haji.bud16@cept.ac.in | +91 9429474640
OTHER EXPERIENCES Alappuzha, December 2018
STUDIOS Semester 6
Designing Water Infrastructure as Civic Infrastructure
Investigating and designing for the many natures and scales of water to develop a new collective imagination around water in Ahmedabad and its hinterlands. Semester 5
Rebel Bodies Rebel Cities
Designing sensitive urban devices in contested public spaces where, people claim their own identities, aesthetics, and patterns of behaviors through ‘non-compliant’ spatial practices. (Cited as HONOURS PROJECT in University Honours Exhibition) Semester 4
Iterations
Iterative design proposals developed through careful and inclusive community participation to address social and ecological vulberability, (both which go hand in hand) that lead to more contextually appropriate design. Semester 3
Context in Urban Design
The studio focused on how the context of the site developed, evolved and most importantly, rooted the design.
SOFTWARE AutoCAD, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro
GIS, Rhinocerous, SketchUp Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Excel
WORK ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Academic Semester Portfolios https://portfolio.cept.ac.in/student/khushali-haji-ud1816 Writings https://alturbanate.wordpress.com Artwork https://www.instagram.com/khushalihaji/
Canalpy: Canal Rejuvenation through Integrated Sanitation Planning IIT Bombay - KILA Winter School
A field based study to understand the water and sanitation problems, focusing on the pollution in Alappuzha canals to devise a mitigation plan, through interaction with experts, practitioners and locals, and going beyond classroom learning to understand the complexities of waste water and sanitation issues in application.
Nanjing, China and Ahmedabad, India, June 2018
Heritage Cities Development: Lessons and Experiences from China CEPT Ahmedabad and SEU Nanjing Summer School
Understanding through a comparison of cities in India and China, how both are responding to the challenges of urbanization through new infrastructure but at the same time focusing on conserving heritage and historic neighborhoods, as well as their response to re-development, transportation, urban design and local regulations.
Ahmedabad, July 2018
Garden Audits of Ahmedabad A group of concerned citizens
Doing audits for gardens around Ahmedabad to understand how AMC’s proposal for converting garden spaces into parking areas would impact these spaces, based on the arguement that these would negatively impact the very little green spaces the city has and and not solve parking issues.
Mumbai, June 2017
Little Humans Leher (Child Rights NGO)
Volunteering in Little Human photo project launched by Leher, giving content comprising of stories of conversations with under-privileged children who live in the streets of Mumbai, for a campaign that aimed to create a space for children’s faces and voices, from various walks of life.
Jaisalmer, December 2016
Reading and Narrating a City: The Journey of Stone CEPT Winter School
Studying the old city of Jaisalmer, its economy and its cultural heritage, both of which are dependent and intricately connected with on the industrial export of the stone, and speculating its future with its stone mines drastically emptying.
Ahmedabad, Febuary 2019
Scriptwriter of Natakbazi, CEPT Theatre Group
Writing the script of the play ‘The Dreamcase’, a futuristic dystopia, as a part of Natakbazi, CEPT Theatre Group
LANGUAGES English, Gujarati, Hindi
CONTENTS
Currently pursuing a degree in Urban Design, I am fascinated by how cities, the people and networks that consists them and the environment that they are a part of, work and impact one another. I am interested in understanding how these smaller interactions lead to the larger somethings and how urban design becomes a catalyst in affecting their trajectories. Having studied different cases in different cities through academics, I would like to learn how design as a process shapes out in the actual Indian context, with its layers of politics, social and environmental vulnerabilities, histories and cultures.
HISTORIES OF PUBLIC SPACE
POLITICS AND POETICS OF WATER
Page 1
Page 11
Bhadra Plaza, Ahmedabad
ON THE EDGE
Memnagar Lake, Ahmedabad
Page 5
Sabarmati, Narmada and Ahmedabad
HISTORI-CITIES
Nanjing, Ahmedabad, Kollam
Page 13
VIDEO PROJECTS
Page 14
THE LOST NARRATIVES OF BHADRA PLAZA Proposed Plan: Iteration 2 The story of Bhadra starts with the story of Ahmedabad. As legend goes, 19 year old Ahmed Shah was hunting along the banks of the Sabarmati, where he happened upon the sight of a rabbit chasing a dog. Proclaiming the land as blessed, he decided to build his capital here, on the east banks of the river. And this is how Ahmedabad was founded. In 1411, Bhadra Darwaza, a massive fortified gate, was built to become the primary axis of the old walled city, around which the rest of Ahmedabad eventually grew. Over the years, the space between Bhadra Fort and Teen Darwaza went through various rulers, users and usage, a dynamic place of changing activity and public expression. After its redevelopment in 2016 a continuous conflict brings the plaza to reek of apathy and neglect, choked by encroachment and a lack of enforcement. The narratives of the histories, the spaces and its people have been lost or dominated by other regressive narratives. The aim of the project is to uncover these lost stories and narrate them through spatial experiences in order to activate pockets of public spaces and address issues they currently face. These stories intend to create active and engaging spaces that dignify the lost histories in a way that is responsive to their current context, using the forgotten or neglected narratives of a city that was founded, as they say, on a myth itself.
A
This has been done by choosing narratives. These have been attempted to be communicated through space in 16 different pockets around the plaza.
A
1 . Histories
A'
of
Public Space
A'
VIEWS OF EXISTING AND PROPOSED DESIGN Proposed Design for Lost Narratives
2. ANCIENT BHADRAKALI TEMPLE
5. AHMEDABAD'S OLDEST LIBRARY
Built during the Maratha Rule, it is a temple of the fierce goddess Bhadrakali that was built to represent an older temple had been told to be 800 years old, more older than the city itself. Proposal: Giving shade and a buffer of trees along edges to emulate the wilderness and connect with nature, associated with the older shrine and act as swales for stormwater runoff.
Himabhai Institute, a part of Gujarat Vidhya Sabha, is the oldest library in the entire state. The organisation it is under also published Gujarat’s first newspaper, established the first Gujarati school for girls and the first Gujarati periodical as well. Proposal: Opening up the access between the library and plaza, with softscaping and adding trees for buffer (to dignify the history).
15. MARATHAS AND THE BEAM
16. WOMEN'S RIGHT TO INHERITANCE
The Marathas before going to war, aimed 5 arrows at a beam of the Teen Darwaza, superstitiously to prophesy good or bad luck in the battle. Proposal: Creating a pause point by using the story of Maratha’s and the Beam, using the high ceiling to disorient passerbys by highlighting the beam(in relation to the Maratha superstition of anticipation), creating seating in alcoves and changing the floor material for demarcation.
Martha governor Chimnaji Raghunath inscribed farman on 10th Oct 1812 declaring equal right to women in inheritance of ancestral property. ‘Let the daughter get her due share of her father’s property. If you defy, the Hindu will have to answer Mahadev and the Mussalman to Allah.’ Proposal: Using two small stumps on the ground for viewing the farman in a sturdy posture and its Gujarati, English transalation at eye level.
3 . Histories
of
Public Space
BHADRA PLAZA Zoomed in Design Proposal
To view the entire project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hSAwlTIOUKi7YjSKM6g_qSyaARDc9J2m/view?usp=sharing
ON THE EDGE Iteration 2.5: Community Feedback
5 . On The Edge
MAPPING Initial Site Analysis
7 . On The Edge
ITERATION 3 Views of the Proposed Edge
ITERATION 1 Proposed Section
9 . On The Edge
To view the entire project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oVj0j9mBg490zgUBu8dPgoCzhHSZnOEy/view?usp=sharing
POLITICS AND POETICS OF WATER Political History of Water in Ahmedabad Understanding the political history of Ahmedbad and how water as an element was used to shape the city, as an element of ultility, a display of wealth, a means of control and more recently as a political power, across the span of a 1000 years.
11 . The Politics
and
Poetics
of
Water
POLITICS AND POETICS OF WATER Glass Timeline of Water and the City A total of 25 glass maps were made of Ahmedabad from 1000 CE to 2018 CE, to understand the relationship of the city with water through different empires, dynasties, colonization and post independence democracy.
(Group partner: Vaishnavi Akila)
13 . Histori-Cities
(Groupwork as a part of summer school)
KOLLAM, KERALA Projection of Future Urban Landscape Quilon or Kollam (Pepper in Sanskrit) is a coastal city on the banks of Ashtamudi Lake, and the oldest port city in the Malabar Coast, now a district capital. Because of geographical barriers, the inscrease in population has led to a rapid inscrease in density in the core area. Ashtamundi Lake (A Ramsar Site) lying in the heart of the city as a result has seen major urban growth on its periphery and a reduction in green patches. A lot of new projects have been proposed in this growing economy, of which one is the Kollam Bypass (2018), whose impact in the surrounding wetlands can be seen in the grid analysis. The suitability map shows a possible suggestion for its future urban growth, keeping the ecology and landscape of its peripheries in mind.
KOLLAM BYPASS
To view the entire project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PkvfIuuXLLN_xzVQ8Fue-Ahm0L8AKE2E/view?usp=sharing
VIDEO PROJECTS
(Click on the image or link below to view)
COMMUNCIATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
Social Unacceptance and Peer Rejection: It’s time for the victims to take a stand
URBAN PERFORMANCE 1 Creating a Temporary Change in Space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNb8cCmCjuI&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hRAohJm6Mw&t=2s
URBAN PERFORMANCE 2 Is the ‘Public’ Space being taken away from the Public?
THE WATERS OF FORGETFULLNESS
(ANIMATION)
A Journey through the Times and Spaces of CEPT that Hold Memories of Water
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcWDDpAvHFs&t=4s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W79cm9OmWXU&t=1s
15 . Videos
khushali.haji.bud16@cept.ac.in | +91 9429474640