Urban Theory, Systems, & Designs

Embracing the Mutha River: An Urban Design Study of Sustainable Futures

This fall 2020 urban design studio took embraced an international collaboration with Dr. Bhanuben Nanawati College of Architecture for Women (BNCA) in Pune, India. This real-time collaboration was enabled by relationships established and groundwork prepared by a Prof. Lavoie and the department chair Dr. Swati Sahasrabudhe at BNCA, with the great help of Prashanta Bhat (BLA 1992). 15 faculty mentors from India including Prashanta, Dorothy Dyer and Gene Dyer, our first Canyon House Residency Distinguished Professors, 54 Indian students from 4 different departments (digital architecture, environmental architecture, landscape architecture, and architecture) joined forces with 27 students with Prof. Lavoie, Prof. Johnson and Julie Coleman (Graduate Teaching Assistant) from LAEP to focus on a project inventory and an analysis of eight districts encompassing 1,000 acres at the core of the City of Pune. The collaborative spirit between two vastly different cultures focused on the shared human need for connecting people to the functions and rhythms of their surrounding natural systems. The most significant natural feature in Pune is the Mutha River, originating in the Mountains to the west, passing through the metropolitan area (6.8M residents), and flowing out onto the Mutha plain. Pune’s future must certainly reconcile with the health of this river.

Pune is a dynamic city, an excellent laboratory for students to learn urban design. For LAEP students, it was a semester-long process with the Indian students collaborating for a month, including an intense two-week charrette and meeting six times by zoom and two different formal presentations. This collaboration allowed Utah students to understand urban design by way of a foreign culture. They not only learned of this place and its history, but also the ways of living and approaching design in India. For Indian students, faculty, and mentors the project provided an opportunity for a fresh look at the essential issues affecting their beloved city. Some of the main issues discovered through the process of analyses were the increased pollution and flooding of the Mutha River, the loss of biodiversity and habitat, and the crumbling infrastructure surrounding the river, while the pressure given by the extension of the new metro line along the floodplain of the Mutha River.

The students embraced the urban design scope at three scales – city-wide, the reaches of the river (west to east), and a 1,000-acre piece of the River and the center of Pune Contextual analysis done together with the students from India identified large scale influences or forces acting on this core area. The result is an urban design vision for these eight subdistricts embracing growth and transportation upgrades and reestablishing the connections to the river, finding critical strategies to help each of these districts to improve or sustain its health, accept growth and better connect to the river and mass transportation. A critical aspect of this urban design approach was to look at the natural systems and resources and their support of and impact on the City. Urbanization of India and the history of the caste system brings the questions of equity to another level. The final work was presented to the faculty and students at the BNCA, documentation is being forwarded to the City of Pune.

This project was awarded both an Award of Honor and the Award of Excellence from ASLA Utah.

The students could not help but be impressed by the special and intense experience of this place, even without visiting Pune. While placemaking in the western world may mean “something added to achieve beauty or impact,” the essence of Indian placemaking is unmistakably born of the enormity and challenge of everyday life for everyday Indians. Stewardship aligns with practical common-sense. Spirituality abounds within the intensity of these places; spirituality is an essential part of placemaking in India.