moc.sledomgwd
Plaza 3
2.
1.
3.
THE URBAN WATER COMMONS Ahmedabad and the Sabarmati River
THE URBAN WATER COMMONS AHMEDABAD AND THE SABARMATI RIVER
PROPOSITIONS STUDIO ARCH 562/UD 722 W2019 Graduate Students: Andrea Marquez, M.Arch. Anhong Li, M.Arch. Austin Kronig, M.Arch. Gwen Gell, M.U.D. + M.U.R.P. Jessica Yelk, M.Arch. + M.UR.P. Yixin Miao, M.U.D. Shourya Jain, M.U.D. Tristan Snyder, M.Arch. Xin Liu, M.Arch. Yanbo Li, M.U.D.
Yiying Tang, M.Arch. Instructor:
María Arquero de Alarcón Associate Professor in Architecture + Urban Planning Director, Master of Urban Design In Partnership with: Vāstu Shilpā Foundation for Studies and Research in Environmental Design With special thanks to the inspiration and priceless insights offered by Prof. Balkrishna V. Doshi, Prof. Neelkanth Chhaya, Prof. Rajeev Kathpalia, Prof. Durganand Balsavar, Ar. Tanvi Jain Sponsor: A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Travel Fund and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiative.
TAUBMAN COLLEGE architecture+urban planning
University of Michigan © The Regents of the University of Michigan. All rights reserved
THE URBAN WATER COMMONS Ahmedabad and the Sabarmati River Synthesis: Inhabiting the Urban Water Commons
CONTENTS A SITUATION
Urban Natures: Narratives at Scale
Scales of Movement and Urban Textures ................................................................................................................................................ A-04 Andrea Marquez Water Commons + Citizenship ............................................................................................................................................................................... A-20 Anhong Li Sabarmati River as Lifeline ......................................................................................................................................................................................... A-42 Austin Kronig The Common Commodity ........................................................................................................................................................................................... A-58 Gwen Gell The Water Commons and the Common People ............................................................................................................................... A-74
Jessica Yelk
The Against and Connect ............................................................................................................................................................................................. A-90 Yixin Miao Water Cultures ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ A-108 Shourya Jain Urban Flutations .................................................................................................................................................................................................................. A-120 Tristan Snyder From Industrialization to Globalization ................................................................................................................................................... A-136 Xin Liu A Seam Reclaiming Nature and Engagement ................................................................................................................................... A-154 Yanbo Li Neither Rural nor Urban ............................................................................................................................................................................................. A-174 Yiying Tang
B RESEARCH
Liquid Cartographies
Cycle and Structure ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. B-06
Gwen Gell, Yanbo Li, Jessica Yelk
Bazaar ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... B-20 Andrea Marquez, Austin Kronig Bio[logic] Resultants............................................................................................................................................................................................................ B-30 Shourya Jain, Tristan Snyder “Slum Free” City? .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... B-46 Xin Liu, Yiying Tang Urban Wall........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ B-56 Anhong Li, Yixin Miao
C SYNTHESIS
Inhabiting the Urban Water Commons
Seeds............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................C-01
Yixin Miao, Shourya Jain
The City of Ahmedabad faces complex realities ranging from ethnic and religious lack of integration, a water environmental crisis, and the political and social challenges inherent to urban growth and modernization. SEEDS interrogates the agency of designers to enable the incremental coproduction of urban space, ensure inclusive participatory frameworks and address people’s right to the city. The project highlights Ahmedabad’s contemporary urban morphology as a thick collage of layers accumulated through time and continuously negotiated by disparate interests and urban actors.
Break Out............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... C-33
Sean Liu, Yiying Tang
The Sabarmati Riverfront Project, an urban scheme conceived to prompt an image of progress and increase the real estate value of the riverfront, has deeply transformed the city. The former fluid connection between river and city is lost, and the changing river landscapes are now served by permanent concrete walls. The project caters the city elites, leaving out the citizens who used to live in the riverbed. Responding to this polarizing project, this proposal focuses on an alternative development for the area between the Old City and the Sunday market. Break Out reorganizes the official projected uses, hacks the existing bounding infrastructure to increase access, seed inclusive activities serving a wider range of citizens, and embrace seasonal and daily change.
The River is an Illusion............................................................................................................................................................................................................ C-65
Yanbo Li
Opening a window into the many environmental crises facing the contemporary Indian city, the project illustrates six rather incongruous scenes of what our current disdain towards the protection of the environment can render in the future. Urban reality leads this way to a certain urban illusion, a set of uncanny urbanisms that render visible the overwhelming domination of the human nature over the river.
Urban Wall as Heterotopia .............................................................................................................................................................................................. C-99
Anhong Li
Ahmedabad’s recent development trends are sparking social segregation and promoting profit-driving policies. The outcomes are the progressive wiping off of historic urban texture and the loss of a diverse citizenship. This project argues that the agency of design is well posed to address the urgency to preserve the city collective memory and to create a contemporary urban commons. Scrutinizing the urban patterns across the city, the historic role of the wall appears as marker of difference and space of opportunity. The project learns from the “urban wall” as a type and reveals key moments along the Sabarmati River to celebrate urban heterogeneity as a new way of power resistance.
Drought, Ghost City and the Urban Oasis..................................................................................................................................................... C-129
Andrea Marquez
As the ‘new city’ of Ahmedabad continues to grow despite facing extreme environmental challenges and socio-political unrest, the UNESCO Heritage ‘Old City’ and its rich ornamentation, habits and the crafts and customs, are slowly fading away. By tracing the stories and livelihoods of some of its long-term residents, the project investigates cumulative potentials through embedded micro water infrastructures that revive the historic fabric, while also cultivating agency to those stewarding place.
Reclaiming the Sanctuary................................................................................................................................................................................................ C-169
Austin Kronig
Reclaiming the Sanctuary sets up a critique of the homogeneous nature of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development, underscoring that something is lost and the experience of place becomes simplistically didactic and anticipatory over a monotonous treatment of the riverfront interface. As a response, the project reinterprets the sacred and intangible values of the lost landscapes that once punctuated the Sabarmati’s riverbed. A series of interventions resituate human occupation in the very threshold between water and land. The project offers alternate stewardship methods that remind us of the sophistication and complexity of the civic infrastructures to offer release from the everyday.
The Spirit of the Stepwell.............................................................................................................................................................................................. C-187 Jessica Yelk, Tristan Snyder, Gwen Gell
Inspired by the legacy of the Stepwells of Ahmedabad, three interventions across the city embody the manifestation of the water cycle, pausing time and awakening the dormant urban natures hidden in the city’s everyday life. This urban narrative aims to be accessible to people of all ages, allowing for personal exploration and deeper of faster reading through the medium of a pop-up book. The project unfolds a series of architectural and environmental interventions and interrogates their impacts on human experience in the search for water. As an artifact, the book dives deep into the Spirit of the Stepwell and interrogates the role of our disciplines to provoke, write, and render visible new urban imaginaries through the very citizens who would steward them.
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SYNTHESIS: Inhabiting the Urban Water Commons
r
Building on the many natures of the urban water commons, the final semester projects investigate the entanglements between the Sabarmati River and the City of Ahmedabad, and envision a multiplicity of projects, frameworks, fragments, scenarios, and visual narratives around this most contested relationship.
SEEDS
Yixin Miao + Shourya Jain
moc.sledomgwd
moc.sledomgwd
Plaza 3
Plaza 3
1892 Riverfront
Conflict Use | Program Nested Scales
SEEDING CIVIC LIFE Water has played an important role in the history and civic life of Ahmedabad. In recent decades, the implementation of large modern water infrastructure has changed the way people use, engage and perceive water. This project offers variety of multi-scaled and incremental design interventions. Just like seeds need water to grow, this project brings in and reveals the hidden urban waters to activate truly inclusive public space. The project redirects imaginative and technical efforts towards the insertion of water infrastructures to steward various types of seeds (interventions of architectural nature) strategically located to be highly responsive to the urban conditions on site. By rendering water visible and sparkling new urban programs, SEEDS performs as a material practice to invite disparate publics to celebrate water and urban life. As different seeds grow at different speeds, water infrastructures can also will grow incrementally in a long time span. By re-appropriating three types of existing urban elements: the gate, the wall and the plaza, the project adopts a spatial order deeply rooted in the fragmented site context and familiar to the locals. Suspicious about large scale master-plans seeking to effect total control over the public realm (like the Sabarmati Riverfront Project), SEEDS offers an alternate model of urban reimagination through
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SEEDS
1962
Ellis Bridge 1892 Nehru Bridge
Sardar Bridge 1939
Dr Ambedksar Bridge 1939 Bridging East to West | Urban Expansion Connecting two edges
Bridges
2008
Community Settlements | Villages
High Real Estate | Displacement of poor To create ‘world-class image’ | Globalisation
Barrier Wall Built for Riverfront Projet 2004 2004
Barrier Wall
1847
Territorialising water | Communalising water Community | Village settlements
Slum Settlements
1847
Water Treatment Plant | Industries
Urban water supply limited to developed areas City water supply system
Lack of proper infrastructure | Services - Naalas Informal Settlements | Slum
Sewage Disposal | Industrial waste disposal Industrial | Commercial
Overhead Water Tanks
1441
Territorialising water Historical | Religious | Cultural
Sarkhej Roza
Disrupting natural flow of river Riverfront | Water Channel
d
Irrigational Canals
Displacement of urban poor for creation of riverfront | Flooding zone Informal Settlements | Community Settlements
Limited availability of water | Polluted water Agricultural Farming
Stepwells | Vav
1485
Disfunctional due to drying of ground water Historical Monumnets | Cultural | Religious
Narmada Canal
2008
1451
Kankaria Lake
Limited water in canals for agriculture due to creation of riverfront Agricultural | Infrastructural
Narmada Canal 2008
Subhash Bridge 1973
Displacement of people | Disrupted naturalsurface depression Recreational | Infrastructural | Commercial
1738
Lost significance Water Conservation | Storage | Historical significance
Rishi Dhadhichi Bridge 2011
Gandhi Bridge 1940
“Pols” | Underground Water Tank
the integration of a multiplicity of agents and temporal frameworks in the design of new collective spaces. Inspired by the multi-functional nature of Indian urban spaces, SEEDS is also an experiment on how urban infrastructure condense, transform, and materialize concepts without imposing controlled or predetermined meaning, seeding a multiplicity of uses and attitudes in a long-time span. Water Typologies | Apart from more utilitarian values, water holds many meanings and values in India. It not only holds religious significance but has also played significant role in shaping settlement patterns, customs and human traditions. The traces of historic water infrastructures are hidden across the urban landscape: from stepwells to pools and reservoirs, or the presence of temples, shrines and ghats in the proximity of the river. Today, the scale and ambitions of development offer a very different set of traces in the landscape. The Sabarmati Riverfront project is an example of aping development model that further disturbs the river ecologies. This constellation of traces formulates the legacy of the Urban Water Commons in Ahmedabad and it raises important questions about the relationship between social and environmental justice in the context of rapid urbanization.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS
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SITE LOCATION Jamalpur | Ahmedabad
The Jamalpur neighborhood is in close proximity on the east side of the Sabarmati Riverfront, adjacent to the Old Walled City. The area is a constellation of fragments, from very modest neighborhoods to markets and religious institutions, all of them interspersed by small voids, urban gaps in the urban fabric that create discontinuities and enable the legibility of every component.
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SEEDS
1930
Rishi D
hadhic
2011
hi Brid
ge
1910
1894
1900
e i Bridg
1940
ge rid
1910
1857
1874
Gandh 1940
1960
1950
B hru Ne 2 196
Dr A
mbe
e Bridg Ellis 1892
N
ge Sardar Brid
dka r Br idge rie rW 20 04 all Bui lt f or Riv er Bar
1920
1939
fro nt
Pro
1936
jec
t
Mosque Gate Church Riverfront Plaza 2
N
Temple Khan Jahan Mosque Old City Wall
Retaining Wall Riverfront Plaza 1
1 km 0
Riverfront Wall
SITE ANALYSIS Jamalpur | Ahmedabad
This site is a microcosm representative of the complex realities faced by the City of Ahmedabad: from ethnic and religious segregation, the urban water and housing crises, to the threads of displacement of the poor and the socio-political unrest inherent to urban growth and modernization. At the same time, Jamalpur is a palimpsest of the complex layers of history legible in one of the oldest areas in Ahmedabad: the remains of the old city wall and its ancient gates and the presence of important markets ( the municipal flower and vegetable market and the relocated Sunday market) and the religious temple of Hindu and Khan Jahan. While the proximity to the Sabarmati river is felt on the site through a gentle slope, the Riverfront Project has broken the visual connection towards the river and disrupted the natural drainage of water.
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SEEDS
N
Jamalpur Gate 0
10
50m
Pol Houses
Muncipal Food Market
Cemetry
Slums
Church
Hindu Slums
Haveli Gate Muslim Slums
Mosque Temple
Flower Market
Plaza 3 Mosque Gate Plaza 1
Plaza 1 Plaza 2
PROJECT COMPONENTS Gate | Wall | Plaza
Tiny old gates in Old City Wall connecting village settlement to the riverfront road.
Hidden Gate
Old
SEEDS
Wa ll
DETACH
Riverfront Wall
Reclaimed land by riverfront project used for parking and to host sunday market.
Sunday Market Plaza | Parking Plaza Green Landscapes at CEPT university built by using excavated soil during construction of buildings.
Sculpted Plaza
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City
CONNECT
Institutional Plaza
Three types of existing elements serve as markers in the public spaces on the site. The “Gates,” both the historical Khanjha Gate, heritage of the Old City, and new gates made of metal, like in The Bhadra Plaza, to spark curiosity and sense of discovery while crossing the threshold of the site. The “Plaza,” with a variety of sizes, configurations and uses, is the main space for gathering and celebration. Last the “Wall,” rather than a boundary serves as infrastructure and provides solid support to public activities. As familiar types for the urban dwellers, the project instigate their radical reappropriation to host disparate activities and create new collectivities giving form to the urban water commons.
RECREATE
New Steel Gates designed by Doshi. Gates Demarcate the boundaries of Bhadra Plaza.
Bhadra Plaza M S Gates
DEMARACATE
H
Remains Of Old City Wall
Hidden Ancient Temple under debris resting against old city wall.
Stark Contrast of Old City wall remains and the new plaza created by riverfront project
Redesigned Bhadra Plaza brings defining spaces for informal act
Riverfront Wall
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-10
ATTACHED Bhadra Fort Renovated Wall
Bha
TRANSFORM
GATHERING
Old city Squate
Reconstructed Bhadra Fort Wall occupied by street vendors.
Bhadra Plaza
back vitality to the city by ivities..
DISCOVERY
ACCESS
Manek Chowk
Bhadra Fort Gate
Thickness of old city walls that were once accessible and habitable for security and war purposes.
Bh
ad
Bhadra Fort Gate become a symbol of discovery and reveals the beautiful hidden fort behind.
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SEEDS
ra For t
Wa ll
Kings Tomb Darwaaza
REVEAL
Shop Gates
Hidden entrances located in the middle of the old city become symbols of important historical monuments that merge within city’s fabric.
RELEASE
adra Plaza
Jami Mosque is a friday mosque that holds a huge central plaza located at the heart of old city.
Teen Darwaaza
Jaami Mosque Wall
Jami Mosque Plaza
Mosque Gate occupied by street vendors.
Mosque Entrance Gate
Manek Chowk that keeps transforming throughout the day in terms of its activities an informalities it holds
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-12
Existing Element
THE CONCEPT Element + Water
Water Infrastructure
+
Cleaning syatem
Pumping station
=
Water Purification
Gate
It is through these three existing elements- Gate, all and Plaza- that water gives a new life to the public spaces in the Jamalpur area. Water infrastructure activates the gathering space, through a variety of seeds of different scale, material and program. Gate as water purification station, Wall as aqueduct to transport water, and Plaza as water conservation. According to the context and need of the specific sites, seeds can be adaptive in different physical forms and uses. Planted with a carefully designed sequence, these interventions will trigger incremental growth of different activities and shape active public space with intimate relationship with water.
+ Wall
SEEDS
Open Canal
=
Water Transportation
+ Plaza
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Water Pipe
= Water Conservation
Variations Variations Variations Variations
SEEDS SEEDSSEEDS SEEDS
- -Water WaterGate Gate Water Water Gate Gate
Metal Metal
Metal Metal
Soil Soil
SoilSoil
Various Variousmaterial material Various Various material material Water Water
Incremental Incremental Incremental Incremental growth growthgrowth growth
Water Water
Straight Straight Straight Straight
- -Aquaduct AquaductAquaduct Aquaduct
Various Variouselements elements Various Various elements elements
Turn Turn
Turn Turn
End End
EndEnd
Renovate Renovate Renovate Renovate
- -Water WaterPlaza Plaza Water Water Plaza Plaza
Reconstruct Reconstruct Reconstruct Reconstruct
Reclaim Reclaim Reclaim Various Variousmethods methods Various Various methods methods Reclaim
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-14
Incremental growth
iations
Sustainable Emerging Em
Incremental growth
SEEDS STRUCTURE Variations
Sustainable Emerging Embryo
Incremental growth
Sustainable Emerging Embryo
Metal
Soil
Incremental growth
2019 Committee Membe
Sustainable Emerging Development 2019Embryonic Committee Members:(SEE
Water
2019 Committee Members:
Straight
The Diagram encapsulates different agencies that would participate in SEED and the number of End demarcates representatives that each entity will hold in the association. Overall, It aims to distribute the decisionmaking power in the hands of Renovate multiple local agencies Turn
Constant Members
Constant Government Members 2019 Committee Members: ConstantMembers Members Temporary
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporatio
City Water Resource Management Temporary Members Temporary Members
Sabarmati Riverfront Developmen
Constant Members Temporary Members Types of interaction with water Types of interaction with water
Present
Reconstruct
Types of Increm
Types of Incre
Present
Used Celebrated
Celebrated
Present Types of interaction with water Present Used Celebrated
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SEEDS
Atta
App
Used with water Types of interaction
Reclaim
Atta
Types of Incremental growth
Used
Attach and grow
Appreciate and Entertain
Celebrated
Gather and Celebrate
App Types
Gath
Gat
onic Development (SEED) onic Development (SEED) Chairs: Chairs:
Mandar Mandar
Sachet Sachet Vote Vote
Government Government
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation City Water Resource Management City Water Resource Management Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited
Equity Equity
Commercial Commercial APMC
SEWA (Self Employed Women Association) SEWA (Self Employed Women Association) Saath Saath Sarwa Sarwa
(The Agricultural Produce Market Committee) APMC (Gujarat The Agricultural Produce Market Committee) Bazaar Association
Gujarat Bazaar Association Street Vendors’ Association Street Vendors’ Association
Environment Environment
Water Purification Treatment Association of Gujarat Water Purification Treatment Association of Gujarat IWWA(Indian Water Works Association) IWWA(Indian Water Works Association)
Religious Religious
Shree Jagannath Mandir Trust Committee Shree Jagannath Mandir Trust Committee Jamia Kanzul Uloom Jamia Kanzul Uloom
Neighborhood Neighborhood
Preservation Preservation
UNESCO UNESCO City Heritage Center City Heritage Center
CRUTA Foundation (Conservation and research of Urban CRUTA Foundation Traditional Architecture) (Conservation and research of Urban Traditional Architecture)
Ramdevpir community Ramdevpir community Khanja community Khanja community
Scrutinize Scrutinize
mental growth mental growth
ach and grow ach and grow
preciate and Entertain reciate and Entertain
her and Celebrate her and Celebrate
Critics: Critics:
Media Media
Citizens Citizens
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-16
6:00
DESIGN MATRIX Shade | Water | Structure
Shade
morning market
Water To offer flexibility of use and invite disparate users, this tool illustrates the different use of the elements and different temporal aspects- shade/ shadow, microatmospheres created by spraying of water and structures with wifi, electricity, and other utilities. The goal is to map different possibilities and anticipate the mechanisms to administer temporality and flexibility and enabling their adaptive nature.
dry
Structure
Music C-17
SEEDS
12:00 12:00 12:00
18:00 18:00 18:00
noon shade noon shade noon shade
evening evening leisure evening leisure time leisure time time
spray spray spray
Wifi Spot Wifi Spot Wifi Spot
wet wet
wet
HooksHooks Hooks
21:00 21:00 21:00
light corridor light corridor light corridor
mild mild mild
Projector Projector Projector
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-18
TAXONOMY Gate | Wall | Plaza Flexibility Scale Use
Collection Aquaduct
Time
Flexibility Scale Use
Reflection Plaza
The intervention registers different scales of space and time, addresses context and choreographs different regimes of human occupation. According to the change of different factors, people’s interaction with the intervention changes, thus enabling the inclusion of different ages, genders, religions and ethnic groups and the celebration of difference.
Time
Flexibility Scale Use
Slum Settlements Aquaduct
Time
Flexibility Scale Use
Turning Aquaduct
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SEEDS
Time
Flexibility
Flexibility
Religious Gate
Metal Gate
Time
Landscape Aquaduct
Time
Time
Natural Plaza
Time
Flexibility
Waterfall Plaza
Flexibility Scale Use
Stepwell Plaza
Time
Time
Flexibility
Flexibility
Flexibility
Scale Use
Scale Use Time
Flexibility Scale Use
Scale Use
Time
Time
Flexibility
Flexibility
Distribution Aquaduct
Ancient Gate
Scale Use
Scale Use
Infrastructural Aquaduct
Scale Use
Time
Flexibility Scale Use
Nature Gate
Flexibility
Scale Use
Scale Use
Terraced Plaza
Time
Scale Use
Territory Plaza
Time
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-20
SEEDING TIMELINE Gate | Wall | Plaza
The timeline of the project is incremental in nature: the seeds’ planting are scheduled in a long time span which allows observation and adaptation in the process. The general strategy is to “plant” the water infrastructure in the existing Jamalpur Gate first, to purify the water. The Plaza comes second, to activate the new interventions generated by the riverfront project and build space for water conservation. Last, the aqueduct opportunistically appropriates the existing walls and branches to bring water to the undeserved spaces of the neighborhoods to enable water circulation.
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SEEDS
Gate 1 Aquaduct 1 Aquaduct 6
Aquaduct 2
Gate 2
Aquaduct 6
Aquaduct 3
Aquaduct 7
Aquaduct 7
Gate 3
Aquaduct 5
Aquaduct 4
Plaza 3
Plaza 1
Plaza 4 Plaza 5
Plaza 2
AGENCY DIAGRAM
Public space in Ahmedabad is the result of the continuous negotiation among different groups, from the government to the business owners, vendors, citizens and domesticated animals. Devising novel models of open space governance and shaping the institutions that would take part in seeding the process is a critical component of the design. The aim is to establish Sustainable Emerging Embryonic Development Structure (SEED) that will unify and bring together different agencies, developers, funding and representation of communities to allow equitable growth and development.
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SEEDS
Initiate ₹
Sustainable Emerging Embryonic Development Studio (SEEDS)
Original Funding
Design Support
Guide and coordinate
Design Competition
Eligibility
Developer
Judges
IWWA(Indian Water Works Association)
Propagate
Street Venders’ Association
Awarded Team Honorable Mentions
Finance ₹₹₹
Saath
Raise
Second round of Funding Support
Detailed Design
Propose
Proposal
Negotiation
Self Employed Women Association (SEWA)
Join
OTHER AGENIES
Organize and Responsible
Citizens of Ahmedabad
Public Participation Revised proposal
Jamalpur Gate
Construction
Support
Jamalpur Gate Organize Activity
Check Point
Shree Jagannath Mandir Trust Committee
Preservation Construction Result Finance
UNESCO
Mantainance
Jamalpur Aquaduct
Incremental Growth ₹₹₹
Religion Association Funding
The Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC)
Support Participate
CRUTAF
Plaza building Agenda
South Aquaduct
Revised Design Stepwell Plaza
Construction ₹₹
Government Budget
Support
Public Participation
Revised Design
Support
Religious Donation Responsible
Maintainance ₹₹₹
Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation
Religion Association Funding Public Participation
Revised Design Construction ₹ Support
₹
Support
Reflection Plaza
Jamalpur Flower Market
Recreation Service Fee
Maintainance
Khanja community
Hindu community
Religious Donation Responsible
Maintainance
Check Point
AGENCIES ON SITE
Natural Plaza
Construction ₹
Ecology Preservation Construction Result Finance
Shree J Aquaduct Khanja Aquaduct
Organize Activity Incremental Growth
Finance
Market Association Financial Allocation
Plaza 2
Religion Association Funding
Negotiation
Jamia Kanzul Uloom
Gujari Bazaar Association
Aguaduct Agenda Sections Connections
Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited
Nodes Ends Logistics
Revised Design
Construction
Water Purification Treatment Association of Gujarat Support
Jamalpur Aquaduct Responsible
Jami Aquaduct Shree J Aquaduct
Responsible Support Responsible Support Responsible
Design
Negotiation
Gate
Local Community
Finance
Organize Activity
Plaza
Religion Association
Organize Activity
Aquaduct
Government Related
Check Point
Organize Activity
Water Circulation
Other Entities
Mantainance
Organize Activity
Construction
Water Circulation
Check Point
₹
LEGEND
Support
South Aquaduct
DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION
The drawing highlights larger connections between the three elements and define the spatial order. It speculates on the future use of the newly built form for diverse activities and uses. By planting SEEDS, the project raises larger questions on the agency of designers to enable the incremental co-production of urban space, ensure inclusive participatory frameworks and address people’s right to the city.
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SEEDS
Jamalpur Gate
Street food Festival
Ashram
Market Entrance
Street Market dwgmodels.com
Work in Progress Roof Playground
Domestic Gathering
Tie and Dye
Aangan
Flower Market
Sacret Fountain Celebration Plaza
SCENARIOS of CELEBRATIONS Ever-transforming Landscapes
Scenarios aim to highlight transforming use of space by different communities during everyday conditions and the extreme time of festivities. As a way to sparking imagination, the images showcase the Ramadan, the Kite Festival and the use of the sculpted unclaimed land by non-humans, urban dwellers.
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SEEDS
moc.sledomgwd
moc.sledomgwd
Plaza 3
Plaza 3
SHIFTING CITYSCAPES Ground Level Perspectives
The views reflect different occupation regimes and the presence of women, children, street vendors and other uncommon publics with the new water commons.
Seeding space for religious significance
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SEEDS
Seeding micro-atmospheres
Seeding space for women
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-30
SEEDING IN PROCESS
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SEEDS
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-32
BREAK OUT Xin Liu + Yiying Tang
BREAK OUT
The city of Ahmedabad grew along the seasonal sides of the Sabarmati River. Over the course of centuries, the city built a symbiotic relationship to the river. The waters of the Sabarmati nurtured the endless agricultural fields, powered the industries that modernized the city, and served as sacred and civic grounds for many of the citizens. Today, the Sabarmati Riverfront project has built the river into a static canal with adjacent roads and riverwalks, changing the former dynamic relationship of river and city forever. In the meantime, the citizens have gone from engaging the river in daily activities, to a more mental and diffuse connection for recreation and sightseeing. The homogeneous spatial strategy applied along the 11 kilometers of the Riverfront project has totally detached the experience of the river by the citizens: the emergence of busy four-lane, non-rickshaw allowed, roads and tall concrete walls act as barriers between the city and the river. These lines isolate the uses and users of these grounds: the Old Sunday Market was relocated to an area regulated by the Sabarmati Riverfront project, losing its former connection to the river as well as to the Old Walled City.
Image credit to HCP Design, Planning and Management Pvt. Ltd.
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BREAK OUT
BREAK OUT BACKGROUND - SEASONALITY
DRY SEASON
2002.7
RAINY SEASON
2003.11
AFTER RIVERFRONT PROJECT
2007.3
Several years ago, the river are susceptible to climate and its edge are shifting all the time. To some extent, the sabarmati riverfront development project immobilize the border and flatten the riverfront. Our project is based on this situation and focus on developing one empty land to make a comment and proposal for Ahmedabad’s development.
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BREAK OUT
Credit to: Upper images: 2019 DigitalGlobe Lower left image: rojnuamdavad. wordpress.com Lower middle image: HCP Design, Planning and Management Pvt. Ltd. Lower right image: Javed Raja
Before the project was implemented, people inhabited the riverbed for different activities along the different seasons: from sand collection, washing and dyeing, informal markets, cultivation and other emerging uses. With the Sabarmati Riverfront Project, the city government has
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BREAK OUT
Credit to: Upper left image: COUNTERVIEW.ORG Upper right image: Ahmedabadlife.com Lower left image: shutterstock.com Lower right image: Veditum
Credit, all images: Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited
imaged a generic, globalized city for the local elites and the national and international investors. The project includes activities similar to those found in other metropolis all around the world and the design exclude the average residents. However, the river belongs to all citizens.
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BREAK OUT SITE CONDITION
Looking at this area, there is a strong sense of delamination at both east-west direction and northsouth direction. Parallel to the river, the riverfront walks, the roads, the Sunday Market, the Flower Market, the large urban void that used to be a mill textile factory and the old city walls. North to south, the park, the void space, the designed market and plazas, the unplanned slums and the lowlands also contrast with each other. Based on the richness of spatial pre-existences and existing uses, and the analysis of plans for development, we regard this area as a cluster of opportunity to erode barriers and test a more inclusive and equitable model of urbanization.
PLAZA WALL
WALL & PLAYGROUND
RIVERFRONT
SUNDAY MARKET & WALL
FLOWER MARKET
PARKING WALL
RELIGIOUS BUILDING
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SUNDAY MARKET
PARKING WALL
SUNDAY MARKET & WALL
WALL & PLAYGROUND
2002.7
RIVERFRONT SUNDAY MARKET
2003.11
RELIGIOUS BUILDING
PLAZA WALL
FLOWER MARKET
NOW
2007.3
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-42
BREAK OUT RECONNECTED
These six diagrams show the pre and post organization of different urban systems enabling access and connections through increased transportation and waterfront access. Before the riverfront project was built, there was no formal road system along the river; now new parkways serve private cars, yet the site is still not accessible through public transportation. Pedestrian access is also fragmented and challenged. The proposal provides public transportation towards the site including the boating system and bus, increases permeability of pedestrian flows and adds pedestrian access by connecting the bridge with the riverfront walk.
Pre-Riverfront Project Transportation Networks
In addition to the existing Historic City Wall, the riverfront project has created another three walls that became barriers for people to get access to the river. The proposal embraces a multiplicity of strategies to hack the physicality of the walls: by penetrating, dissolving, over-passing and underpassing, the site gets reconnected. Pre-Riverfront Project Wall Conditions C-43
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Existing Transportation Networks
Existing Wall Conditions
Proposed Transportation Networks
Proposed Wall Conditions SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-44
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These six diagrams show the pre and post development land uses, and time flexibility in the activities in place, the existing transportation and the proposed transportation. The former riverbed used to host a great number of seasonal activities engaging low income citizens; today, the uses appear disconnected from the riverfront due to the walled nature of the developments. This proposal keeps the land anticipated by the Sabarmati Riverfront Project, while providing new programming to serve a more diverse set of publics and respect the surrounding context.
Pre-Riverfront Project Land Uses
Special emphasis goes to recover the temporal nature of different regimes of occupation, gaining this way some of the qualities lost. Together with the Sunday Market, the proposal focus in the activation of the grounds through formal and informal programs. Pre-Riverfront Project Time Flexibility C-45
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Existing Land Uses
Proposed Land Uses
Existing Time Flexibility - Weekend Occupation
Existing Time Flexibility - Weekday Occupation SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-46
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These six diagrams show the proposed time flexibility in five conditions: day and night, weekday and weekends, dry and rainy seasons, during festivities, now and future. During day time, the space is for commercial, institutional and business, and at nighttime, recreation takes over with people enjoying the waterfront path, the night-light and recreational facilities. During the week, some spaces serve for different activities: the inland river serves for recreation, the Sunday Market area serves for parking and as platform, and architecture serves for sightseeing; during weekdays, floating commerce takes over and the Sunday market and traditional market activate every inch. The seasonality is expressed by different scenery created by full-of-water condition and nowater condition. During special days, festivals occupy the site’s riverside and inner playgrounds. Apart from that, the proposal leaves some places for further development.
Proposed Time Flexibility - Weekend Occupation
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Proposed Time Flexibility - Weekday Occupation
Proposed Time Flexibility - Festivity Occupation
Proposed Time Flexibility - Seasonal Occupation
Proposed Time Flexibility - Now and Future SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-48
BREAK OUT DESIGN PROPOSAL
INSERTING
PENETRATING
RIVER MELTING
RECONSTRUCTION
FLUCTUATING EDGE
INDICATE
Re-organizing programs to make them more inclusive and diverse. As the Sabarmati Riverfront project gets implemented the social elite will mingle with tourists and citizens of lower incomes as part of an urban ecosystem that bring life back to the riverfront. Dedicated and spontaneous activities will coexist to ensure the site is an extension of the city grounds.
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ADDITIONAL USES
MARKET TYPES
TIME FLEXIBILITY
UNDEFINED SPACE
ENCLOSED AREA
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
Dissolving and blurring barriers between each program through four tactics. Firstly, breaking the physical walls in the site through programming and landscape. Secondly, redesigning the Sabarmati Riverfront project walls at specific points to create heterogeneous connections that relink the city context with the river. By penetrating the wall and
providing programming to shape an occupiable space, the comprehension of the river for both residents and visitors will be increased. Thirdly, we plan to build a road crossing space to add accessibility to the river. These systems will have little intervention of the current road system and help pedestrian cut through the road.
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Section A-A Exhibition Hall Area
Section B-B Commercial Area
Section C-C Office Area Finally, the proposal creates water space for people who come to the waterside, enriching the experience of the river. Building on the regenerative capacity of the monsoon, this pattern will be related to seasonality and enrich the water accessibility.
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This design corresponds to the existing situation and offers an imagination of the near future. So, it is an incremental construction that will become a more collective symbol of this developing metropolis. In this process, we devise how these programs should be built and discuss the possibility and flexibility of the riverfront project.
A
A
B
B
C C
N 0
20 40
80
160
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MARKET + EXHIBITION +WATER PROGRAMS
PENETRATING
RIVER MELTING
FLUCTUATING EDGE
The north part of the site included an informal market. The government project plans a commercial area which is the starting point of Sunday Market. As the site awaits development, people play sport or just hang around. However, all these activities are segregated by the highway now.
INDICATE
UNDEFINED SPACE
TIME FLEXIBILITY
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UNDEFINED SPACE
FLUCTUATING EDGE
TIME FLEXIBILITY
ADDITIONAL USES
PENETRATING
INDICATE
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-54
COMMERCIAL AREA + PLAYGROUND
INSERTING
PENETRATING
RIVER MELTING
The middle part of the site focus on the provision of formal retail activities while enabling the incorporation of informal vendors and the expansion of the Sunday Market The logic of the commercial area is a combination of interior brand store and outdoor traditional market. The playground aims to activate the site, and other open spaces for active and passive recreational activities frame the transitional zone towards the office area to the south.
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ADDITIONAL USES
MARKET TYPES
RECONSTRUCTION
RIVER MELTING
MARKET TYPES
PENETRATING
ADDITIONAL USES INSERTING
RECONSTRUCTION
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OFFICE + PUBLIC SPACE + PARKING
ADDITIONAL USES
INDICATE
UNDEFINED SPACE
The creation of office spaces aims to attract foreign investment while offering an image of modernity. This design embraces the productive uses and plays the gains to offer increased transit, parking and much welcome shade while establishing public spaces.
ENCLOSED AREA
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
TIME FLEXIBILITY
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UNDEFINED SPACE
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
ADDITIONAL USES
ENCLOSED AREA
TIME FLEXIBILITY
INDICATE
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TIME FLEXIBILITY MONSOON SEASON Time flexibility regarding seasonality, and more specifically, the use of water. This area offers the opportunity for people to engage with water through many different activities.
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TIME FLEXIBILITY WEEKEND The collage shows the flexibility in accommodating different activities during the weekday and weekend. The space can be used in multiple ways. The bridge path and bus stop provide increased accessibility for urban dwellers coming from across the city.
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TIME FLEXIBILITY DAY AND NIGHT Day and Night. The light system marks the difference. Light provides a quick and safe wayfinding of entry and exit routes and also act as markers to find some activities happening around them.
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TIME FLEXIBILITY - FUTURE The last collage talks about city development and globalization. The landscape and activities will be shaped by city development. and users. Programming of riverfront project will follow city citizen’s need and change all the time.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-62
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These models are four fragments of the project. It includes exhibition + riverfront, various market, office development and reconstruction of the Sunday Market. These models show the time flexibility in different scale. The reconstruction area model focuses on the different usage of the under highway area and Sunday Market between weekends and holiday; the exhibition+riverfront and various market focuses on seasonality, and the office development focuses on the prospective of now and future.
THE RIVER IS AN ILLUSION Yanbo Li
The River is an Illusion
The Sabarmati River exists as an illusion for the citizens of Ahmedabad. Over the past decade, the distant Narmada River waters have brought a dead Sabarmati to life. This vital transfusion transformed the Sabarmati from an uncertain, seasonal river into a postcard-driven waterscape for the globalizing city. This process is far from sustainable, and the dams, barrages, and hard edge riverfront promenades have consumed the energy, funding and imagination of the public. Despite the muchawaited first-class waterfront for the metropolis, the appearance only hides a much larger crisis: the Sabarmati waters run dead through the city signaling a broken ecosystem. There is no double effect: the Sabarmati River is today an illusion. The river was a river. Lying in the middle of a city subject to extreme droughts and bountiful monsoons, the urban dwellers saw the Sabarmati as a steady water resource sarcastically lying in the middle of a city where people struggled for hundreds of years to access water. The vast view today people have of their ‘river’ is an illusion of water resources. And with disregard of the environmental issues people want to keep this illusion until future. Six urban scenarios celebrate the domination of human ambition over the river nature. In the resulting narratives, certain urban structures retain the image or memory of water that no longer exists. Urban dwellers enjoy their possession of the river, and make-believe the “vigorous” Sabarmati river continues to be an illusion.
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The river is Structured Containers
The river is a choreography of structured containers and well calibrated pools. It is highly controlled water pools and reservoirs, channels and damns, crossing the manmade territory. These containers celebrate the monopoly of cities in terms of water distribution and utilization. In order to serve the cities, a total of 598 structures are constructed upon the 458 km length of the Narmada Canal System, cutting through rivers and tributaries to domesticate water and frame it in ‘manufactured pools’. This mechanical system has a capacity to flow 1133 cumecs at its head and irrigate 17 district, 79 talukas and 3,125 villages in Gujarat. Once it leaves the state in its way to Rajasthan the capacity reduces to 71 cumecs. It was not to long ago that the state government alerted farmers that reserves in the Sardar Sarovar reservoir had dropped by 45% -
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the lowest in 15 years. In 2018, the government cut off water for irrigation to support the insatiable domestic use of city dwellers. As our society continue to admire the ‘manufactured pools’ as expression of the unlimited human capacity to commodify water, we fail to register the immense network behind our tap. A feast of tubes, pumps and pipes, crossed by recreational routes lead the way to experiencing contained waters and unfold the sheer scale of the transformation of the environment manifested in these benign ‘pools’. Across the territory, the Narmada canal system powers rivers and moistures the land. Architectures to observe and indulge our control of the planet, recreational routes that offer desirable holiday destinations, all along the endless system of pools, water containers that keep our imagination captive.
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The river is Extraction Competition
The river is now a competition for increasing water extractive capacities. Infrastructures and other artifacts dig into the ground and compete for domination of the scarce resource of clean water. The experience of the intense depletion of groundwater rest under the guise of a calmed and plentiful surface water body. The water has always been a scarce resource in the region, and the crisis has continued to worsen in recent years, yet it seems out sight for the urban dweller. In a single year, Gujarat uses almost 19.79 bcm of water, of which 12.3 bcm is used for irrigation and 1.14 bcm is used for domestic and industrial purposes. The groundwater level has dropped 54% in the past seven years, with the water level sinking 9-20 ft per year down to about 600 ft below ground level, risking irreversible salinization of aquifers. Yet the City Water Department doesn’t tell the full story. Urban dwellers live the illusion of secured water access, and this is gradually dismissing the need for more awareness
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on the regional consumption patterns and climate projections. As a response, the interventions here provide a reinterpretation of inverted observation towers acting as wells to witness the ever-increasing efforts of farmers’ to access underground water. A spiral-diving structure opens as observatory for the urban dwellers to immerse themselves in the search for water, deeper and deeper every time. An unusual introduction to the grounded memories and local histories welcome visitors and newcomers. The structure is an amplifier that brings human domination upon nature under the surface. Diving deep within the French well and witnessing the depleted groundwater aquifers, the intervention stretches to the sides for cell rooms reinterpreting the role of water infrastructures in the formation of social identities. The contrast between the movement in the tube and the stillness in the room provoke a sense of unease on the excessive water extraction witnessed.
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The river is Collective Commons
The river is now a collective nature commons, a man-made compromise to hold a last resort of nature in Ahmedabad where different non-human species expelled from the city can find a new home. First, animals were barred from streets, parks and left-over spaces. Then, zoos and botanical gardens redevelop into luxurious condominiums. As trees died to the lack of water in the urban jungle, birds also left in a journey to discover greener latitudes. The illusion of the river as the last nature reservoir, the last piece of urban nature left, it illustrates the environmental-urban crises of our time. Ahmedabad, despite being highly urbanized, remains a significant spot for migrant birds and bovid mammals. Gujarat has an unrivalled diversity of ecosystems reflected in the rich and varied birdlife of the state. The city itself renders rich urban scenes where cows, camels, elephants and dogs occupy the most prominent open spaces. Through hundreds of
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years, animals convene around the river for water, food and settlement. Under the human dominance, people continues to convene at the riverfront to stretch every urban activities: bazaars, textile processing, grazing, farming and fishing on the riverbed and inhabiting the riverbanks. The intensity of human occupation and the nature of development in recent decades rendered water dead forever detaching all animal species from the river. In this illusion, a slice of land cut through the enclosed river, exposing the riverbed open for occupation, an artifical “heaven� for natural existence. In this enclosed enclave, an uncanny zoo is constituted with captive fish ponds, artificial wetland and shelters to accommodate all creatures that were once welcome in the city. Humans remain detached, standing on the high ground, carefully surveying activity beyond the fence.
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The River is a Replaceable Terminal
The river is now a replaceable terminal of water discharge. An integrated water recycling megastructure stands on top of the city to guaranty self-sustained water provision. Out of this frame, human life manifests their independence from the river system and the water cycle itself. The megastructure integrates a holistic water treatment network. Ahmedabad currently has a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) capacity of 1075 mld, processed by 9 sewage treatment plants concentrated at the downstream. While the STPs struggle to curve water pollution, domestic and industrial waste water generation peeks every new day. On the other side, the water tax remains too low - Rs 0.50 per 1000 liter- to arise affordability for water usage, but insufficient for total clean-up costs. This way, the only partially treated water is discharged from the plant directly plunging into the river as it leaves the city.
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The project tackles this situation by deploying a massive floating Water and Weather Treatment Tree (W2T2). Used water travels in and around through a route of incremental decontamination and recreational use: this new civic infrastructure enables treated water to go through a series of platforms of public programs. After being used by urban dwellers and industries, water is discharged, collected and re-appropriated for a series of educational and recreational uses in public programs of museums, aquatic plant parks, experimental farming, etc. The public eye is brought to address the water commons again, where this most precious liquid public resource is embraced and stewarded by the civil society. A new urban chart of collaborative action and citizens’ responsibilities instigate the intervention into the water exodus and turn it into a multi-pronged regenerative process. The new model of urban governance cultivates a new sense of shared, collective ownership. The machinic architectural expression of the infrastructure celebrates a future that benefits an amplified sense of collective sharing over individual resource consumption.
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The River is Public Condenser
The river is now a public condenser. From a non-place and address to none, it becomes a place bridging west and east, past and present, the old and the new. Suspended from the very infrastructures that enabled the city to overcome the river as a separator, a collection of artifacts recognizes the riverbed as a center piece in the city. This illusion celebrates the historic relationship between river and city and the many meanings and identities that frame this complex relationship. Bridges celebrate the existence of the river marking the desire to go across, to transverse it. Ahmedabadis used to walk through the riverbed during the dry season, hosting a complex choreography of activities and ephemeral occupation. Not anymore. Bridges are today the only platforms to situate imagine a projected occupation of the riverbed. At the same time, bridges function is to facilitate the
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transportation, the effective crossing back and forth over the Sabarmati. British colonists and Indian elites were the instigators of the first fly-over in 1873. The Ellis Bridge first bridged western and eastern parts of the river. In 1939, the Gandhi Bridge, was built to connect the old city to the new territory; the Nehru Bridge followed in 1962, serving as an artery of major public transport for the city. Today, no utilitarian infrastructure of the present could better trace connections between people and place and the future than a bridge. The system of suspended platforms extend the function of the bridge, transforming a conduit into place and projecting public gatherings by the riverbed. Platforms of public programs of mobile exhibition, informal forums, viewpoint pavilions, and docks for transporting. A new urban water commons.
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The River is Intangible Value
The river is now recognized as an important intangible value, worshiped and dearly beloved. An aquarium of religious and spiritual retreats, temples and deities embodying the essence of theism and holiness.
and chapels, and many more places of meditation and connection link with the intangible values the urban dwellers assign to water. Religion is not any longer a divisive weapon or politicized field instigating exclusion and urban violence: instead, spiritual institutions come together in the riverbed to celebrate otherness and There is no dearth of sacred places in and steward water as an urban water commons. around Ahmedabad, and many of those celebrate their physical and mental connections to water. Many Underwater ashrams emerge to articulate religions and diverse mystical practices coexist in the intangible sacredness of water in these spiritual Ahmedabad, thereby indicating a strong collective retreats. Floating platforms shadow the ashrams to spirituality and a close connection with water as a offer transportation access. The perception of distancesacred element. This many spiritual practices differ in -with proper accessibility and ambiguous visibility— their teachings and practices, and their festivities and creates an unprecedented pilgrimage experience inside places of wordship punctuate the urban landscape. the illusion of the river. Temples and mosques, shrines and ashrams, churches
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SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-90
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The Illusion is more than a River These illusions are reality – so as the human overexploitation of water resources in these incongruous scenarios. By rendering visible the ever-increasing water consumption patterns our society has indulged, these six stories call for a renewed environmental stewardship. These six scenarios reimagine the potentialities of different futures for the Sabarmati river and its cities. Human disregard for the environment and sustainability makes these imaginary projects possible in the Sarbamati River – and foreseeable in other water bodies impacted by human urbanization across the globe. Through the eyes of the designer, six situations trace the illusion of a river that it is not. Underlying beneath them is an urban reality of the long-term consequences of contemporary urbanization trends and the dismissive treatment of finite resources in our civilization. At its heart, this project sheds light on the hidden mechanisms that enable water artifice in the urban scenes we consume today. Raising awareness and building a different imagination upon the formulation of the river as an illusion, this project aims to provoke a conversation that would bring together the urban and rural dwellers in a collective plight for survival. Resisting site-specificity, the project recognizes the universality of the water crisis and invite to a much-needed larger conversation as key to open a wider horizon of possibility.
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WALL AS HETEROTOPIA Angong Li
Wall as Heterotopia This project contemplates the recent urban development of Ahmedabad and addresses the legacy of social segregation, profitdriving policy, urban texture erasure and citizens’ identity loss. The urgency to address the preservation of the city’s collective memories and the formation of a renewed urban commons seems more critical than ever. Simultaneously, the agency of design is questioned in its capacity to provoke alternative, more just urban narratives. Responding to this unique situation, the project interrogates the Sabarmati Riverfront Project in its capacity to instigate a new urban commons and establish novel social relationships. How can architecture and urbanism take on the responsibilities of socio-political reform? “Wall as Heterotopia” engages in these questions by reading the city as found and re-establishing new urban imaginaries. The project takes the pervasive city type of the “urban wall” as a potential form of power resistance. Through the registration of contextual observations, walls are containers of a multiplicity of identities, markers of difference in the urban continuum. By intervening in these areas, the project offers a series of systematic adaptations that accommodate existing urban incidents, conflicts, protections, and divisions. The heterogeneity of the “wall” articulates other worlds possible in the city.
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Wall as the Form of Power Resistance
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AN EXHIBITION OF CITY NARRATIVES CITY MEMORY AND URBAN WALL
As the biggest city in Gujarat, Ahmedabad plays a key role in the development and prosperity of the state. The speed and nature of the urban transformation can be seen in the texture of the urban sprawl and the quick changes imposed in the city’s periphery. From all these recent changes, the scars left by the Sabarmati Riverfront Project are the most visible crossing the heart of the city. With the transformation of the former fluid river landscapes into a concrete canal, the citizen’s urban memories are also in flux. This is, perhaps the biggest sacrifice during the developing process: the original seasonal occupations are gone, and past citizen habitats have disappeared. The memory of the city is fading away in this process and there is no way back.
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The phenomenon of the urban wall is as old as the city itself, and today it evidences the many types of segregation in Ahmedabad. Many walls were built in history and eroded over time, starting by the City Wall enclosing the Old City. Others have a more recent manufacture and are less stable in nature, like the city border. These real or ghosted walls, and many others, change and acquire new meanings over time. Some aim to protect minorities and underprivileged groups, other mark the territory to enact exclusionary practices, other respond to the construction of thresholds and transitions.
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The presence of the “Urban Wall” in the city is pervasive, and its articulation has different forms and meanings in different places and for different groups of people. Although “Urban Walls” carry negative connotations, I argue they are the keepers of difference in the highly homogenizing practices of urbanization. As a unique but common spatial concept, these walls contain multiple activities and events. My investigation reveals the morphology of different types of “walls” enable different degrees of “transparency” and “permeability,” qualities that are further appropriated by certain groups of people.
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HETEROTOPIA FOUR SITES
This design exploration takes on that many other interventions in four sites of historical relevance which are located in the city along the Sabarmati River. The first site exists at the confluence of a large railway terminal, the highly pollutant Torrent thermal power station, the jail, and other infrastructural and modest residential areas. The second site is located along the tributary and marks the ruins of the green belt, the evidence of urban planning failure to guide development and contain urban sprawl in 20th century. The third site takes on the Gates along the15th century Old City Wall and marks the memory of the emergence of the city. And last, the administrative city border embodies the segregation between Hindu and Muslim communities after 2002 Gujarat riot.
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Site Selection and Existing Urban Wall Territory
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In their materialization, the walls embody different concepts of the urban commons by building new walls or transferring existing walls.
THE COMMONS BORDER Water as Urban Commons
The “commons border” is located downstream of the Sabarmati River, at the confluence of the river and the city’s administrative boundary. This borderland is a locus of high concentration of unwanted, yet necessary metropolitan infrastructures, that cut across the west to the east riverbank. Water is the urban commons in this location, framing the disparate types that urbanize water in the contemporary city. A new urban wall registers water in its many states and brings together different programs to embrace the many water values. Water cycles crossing many artificial landscapes: the waterfall, the temple, the pool, the treatment area, the bridge and the observation deck. By marking the urban border with a civic institution, the project invites exploration and discovery of species, rituals and customs that embody otherness.
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Water as Urban Commons Open to Different Religions’ Uses
THE COLLAPSE OF TIME Memory as Urban Commons
Along the Old City Wall, the gates mark the moments of exchange intensity between the old and the new, history and modernity. In these sites, “memory becomes the urban commons,� a memory made of the many identities and conflicting narratives that have historically shaped urban life. In its unfinished state and provisional nature, this intervention aims to draw public attention on the vanishing heritage and the rich folklore at risk. The materials include light and local wood, bamboo and textiles. As the construction and reconstruction of urban memories is always in the making, the intervention keeps changing, as people could change these memorials as they want.
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Building New Urban Commons as the Response of Various Citizenship
CELEBRATION OF NATURE Nature as Urban Commons
This site marks the mouth of the only visible tributary of the Sabarmati River inside Ahmedabad, and sites on the ruins of the urban green belt. In its present condition, the area hosts the larger slum area in the city: a culturally diverse neighborhood that offers an entry point to the city by those migrating from other regions. The proposal calls for the cultivation of nature to give shape to a new urban commons. The wall here softens and curves, enacts itself and dematerializes, and exists as a mental condition that connects the city to its lost natures. The new wall stewards a micro-ecological system that combines water treatment, food production, art installation space and plenty opportunities for human and non-human occupation.
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Rainwater Storage
Balanced Environment of Nature and Human Inhabitant
POST FORDIST NETWORK Education as Urban Commons
Located upstream, in the north of the city, the site has different wall conditions fragmenting the urban experience: the railway spurs, the jail, and a high polluted energy station. In the midst of these large urbanisms of production, small, almost imperceptible educational institutions punctuate an otherwise post-human landscape: a high school, an elementary school, small college units and the educational programs based at the jail, all operate independently, unaware of each other. These places are secluded, isolated by the thick layers of infrastructure onsite, but hold the potential of restaging an education network shaping the notion of the post-Fordist site. Education will be the new urban commons here, bringing together different institutions through the enactment of a large megastructure holding the educational campus of the future.
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The new educational institution is highly permeable, and operates as a superstructure independent of the ground, only touching it to access basic utilities and regenerate it. Exiting railway, power station and river provide land, energy and water for the network to work. The structure is open to the public and it links to the metro way: the adjacent educational nodes are connected by cable car to the central education station, giving form to an institutional network that supersedes the former Fordist regime. The urban memory is preserved by injecting new functions and collectives in this site.
These four heterotopia are experiments of new urban commons along the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad. As developments keep going, there will be more in the future......
DROUGHT, GHOST CITY Andrea Marquez
Drought, Ghost City A History of the Future This design investigation stirs a democratic dialogue to reveal water as a convener of new collectives within the Old City of Ahmedabad. The investigation addresses women’s entrepreneurship, provides healthy spaces for children, and creates a safety net for elders to remain in their communities of choice. Through a set of surgical urban interventions, the centuries old water infrastructure that lay dormant beneath the surface in the Old City become re-activated. Underutilized lots are injected a new life, retrofitted with cooperative economic opportunities that give back agency to the long-term, underserved urban dwellers. Incrementally, forming from within, the Old City form pockets of an urban oasis stewarding a renewed urban commons for the very people who are often left without a voice.
Left image: Many ornamented homes across the Old City are becoming vacant or facing decay. However, their rich vast history and unique ornate culture will forever contain worlds and stories within. (originally produced for Arch 516: Representation; critic: Perry Kulper)
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-132
ornament as pawn
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
Erasure and replacement of ornamented facades (Photos from French Report 1988)
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OLD AND NEW CITY
The Sabarmati River runs from north to south dividing the city in two. On the east river banks lays the Old City, with the original walled settlement that originated the city and the expansions during the first decades of last century. To the west, the New City defies any nostalgia of the past. The colonization of the west bank of the Sabarmati was fast and came to host many of the most important civic institutions. Today, east and west look at the future with critically different needs and ambitions. Lying on the east, the Historic Walled City is recently designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, only a close examination of the socio-spatial networks in place can help project past and present into the future.
The divide between the Old and New City are becoming more prevalent
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
N
SABARMATI RIVER
DELHI G
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OLD AHMEDABAD
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RAILWAY STATION
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AQUIFER WELL water nest_women
GE
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TE BÁRÁDARI GA
STEPWELL
BHADRA FORT
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HKU
printshop cafe_family
D PAN
WATER TANK bakery_elder
PUR
ANG
SÁR
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RÁM GATE
RÁYKHAD GATE
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GATE
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DIA ASTO
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TE MAHUGHA GA
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KH
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JAH
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GA TE
UNESCO BUFFFER WALLED CITY SULTAN AHMED + FAMILY TOMBS RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION 1855
MUSLIM
HINDI
PARSI
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-136 0
100
300
500
1.0 km
stepwell
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
well
water tank
Old City streets provide spatial evidence for its historic past and current state of evolution; segregated caste businesses (shown in red) and pols (sub neighborhoods), along with fortification gates (at pol entries) are still prevalent today.
HINDU TEMPLE
6:30 Dinner
Shree Swaminarayan Mandir
5:30pm Evening Prayer
11:30 am Third delivery
Electronics
AD
Kharakua ni Pol
11:00 am Second delivery
Water Nest Clothing
12:00 pm Fourth delivery
KALUPUR 10:45 am Cools off in stepwell 10:15 am Elder is picking up new signage for their bakery business.
@Home vs Water Nest
EF RO
RELI
1:30pm Domestic Chores
12:30pm Midday Prayer 11:00 am Prepares Lunch
Vav 10:10 am Waiting for delivery
Print Shop
Ratanpur Pol
10:00 am Streets starting to become filled with life
Jewelry
12:30 pm Fifth delivery
9:30 am Drop off child
Khajuri Pol
RD
8:30 am Making breakfast Books
TA
NK
SH
AL
9:58 am First delivery
7:35 am Morning prayer
GANDHI RD
Jama Masjid
DAILY ROUTINES
Chanawala Ol MANDAN GOPAL HAVELI MARG
MOSQUE
9:15 am Elder wakes up to eat breakfast. His roommates prepare his deliveries for the day.
6:00 am Mother wakes up to store water and wash
Old City
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-138
URBAN GROWTH
Nearly 8 million people live and work in Ahmedabad, the largest city in the prosperous state of Gujarat. In 1970, the city had 1.6 million inhabitants, and despite experiencing an acute de-industrialization that left many citizens unemployed, and the riots in the early 2000, the city has only continued to grow, consuming more and more land and expanding well beyond the confines of the city limits. C-139
DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
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LAYERS OF THE OLD CITY
Carefully analyzing the urban layout and its historic formation provides a familiar framework to embed the proposed structure within them. This model takes apart 4 layers to better understand the composition of a pol in Kalupur neighborhood. The dormant water tanks are shown first in contrast to the few wells and the proposed water nest (later described in the following pages). The current city pipes are shown on the second layer, which demonstrate why the bathrooms and piping must be pushed to the exterior to tap into them. The third layer shows building footprints and the labyrinth nature of pols followed by the layout of streets, whose gendered or caste occupation is determined by its width and visibility.
TANKS TANKS
WATER WATER INFRASTRUCTURES INFRASTRUCTURE
WELLS WELLS WATER WATER NEST NEST
CITY ++ RAINWATER PIPES CITY RAINWATER PIPES
BUILDING FOOTPRINTS BUILDING FOOTPRINTS
GENDERED ++ CASTE STREET GENDERED CASTE STRE
KHARAKUA nini POL KHARAKUA POL KALUPUR NEIGHBORHOOD KALUPUR NEIGHBORHOOD
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
S
TS
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-142
INEQUITABLE ACCESS Water as Urban Commons
INEQUITABLE ACCESS to basic resources persist and urban dwellers have only partial access to water in a region subject to long-cycles of water scarcity and severe droughts. As the city continues to attract new urban dwellers looking for jobs in the thriving urban economy, pressures on the environment and limited access to water continue to increase. Despite these challenges, cumulative potentials exist in places where current residents may not expect.
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Color and life revealed through textiles and clothing worn by women
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BACKGROUND
This project takes on an exploration to address four urban problematics in the Old Walled City: uneven water access and decentralized management, environmental challenges and their public health impacts, demographic disparities and the need of support networks and the accelerated decay of the traditional architectural styles and ornaments. These four problematics are interrelated, and they contribute to further disconnect this part of the city from surrounding districts and isolate their residents. The project seeks to re-frame, using strategically placed small urban interventions, the mechanisms to give agency back to the urban dwellers who need it most. Concurrently, they reveal the
hidden histories of Ahmedabad through narratives and artifacts that disclose how the UNESCO World Heritage City nomination can become a paradox if participatory governance is not at the heart of the protection efforts. Adding to the scars from the 2002 riots that already secluded many internal neighborhoods and polls from public access, the impacts of the UNESCO recognition start to be noticed. With increased tourism, more inner streets are closed off to prevent unwanted exploration and community meetings are moved away from chowks. More buildings have become dilapidated, demolished, or abandoned as people want to rebuild before strict urban
regulations to protect the local heritage are enacted. That and the exodus of property owners who decide to move out due to the lack of affordability and outdated infrastructure are rapidly transforming the area. Before the city puts in place the necessary mechanisms to protect the historic fabric, there is a battle between aesthetic conservation and the need of increased street accessibility, which has become a primary topic of conversation in the neighborhoods. As more changes occur in the Old City, long term dwellers continue to leave as they feel disconnected and disempowered. At the same time, a wave of temporary workers and migrants comes in.
In the event of extreme drought where municipal city pipes no longer carry enough water for the increasing 8 million inhabitants in Ahmedabad... what if the old city and its historic underground network is the only answer to resort to in avoiding this outcome?
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
facade types
typical section through narrow street
POL HOUSE FLOOR PLAN TYP.
E OP OF a RO rainw for
OATLA water activities
FEMALE SPACE TYP.
CHABUTARO bird feeder
RESID
ENT
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CHOWK DO OR room bed
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SCALES OF THE OLD CITY
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CHAKLA, public - public junction at 3 main streets - near high traffic space of bazaar - facade for “hidden” mosques and sacred spaces
CHOWK, semi-public - semi-public junction between 3 subordinate streets - surrounded by commerce but near residential - chabutaro (bird feeder) + nomad water faucet - communal well or stepwell
PUR, a neighborhood - religion based - district
POL, a sub-neighborhood - community oriented - gate entry - trade or caste based
DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
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CHOKTHA, semi-private - semi-private junction at 2-3 subordinate streets - chabutaro as focal point - within residential - pop-up temples or other spaces of ritual
OATLA, a stage for activity - caste based - convex corners: business and commerce - concave corners: intimate and private
rm A TL tfo OA ry pla ent
DILAPIDATED / Scars from the 20 neighborhoods an impacts of the UN noticed and strict enforced to protec issues with afford
POL HOUSES
- multi-generationa - socioeconomic sta - bathroom + wash - recently, the first
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DILAPIDATED / VACANT / DEMOLISHED Scars from the 2002 riots secluded many neighborhoods and pols from public access. The impacts of the UNESCO recognition start to be noticed and strict urban regulations become enforced to protect the local heritage, creating issues with affordability, [in]visibility, and distrust.
POL HOUSES - multi-generational family 3-4 story home - socioeconomic status via: ornamentation or removal - bathroom + wash basin on front exterior oatla - recently, the first floor is turned over to commerce
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WATER TANK SITE_elder Ahmedabad has a significant abandoned elderly population. This elderly man lives on a popular street but cannot afford to repair his home from the 2014 earthquake. He lives in the khadki of his home and receives a small sum of Rs 700 a month from his son in Mangladore.
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STEPWELL SITE_mother Ahmedabad is more traditional than other Indian cities regarding the place and expectations of women. This woman is a mother to a son who aspires to be an architect, as she does, and wishes to renovate their old home. Her husband has a print making business where she must remain at home.
MULTI-LAYERED NETWORK ACTIVATION, ADOPTION, & INSERTION
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-152
MIR Z
AP UR
RD
KHANPUR
NEHRU BRIDGE
RELIEF ROAD
BHADRA
GAND
MOSQ
DANAPITH
RD
Jama
ELLIS BRIDGE I VIVE
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
KANA
ND RD
GPO RD
SWAM
HINDU TEMPLE
GEEKAN TA
RD
Shree Swaminarayan Mandir
Electronics
AD
F RO
RELIE
Kharakua ni Pol Water Nest Clothing
KALUPUR Vav Print Shop
L
A
H
KS
RD
N
TA
Ratanpur Pol Jewelry
Khajuri Pol GANDHI RD Books
Amrutvarshini Vav
DHI RD Bakery
Chanawala Ol
QUE
Ghasiram ni Pol
Masjid
Amrit Varshini Vav MANEK CHOWK RD
KHADIA
ASTODIA
RAIPUR
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
What does it mean to be a woman confined to the inner streets of the Old City and be routinely tied to fulfill domestic duties? How can one be fruitful, pure, bear life, and fetch water in a polluted, drought, ghosting city? How can women gain access to property ownership, economic self-sufficiency and full citizenship rights?
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-156
THE PROPOSAL The first intervention empowers women (who are invisible in the bazaar areas and the main streets) to become a part of an urban commons outside of their domestic sphere. Rehabilitating a chowk or a stepwell are no longer self-fulfilling answers if they do not address main concerns expressed by residents. The intervention invites women to fetch water in a collective social space during their daily routine in a location where men are not allowed. This first component of the oasis pocket offers a place where women and children are free to breathe clean air and drink pure water since the filters and plants naturally purify it. It is a place where they have full autonomy. It is a place where water is cultivated. THE WELL Camouflaged by two facades, a nested water construct acts as a hybrid inverse stepwell by extracting and recharging water from the aquifer and becoming a storage facility during monsoon season. This site is located on a demolished lot next to a historic chabutaro and a public well near the edge of a main street. The site taps into the existing framework of the pol and provides an opportunity for women to occupy the edges of the quarter, while maintaining privacy and social control of their public presence. There are craft making spaces, co-op offices, a health center, private bathrooms, bath houses, and terrace gardens. Workshops and education programs are also offered in the classrooms. The falling water through the space keeps the place cool and calming. This goal of this intervention is to spark a social community that can revive the historic water infrastructures of wells and tanks and seed a sense of security and opportunity for growth in the Old City.
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
RESIDENCE COURYARD SWEET MART
OUTLET CLOTHING
BUILT 1822
CHOWK
ON S
TEA HOUSE
/ 29 2 ft
WA TER
CO NN
ECT I
SWAMINARAYAN HINDU TEMPLE
RAI N
HOTEL
89 m
ARY IMA G IN
E
CAF
JEWLERY STORE
RESID
ENTIA
MEN’S STORE
JAIN
JAIN TEMPLE
L NET
WORK S
LE EMP
T
MEN’S STORE
MOSQUE
CHOWK 23°01'44.3"N 72°35'33.2"E
ELECTRONICS
96.25 m
/ 315.8 ft
23°01'44.3"N 72°35'33.2"E GENERAL STORE
JAIN TEMPLE
TECH CONSULTANT
VIDEO GAMES
/ 28 SHOES
E
PLAC PIZZA
BOOK HOUSE
RELIEF
ORE BOOT ST
CALICO DOME
ROAD HINDU
BY ME INSPIRED GEODESIC DO B. FULLER RE CLOTHING STO
CHABUTARO/BIRD HOUSE
E
TEMPL
TV+VIDEO CENTER
JAIN TEMPLE
CHOWK 23°01'41.8"N, 72°35'31.7"E
PLE
JAIN TEM
SILK STORE
ELECTRONICS
88 m
ING CLOTH STORE BANK
RE
GENERAL STO
ft
ELECTRONICS
8.7
CHOWK
SSES SUNGLA STORE
KHARAKUA ni POL FURNITURE
CURTAIN STORE
CHOWK
E
PEN STOR
FRAME STORE
ANT
RM G DO
RY
KS TAN
STATIONA
JAIN TEMPLE
ORIN REST
SPORTS STORE DAIRY
JAIN TEMPLE
N
KALUPUR NEIGHBORHOOD SITE PLAN
RE-ACTIVATED STREET HATCH
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-158
RESTORED WATER TANK
REVIVED COMMUNAL WELL
EXISTING TREE
NEW TREE
WATER NEST
RAINWATER NEST COLLECTOR + WELL
THE TANK ... is located on Chanla Ol and proposes a co-production workspace. Even though the elder lives on a busy street, there are still signs of abandonment and material decay on the block. With his approval, his home becomes adopted as part of a domestic trust. His two neighbors’ growing bakery businesses will this way expand to form a walk-in cafe. The elder now has a steady form of income with food security. The rear rooms on the first floor that were once covered in post-earthquake debris are now renovated for use. There is a communal kitchen and dining that can use filtered rainwater from the renewed water tank beneath them. Offices, living, and bedrooms are on the upper floors for the younger adults. The steps stretch along the edge inviting customers to pause for just a moment longer than before. THE STEPWELL along the path to a temple lead us to a family home with a printing business and a young son, and aspiring architect. The first floor is darkly lit and flooded with equipment, strong smells and colorful inks. The kitchen was moved up to the second floor along with an extension room on the terrace. However, to the right side of the home, there is a long vacant lot leading up to a closed off stepwell. In adopting this vacant lot, the home can open up with a window leading out into the street and the architect can have his small office participating from the quiet city life in the area.
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
Rear existing facade demonstrating an activated corner condition connecting to Water Nest.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-160
The local organization, AWAG’s (Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group) “offer awareness raising, psychosocial assistance, medical treatment and promote the right of all women and girls to live a life free of violence and abuse”
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
HelpAgeIndia is the local organization on the ground that “It advocates for elder friendly policies and their implementation thereof. It works hand-in-hand with Senior Citizens Associations understanding elder needs working with and for them. The aim is to serve elder needs in a holistic manner, enabling them to live active, dignified and healthier lives.�
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-162
EMEDDED LAYERING ...is a form of adoption and collaboration within the existing framework that can begin at the policy level, by enabling novel models of historic stewardship for the impoverish and traditional underserved urban dwellers in the Old City. This way, vacant lots and dilapidated homes can form an economic incentive for neighbors who seek to expand their business and gain civic representation. A collaborative and joint method of reclaiming the Old City challenges existing power structures who seek to maintain passive residents.
As the city’s historic image gains international interest, its decay is an underlying factor that impacts the future trajectory and health of Ahmedabad as a whole.
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
NESTED
AIR FILTRATION
RAINWATER HARVESTING WATER FILTRATION TERRACE ROOF GARDEN
HEALTH CENTER
CO-OP OFFICES CRAFT ROOMS
STREET WIDTH 12 ft
COMMONS
STREET WIDTH 21 ft
EXISTING REACTIVATED
EXISTING VACANT LOT REBUILT
COMMONS
EXISTING TANK REVIVED
EXISTING TANK APERTURE
MONSOON WATER COLLECTION TYPICAL STORAGE TANK HOLDS 2 YEAR FULL CAPACITY
0 ft
10 ft
30 ft
THE WATER NEST This site is located in the old city of Ahmedabad on a demolished lot near a bazaar street, which is completely dominated by men. The NEST is designed as a space for women to occupy to break their domestic routine of being restricted to the household. Acting as a water supply source, women can join others to “retrieve” water while engaging in other social, health, or economic activities in the space. This strengthens a social community while also hearing their concerns about air pollution for their children, avoiding heat risk, and having access to a safe space for work and play. Camouflaged by two facades, THE WATER NEST rebuilds agency and maintains privacy. The falling water through the core keeps the place cool and calming. During monsoon season, the water collection has a storage capacity for up to two years and the adjacent water tanks can collect rainwater to be sustainable and avoid flooding. There are craft making spaces, co-op offices, a health center, private bathrooms, public baths, and terrace gardens within. Workshops and education programs are offered by local community groups like Ahmedabad’s Women Action Group (AWAG) who addresses violence against women through empowerment, “raising the image of women in society” and supporting their fundamental rights.
- 30.4 [100ft]
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-164
WATER NEST ... and other inspired spaces, create sparks that light up the narrow streets. These collaborative ambitions form a constellation of shops and civic institutions with embedded pockets of oasis, stabilizing futures in the heart of Ahmedabad.
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-166
Vacant lot in between two existing buildings with facade rebuilt
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DROUGHT, GHOST CITY
Water Nest connecting both facades concealing a water tank and well along with public and private spaces customized by women
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-168
RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY Austin Kronig
RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
As the city of Ahmedabad ponders the future of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development project, what is severely lacking along the Sabarmati Riverfront is an implicit and explicit sense of sanctuary, or relief from the everyday pressures of urban life. Sanctuaries are abundant throughout the city, yet they exist in isolation and have largely been rendered absent as a result of the Sabarmati Riverfront project. Water is a common element unifying sanctuaries in Ahmedabad. Reclaiming the Sanctuary sets up a critique of the homogeneous nature of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development, underscoring that something is lost and the experience of place becomes simplistically didactic and anticipatory over a monotonous treatment of the riverfront interface over such a large urban scale. As a response, the project reinterprets the sacred and intangible values of the lost landscapes that once punctuated the Sabarmati’s riverbed. A series of interventions resituate human occupation in the very threshold between water and land. The project offers a collection of alternate stewardship methods that remind us of the sophistication and complexity of the civic infrastructures to offer release from the everyday. Until the early 2000s, the Sabarmati has had an ingrained memory as a lifeline and convener of all walks of life. The Sabarmati riverbed once served as the spine of the city, providing the fertile grounds and sanctuary for historic events and a diverse range of cultural activity. With the Sabarmati River Front Development Project, the city has laid the groundwork for basic infrastructure, yet it remains an incomplete project. What began as an image-making infrastructural project to globalize the city has largely divorced itself from having a truer sense of place. Moreover, the project treats water as a spectacle and as an unlimited resource. C-171
RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
Clockwise left to right, opposite page: Figure 1 and 6 photographs by Brain Brake. Figure 2 photograph by Pranlal Patel. Figure 3 photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson of Gandhi Salt Marches in 1930. Figure 4 by Henri Cartier-Bresson shot outside Mill Owners Association Building. Figure 5 of Sunday Market occupying dry riverbed.
Sceneography depicting the notion of the sanctuary along Sabarmati River.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-172
At present, the Sabarmati resembles a mono-culture., characterized by a sense of sameness. These walls have largely dug a deeper divide between two parts of the city. However, these walls present a unique opportunity for intervention. This project calls for a radical rethinking of the river, water, and ecology. This starts with returning the waters of the Sabarmati to its source, the Narmada, and ending the fiction and fixation that the waters all belong to Ahmedabad. This project calls for a transformation in the land mass and topography on either end of the riverbed, breaking up the linearity and sameness of the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project. This project exists between the walls of the Sabarmati River, building on current infrastructures. The banks on either end of the riverbed offer an opportunity to reimagine how the Sabarmati relates back to its people, and not just the other way around. The project seeks to pull context and inspiration from the surrounding city. This project borrows from the wealth of existing typologies to inform renewed interpretations of sanctuary, as insertions, that foster collectivity, sharing, and solitude. This project celebrates seasonality, temporality, and the impermanence of water. These interventions lead a kind of double life, revealing interplays built and unbuilt areas, operating as a type of performative micro-urbanism. As water finds its path, sanctuaries will follow.
Figure 7. Present reality and sterile condition of Sabarmati Riverfront promenade near Sardar Bridge. Photograph by Austin Kronig.
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RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-174
SCALES OF INTERVENTION
Operating at the scale of the riverfront, this project surveys the physical and cultural landscape and identifies six strategic sites of intervention. These sites vary in scope and are in conversation with institutions nearby, namely religious, civic, and academic. The project responds to the seasonality and flow of the river and gives consideration to the way the user circulates and travels between sites.
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RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
Gandhi Ashram
1
Natrani Amphitheatre
Mill Owners Building
2
3
Manek Burj
4
Sunday Market
5
Sardar Bridge
6
North 0
0.25
0.50
1.00
Miles 1.50
TYPOLOGIES
In response to each of the proposed sanctuary sites, the project creates a collection of alternate water infrastructures that reorient perceptions to place. These typologies operate at varying scales and perform different functions. At their core, the collection of water is essential, with a desire to provide places of shade and relief from harsh climates. These typologies create thresholds between the ordinary and extraordinary to introduce something sacred.
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RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
2
1
3 6
4
5
Site Interventions Site 1
Gandhi Ashram
Site 2
Riverfront Market
Site 3
Manek Burj
Site 4
Mill Owners Building
Site 5
Natrani Amphitheatre
Site 6
Sardar Bridge
0
25
50
Feet 100
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-178
Gandhi Ashram Site
As the former home of Mahatma Gandhi, the Gandhi Ashram represents one of the foremost historic and sacred sites located along the banks of the Sabarmati. Despite its proximity to the river, the site is sadly disconnected from having a direct and extended connection to the river.
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RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
The proposal aims to revitalize the site through the regeneration of ancient Kund public pool typology that frames the Ashram while offering new opportunities to engage with new water bodies.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-180
Natrani Amphitheater Site
The Natrani Amphitheater is a landmark cultural institution. The Sabarmati Riverfront project impacted the existing theatre, rendering the theatre inoperable for several years due to road construction and noise pollution. This new structure rests on the edge of the river and functions in juxtaposition to the amphitheater, acting as a unfolding staircase that doubles as a stage for side performances.
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RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
Mill Owners Site
The Mill Owners Association Building is an iconic modernist building designed by Le Corbusier in 1954. This intervention is derived from its context, operating as a stair and screen. Borrowing liberally from techniques as brise soleil and vernacular punched jaali openings, the intervention functions as a marker in the landscape.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-182
Manek Burj Site
Manek Burj is the foundation bastion of the Bhadra Fort, dating back to the founding of the city by Ahmed Shah in 1411. As a world heritage site, the site is displaced from an immediate connection to the river. This intervention reinterprets the traditional ghats to acts as a bridge between past and present.
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RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
Sunday Market Site
The local Sunday Market, or Ravivari, is a popular informal market held on the eastern banks of the river. Ease of circulation to the river from this site is difficult. This intervention addresses the notion of access, by creating an elongated tunnel or pathway that carves a direct link between the two collectives.
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Sardar Bridge Site
The western entry point to the river from Sardar Bridge leaves much to be desired. Surrounded by a host of major institutions, this site presents generous yet underdeveloped public space. This intervention seeks to complete the terrain by creating a new viewing deck platform.
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RECLAIMING THE SANCTUARY
With an interest in designing the encounter, this intervention seeks to augment its respective location, animated by forces of human occupation, seasonality, and temporality. Here citizens of Ahmedabad are invited to absorb newly defined public spaces and discover new relationships to the river.
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of the Legends of the Ahmedabadi Stories of Life and Water Gwen Gell | Tristan Snyder | Jessica Yelk
Urban Water Commons Ahmedabad, India 23.0225° N, 72.5714° E University of Michigan Taubman College Winter 2019: Propositions Studio Gwen Gell: Master of Urban and Regional Planning + Master of Urban Design [2019] Tristan Snyder: Master of Architecture [2020] Jessica Yelk: Master of Architecture + Master of Urban and Regional Planning [2021] With Instructor María Arquero De Alarcón
Dear Reader, Our story begins at the coordinates of 23.0225° N, 72.5714° E, Ahmedabad, India. Ahmedabad is the capital of Gujarat. It experiences heavy seasonal shifts between the hot, dry months and the saturated, monsoon months. As a result of these extreme conditions, the people who have lived here for centuries created innovative ways of harvesting, collecting, and containing water to sustain life in these harsh conditions. The ancient Stepwells of Ahmedabad address the need for water while encouraging a unique union between the people and the water. The Stepwell facilitates an interaction by creating an opportunity for each element, the person and the water, to take part in the interaction. Specifically, the groundwater must rise in the Stepwell and the people must descend to the water’s edge. The Stepwell provides a physical connection to climate and seasonality. People see the groundwater levels fluctuate in the well throughout season. The physical form, screens the sun, diffuses the light, and cools the air within the Stepwell. Moments of gather, utilitarianism, form, and function embody the Spirit of the Stepwell and provide a framework on which our design proposal emerges. We propose three water interventions across the city in the Spirit of the Stepwell. These interventions promote moments of gather, utilitarianism, form, and function for a variety of unseen or underserved residents of the city while addressing the a specific need of water. The interventions are a placed within specific conditions of the city, but not a specific place, and can be implemented anywhere the conditions are met. To discover these interventions, we follow residents of Ahmedabad to find their own manifestation of the Spirit of the Stepwell. An Ahmedabad adventure awaits, Gwen, Jessica, & Tristan
The City
1487 Growth of the City of Ahmedabad
The heat is already unbearable as the sun rises slowly over Ahmedabad. The air is dense, heavy with humidity. In the late summer, tensions are high as all the residents of the City - young and old, men and women, flora and fauna - anticipate the break in the weather. The monsoon will arrive any day now. Ahmedabad first appeared in recorded history in 1411. At that time, the Sultan Ahmed Shah, built the city along the Eastern Banks of the Sabarmati River in the traditional Islamic-Indian tradition. In 1487, the grandson of Sultan Ahmed Shah, Mahmud Shah, built a wall around the city which contained twelve gates. The wall, times of peace, times of conflict, and the conquering empires of Mughals, Marathas, and British, shaped the city. The climate and seasonality make sustaining human civilization a challenge. The semi-arid region has three seasons, winter, summer, and monsoon. The eight months are very dry, while four months are saturated. During the dry months, the ground waters deplete and retreat, and the expansive rushing rivers are reduced to a small slow streams. The monsoon months recharge groundwater every season, hydrating the earth and filling streams. The ancient method of wells are used to address months without precipitation and the months with an abundance of water. Compared to a traditional well, Stepwells have steps leading down to the water’s edge. Often, Stepwells are multiple stories deep and contain landings for rest. Overtime, the Stepwell became a place where people, especially women of all castes, gathered in Ahmedabad.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL
Present Day
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Meet the People of Ahmedabad
My name is Tanvi. I am the Caretaker of the Stepwell, together we will explore the city through the eyes of different people each discovering places, new and old, which embody the Spirit of the Stepwell.
TANVI
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL
KAVI
MAYA
DOSHI
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STEPWELL
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he Gift of Water
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STEPWELL
Once there was a queen of Ahmedabad. She was very wealthy and had everything she ever desired. She loved her husband, her children, and wanted for nothing. Content in her world, she did not venture beyond the walls of the palace - except to visit the Mosque.
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One day, on her way to the Mosque with her husband in their most beautiful carriage, an old blind woman approached and whispered to her. “Queen, I sense your afterlife is cursed. Give the gift of water and your curse shall be lifted”. Typically the Queen never minded these comments, but the Queen was struck by the old blind woman’s ability to sense her presence. That night the old blind woman appeared in the Queen’s nightmare. The Queen - restless paced the hallways thinking. Weeks went by with sleepless nights, unsure how to gift water in the arid desert.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STEPWELL
On one hot, dry day, an idea suddenly struck her. She would open the earth so people could step down and retrieve the sleeping water. She searched the city to find the finest builders, and the most prominent architects to build her stepwell. At first, she was told it was impossible. “Your majesty”, the people said, “with all due respect, we cannot build steps into the earth to find water, there is no water in this land”, but she persisted. After months of digging the workers struck water and within two years the first Stepwell in the city was completed. The water rose in the well and people began to descend the carved stone to meet the Queen’s gift of water.
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After a few years, conflict outside of the city grew. An army of invaders arrived at the walls of Ahmedabad. Her husband, the King, along with their best warriors went to battle to protect their city. A day after the King had left, the Queen got word that her husband had been killed in battle and the city fell into the control of the invaders. The Queen knew that the leader of the invaders would find her and take her as his wife.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STEPWELL
The Queen ran to the stepwell. Perched on the highest level she hid from the marauders. The sound of armor scratching together and hoofs of the their horses grew louder and echoed through the structure. She heard the leader’s footsteps in the silence as he entered the well. “Where are you my new Queen, I know you are in here,”. At the edge of the stepwell she cried to herself, “I would rather die than sully the memory of my husband”. She jumped down into the water and drowned herself. Today, the well is lost, maybe swallowed by the Earth, but since the Queen’s death many more were built so the gift of water would live on.
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Spirit of the Stepwell
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STEPWELL
Welcome to my Stepwell. A place of water. A place of rest. It’s called the Dada Harir ni vav. This Stepwell was built in my village of Harirpur, but as Ahmedabad grew, the city engulfed the Stepwell. The Stepwell was built in 1499 by the Sultan’s Ma’dam, Sri Bai Harir, and her harem. These women raised the funds to build the Stepwell and inside they engraved an inscription. People have been debating the meaning for as long as I can remember. Some people say the inscription says the Stepwell was “built for men” but others read “built for everyone”. I believe it was created for everyone in the true Spirit of Stepwells everywhere. Stepwells have always been spaces of inclusion. They became a public space for women, as it is our job to collect the daily water. In fact, about quarter of Stepwells were commissioned by women, built in honor of women, or built with significant feminine ornamentation. Stepwells are a blend of both Hindu and Islamic architecture and ornamentation and have survived muslim and hindu ruling regimes. For millennia, Stepwells dotted the landscape. Excavations in the Indus Valley have found evidence of Stepwells from 2500 BCE. In Ahmedabad, Stepwells date back to the 15th century. They reveal historic trade routes. They
became oases for merchants traveling across the harsh landscape because they provided shelter and water. In summers, Stepwells provide relief and refuge for people and animals from the dry, oppressive heat. They say you can build five wells for cost of one Stepwell. These large wells were very expensive and built by wealthy individuals. Why the wealthy elites would build an expensive Stepwell for public use? The gift of water is considered the most noble act and is recognized by our culture as a gift worthy of respect. Also, if you build a Stepwell for the people, you are guaranteed to go to a good afterlife. For years now, my Stepwell has had trouble holding water year-round. The depleting groundwater resources are no longer able to maintain levels high enough to keep water in the Stepwell. Water is our most precious resource. I fear the groundwater reveals a diminishing spirit of the urban water commons across the city. I must find other places with the same spirit, perhaps others can rejuvenate my faith that the Spirit of the Stepwell exists in Ahmedabad. I am not so sure it is still here. Let’s follow this woman - I think her name is Kavi. She comes to the Stepwell every Sunday morning to meet her friends, maybe she knows where the Spirit exists.
The Stepwell
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8
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STEPWELL
A light breeze lifts off of the Sabarmati River and cuts through the humidity as we follow Kavi across the bridge to the other side of the city. Kavi is about 30 years old. We pass near Gandhi’s Ashram, and turn right into Chandrabhagha Pol Na Chapra, an informal settlement. This is one of the largest informal settlements in the city and is comprised of mostly Hindu families, but there are some Muslim families. They all live in harmony together in their neighborhood. The buildings are built of brick covered with a plaster. All homes have corrugated iron roofs because the government will see the settlements as permanent if they build a proper roof and remove them from the land. These homes are built right to the edge of the tributary, which flows directly into the Sabarmati River. Water is provided to each house through a pipes from the city but is only turned on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. During the dry season the wastewater and greywater goes directly into the tributary. During the monsoon, the water rises and people living the homes closest to the tributary are displaced until the water retreats. Whether the season is wet or dry, the tributary acts as conveyer, transporting greywater and waste water out of the informal settlement and into the Sabarmati River. Because of a lack of formal infrastructure, these informal settlements are notorious for contributing to water pollution. There is no formal means of cleaning wastewater before it enters the Sabarmati River. In the case of the Chandrabhagha Po Na Chapra neighborhood,
people have come together to turn their own waste into a productive landscape. The informal settlement residents developed a method, the Stones, to directly collect the wastewater leaving each house and transform it into water clean enough to water crops. Since the informal settlement began growing and selling rice, the residents have been able to collectively address needs in their community. The Stones have changed the informal settlement. They transform wastewater from an issue of water quality into an opportunity to independently enhance the water quality, the quality of life, and develop the water’s edge. Through the tiered system, the Stones clean the water enough for it to be suitable to grow crops and release clean water back into the river. The crops and the creation of the Stones created micro-economies within the informal settlement, giving the residents sources of income generated within the settlement. The Stones developed the waters edge. Prior to the Stones, no one would go near the polluted stream, but now, people sit, play, and gather by the river. Kavi walks on the Stones to say hello to her friends tending to the rice crops. They have been out since early morning preparing the fields for the monsoon, everyone is preparing for its arrival. She heads downstream and picks up bags of freshly milled rice. She piles the bags as high as she can on the top of the bicycle rickshaw. Today, she is transporting rice from her informal settlement to farmers and the markets throughout the city.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
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he Water Stones
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
A long time ago, in a small settlement at the edge of a big city, nestled behind the stacks of a crematorium, an old woman slowly walked home. A single tear fell from the corner of the old woman’s eye. It had been a long day taking care of her daughter, for she had fallen very ill. While many people believed it was the work of the gods, the old woman had was wise and saw people falling deathly ill as the water dried up.
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As the old woman walked home, she remembered her mother saying the water hides underground during the summer, away from the hot summer sun. She had never believed this tale, but as she made her evening tea, the her mother’s voice kept coming back to her. The water began to boil. The old woman turn off the kettle and without making tea, she turned to the door.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
With only a spade and a candle, the woman walked to the edge of town. By the moonlight she found the largest Banyan tree she could find. She climbed between the roots as close to the trunk of the tree as she could looking for a patch of earth. At last, between two large roots, she found an exposed bit of earth.
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With all her strength, she sunk her spade into the earth. Inch by inch dug deeper and deeper. Without a pause, she dug past the roots of the tree and through the rich soil. The hole was so large she could stand straight up. She kept digging deeper and deeper, around rock, amongst diamonds, rubies, and coal. Finding clean water was more important than any precious gem. The air felt cooler and heavier as she dug deeper and deeper.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
The old woman paused for a brief moment, she heard a muffled murmur through the wall. With a renewed vigor, she began to dig towards the sound. As she dug closer to the sound, it became clear that the sound was of rushing water. The old woman broke through a wall to find herself at the base of an enormous waterfall.
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The flickering light from the old woman’s candle could not reach the top. But from what she could see, the waterfall was long and narrow. The bottom of the waterfall was an unusual site. The water fell onto the stones and instead of bouncing off into a flurry of foam, the water was disappeared into the rocks. The old woman could see the rapid crystal clear current flowing from the bottom of the pile of stones. The water was so clear, it reflected not only the ceiling of the cave but through the layers of jewels, metals, all the way to the tree roots. Curious, the old woman walked carefully along the edge of the water to the stones. As she approached the stones, she realized the tops had peculiar holes where the water entered and was seemingly disappeared.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
By this time, the old woman’s candle had nearly burned out. She grabbed the largest stone she could find, nearly half of her size, and began to slowly push it towards the tunnel she came from. She pushed and pushed until she got to the tunnel. She took rest and pushed again. She pushed and pushed, inching her way up for what seemed like days, but finally, the large stone popped out amongst the tree roots. Exhausted, the old woman sat heavily against the tree.
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A young boy with a cart, delivering supplies in the cool morning, saw the old woman emerge from the ground. He rushed over to help her. The young boy put the old woman and the stone into the cart and carried them to the stream. The old woman and the boy placed the stone in the water and watched as it miraculously cleaned the stream.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
The old woman, gathered water from the stone and rushed to nurse her daughter back to health. The boy went back to the tree to collect more magic stones, but could not find the tree. It had vanished. It its place, the boy found two Stones. He placed them together, end to end, creating the purest water he had ever seen.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
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The Stones Utilitarian Function Purify waste water from point-source pollution found in the informal settlements
Social Function Stones are terraced and provide a space for people to sit by the water’s edge and gather in a shared public space. Contributed to creating self agency in the informal settlement through job creation which is built upon the unique resources and knowledge in the informal settlement. The byproduct of the wastewater treatment has created a closed loop cottage indindustry. Manufacturing the stones and materials within the informal settlement materials. Harvesting found materials, such as reeds, palms, fabric, and clay, in the informal settlement. Broader economic impact as people begin to grow food to consume and to sell - resulting in a more autonomous society.
Unseen and Underserved User Informal Settlement Population, particularly women
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
2.
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3.
2. 3.
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The Stone and the People The smooth, sleeping, stones that cascade into the quiet stream purify the precious pooling water, waiting to be whisked away to keep the green gardens growing.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
Growing in the steady standing patties where the water is brought by buckets, collected from the terraced stones, the rice is kept and harvested for the peaceful patient people.
Forms of fired clay couriered through the alleys searchevery for their they’ll finish People from homehomes comeattowhich reap the their journeys. crucial crop and prepare the haul for the market.
MarketJourneys men andend women conscientiously count and somber stones sit to provide for the grains grownthe bypeaceful, the community, as the patient,and people. harvest is shared among the people they return to their humble homes for dinner.
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Making the Stone From the mother the stone’s shell is gathered; by spade and tubil the earth is turned and cut to be sent up to the crafting people.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
People weave from cane, frames for the kneaded clay to be finely formed. The shell is created, filled, and fired making the stone’s solid form.
Forms of fired clay couriered through the alleys search for their homes at which they’ll finish their journeys.
Journeys end and somber stones sit to provide for the peaceful, patient, people.
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Kavi’s bicycle rickshaw sways as a breeze. The piled bags of rice act as a sail. Kavi has had years of experience pedaling through tough conditions. The breeze does not phase. Typically, transportation is done by men, but Kavi works to pay for her children’s school and convinced the women growing the rice that she can handle the risky transport across town to the Sunday Market. On the way to the market, she stops under the Cloud. Every Sunday she meets with the shepherds to trade a week’s worth of rice for a week’s worth of milk or wool. The exchange is quick, the Shepherd knows Kavi needs to be on her way to the Sunday Market. Kavi leaves with a wave an pedals to Bhadra Square in the old city. Every day as the sun rises overhead, the shepherds of the city and their cows, goats, and water buffalos, gather at the water’s edge under the elevated rail line. The Cloud, attached to the elevated rail, collects moisture in the air and water on the rail and directs it into troughs and tanks in the ground. The troughs provide a sources of water for the animals to drink and the tanks slowly release the water back into the ground. In the midday heat, the animals and
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE STONE
shepherds find refuge in the shade under the Cloud. A young woman, named Maya, is sitting on a bench under the Cloud. She likes this public space. It’s quiet in the park at this time of day as people retreat inside to escape the heat. The last chai customer left about 15 minutes ago and the woman selling wool went to get some lunch. The few souls under the Cloud are the shepherds and their animals. Maya enjoys seeing the animals in the city, especially the cows. The livestock lounge in the hot sun and stand at the drinking troughs under the shade of the Cloud. The shepherds are laying on a grassy patch closing their eyes for a moment, resting. They have been awake since before dawn tending to their cows and harvesting their milk. Maya is on her way to the movies in the old city, she sits and reads a book amongst the livestock, waiting for her friends to arrive. As she gazes over her book to look at a cow, she catches a glimpse of her friend crossing the road and, together, they run up the stairs of the station to catch the next train into the old city. Within moments the two friends are whisked away, traveling towards the old city, leaving the Cloud behind.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
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he Shepherd’s Cloud
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
One monsoon, a very long time ago, but not that long ago, the monsoon approached Ahmedabad. It was very far away, but not too far. The residents of the city could see the large clouds on the horizon. People were buzzing with anticipation. It had been many years since they had a good monsoon. Drought had left the fields brown and plates empty.
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As the monsoon approached, a young shepherd who had lost his mother and father due to the famine, developed a plan. Night after night, as he watched over the sheep, he searched for Something. Something which would ensure he, nor anyone else, would ever experience this type of kind of loss again.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
The sky grew darker as the clouds covered up the sun. Large drops began to fall from the sky, slowly at first, but suddenly the rain began to pour out of the sky. The young shepherd, stood patiently, under a bridge with his sheep. Waiting.
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The sky suddenly lit up, and a low rumble of gods laughing filled the shepherd’s eardrums and scared the sheep. The young shepherd continued to wait.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
After the third lighting but before the third thunder the shepherd jumped out from under the bridge and lifted his stick to the sky and caught an edge of the cloud. He pulled and pulled the cloud, but it rained harder and harder, and the lighting struck closer and closer. The shepherd wrestled the cloud and discovered they were an equal match. The shepherd pulled and tugged, and the cloud rained harder and sent lighting close to the shepherd.
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The wrestling for months, the entire monsoon season. Eventually, both were weak from exhaustion but neither would give up. Feeling a moment of opportunity, the boy took one last tug and the cloud fell to the ground. With a rush of adrenaline, the shepherd attached the cloud to the bridge with glow worms hanging from the bridge, the Something he had been searching for night after night. The young shepherd then took pieces of yarn, spun from his sheep, and attached the cloud to the ground, ensuring the water would enter the earth.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
The shepherd collapsed, exhausted and slept for the winter under the glow of the worms and the harnessed cloud. When he woke, he walked away with his faithful sheep never to return again.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
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The Cloud
Utilitarian Function Storm water, dew and condensation are collected on the surface of the Cloud. Much of this storm water comes from utilizing the existing infrastructure of the overpass. Storm water is directed from this expanse of infrastructure to the Cloud. The material responds to both the wind and the rain. The water moves through the Cloud down to the points which touch the ground. These points direct water into collection tanks. The tank remains at capacity though an outflow, which directs storm water into the ground to recharge. Hand pumps are connected to the tank, which are used to fill troughs for animals to drink out of. The Cloud also provides shade to users.
Social Function Creates a unique place of gather for both animals and people. Micro-economies have evolved from the presence of the livestock and the Cloud, such as waste collectors, food vendors, wool processors, ghee makers, etc. Small businesses surround the park, insulating it from the hustle and bustle of the city and providing amenities for people, like chai, clothing vendors, etc.
Unseen and Underserved User Animals: cows, goats, water buffalo, monkeys and birds Shepherds
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The Cloud and the People Cows, sheep, and goats gather under the gigantic cloud, escaping the muggy midday heat.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
A humble human tends to the livestock. He picks up poop to keep the park pristine. The man dries and sells the bio-waste as fuel for fire.
Under shade of a temporary shack, two Vendors set up in the the vicinity to procure animal products stitchingWomen sisters working sew thewool, textured textiles into a for their businesses. gentleman of clouds collect moisture from the air make ghee, chain and brother boilingtochai surround and service and water the Cloud park. from the rail.
Directed drops dripand frompeople the cloud into tanks troughs Plants populate theand cloud, finding for thirsty animals. in the tanks trickle placesThe of water rest and repose in thethrough relentless the ground, eventually reaching and heat. recharging the summer aquifer.
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Making the Cloud Large laboring looms weave together tiny tactile threads creating cumulonimbus clouds.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
Soaring scaffolds sway as workers attach a long limber lattices under the elevated rail.
Under the shade of a temporary shack, two stitching sisters sew the textured textiles into a chain of clouds to collect moisture from the air and water from the rail.
Plants and people populate the cloud, finding places of rest and repose in the relentless summer heat.
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Maya and her friends hop off of the bus. Now, late, they run through the Pols, as they have done many times before, to get to the theater and their favorite seats. As they run through the Pols, a young boy, about 10, spots them from above. Doshi, spends his days up on the roof tops, with his kite. When he is in school, he dreams of being outside, exploring the city. Sometimes when he should be in school, he is flying his kite. Doshi has explored every part of the old city, each level, every floor. Doshi knows the old city better than anyone. He has found abandoned wells, demolished Pol houses, new pathways, forgotten temples, and hidden homes. Through exploration, he has found the Hindu Pols, Jain Pols, Muslim Pols and everything in between. All of the shop owners know Doshi and keep an eye on him as he explores the city. Suddenly, the wind picks up and Doshi’s kite whips around. The kite pulls Doshi across three rooftops. Laughing, Doshi tries to get control of his kite, but Doshi is fighting the wind, which is a battle difficult to win. In a lull in the wind, Doshi manages to pull the kite out of the sky and looks for a way to get down, off of the roofs. Three rooftops away, Doshi sees a bit of orange peaking over the roof. He is near the Poppy! Doshi has been here many times before. It was one of the first places he went to with his kite. The bright orange pedals reaching out over the top of the Pol sparked curiosity in Doshi, when he saw it for the first time. Doshi climbs over the roofs to the Poppy. As he approaches the Poppy from above he sees his friend climbing the net of the Poppy. Doshi jumps into a net nearby and reaches his friend. Laughing they climb down and get a handful of water from the Poppy. Aunty, smiling to herself, watches the two boys as she washes the morning dishes and soaks the laundry. In the afternoon, run off to the market, hungry for sweets. Overhead, the bird’s behavior changes. Their flight patterns change from circular to more direct as they look for cover. The sky begins to darken.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE CLOUD
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
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he Woman and the Garden
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
A long time ago, before the many wars, before walls enclosed the city, there lived a woman. She made her home, right where we are now. No one knew where she came from. Her long hair was the color of a poppy, her skin as dark as healthy soil, yet the most peculiar thing about her were her eyes - the color of the clouds after the monsoon’s first rain. The woman had the most sought-after garden in the entire region, full of large colorful flowers, succulent tomatoes and enormous squash. Her garden attracted the most beautiful butterflies and magnificent animals.
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Each morning at sunrise, she left her house, traveled up the tributary, and disappeared into the hills. Upon her return at sunset, she took a vessel of water from within her cloak, raised it above her head, and poured it slowly into the bare center of her garden. She would pour the water in a steady stream until the sun disappeared behind the horizon. In the dusk, she bent over and touched the ground where she poured the water. The ground would remain dry, as if water never touched the earth, but her garden continued to grow. Skeptical of the woman’s garden in the dry months, people in the village speculated that she was a witch or had unnatural powers. Each day, the children of the village tried to follow her into the hills, but they would lose her after the first couple of turns. She knew the region better than anyone. C-253
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
One day, the woman went to the hills and didn’t return. The monsoon came and went, yet there was no sign of the woman. The village people wondered what happened to the mysterious recluse. Late one afternoon, a shape appeared on the horizon, moving slowly. The woman walked to her garden and performed the water ritual as she had always done, but this time the ground remained wet. Out of sight of the curious children hiding behind large plants in her garden, she bent down and placed something on the ground.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-254
Every afternoon children would play in the garden, shaded by the large beautiful plants. Children would climb up the trees and into the canopy and create their own worlds. After each monsoon, the garden would grow a bit more until the new majestic children’s space began to tickle the edges of the city.
C-255
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
That night she packed her things. With her bags in hand, and one last wink to the curious children still in her garden, she left her home never to return. The children looked at each other, this time they knew that something was different. Slowly they creeped to the plot of land the woman watered earlier that day. In the wet earth she had carved a pattern, left a strand of her long red hair, and a seed. As if the ground was waiting for the children to look at it, the pattern swallowed the seed before their very eyes.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-256
Overtime, the wall, the wars, and the growing city encroached on the mysterious woman’s garden.
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SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
One plant remained. It grew and grew until its leaves reached over the pol houses to capture the sun’s rays and water, and provide a space for the children of the city to gather, climb, and play.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-258
C-259
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-260
The Poppy
Utilitarian Function Captures storm water to recharge the groundwater. Separate system to create access to clean groundwater. The pedals of the Poppy, made of a material similar to a kite, capture and direct water into a tank which slowly releases it into the ground. A pump provides access to the water for public-domestic use.
Social Function The fountain provides a place of gather. It’s bright colors and perfectly placed leaves allow for children to sit, climb, slide, and play on the fountain. Its structure creates spaces of exposure and enclosure giving choice for more or less sun and a good game of hide and seek. The water pump is located above a communal basin for people of the Pols. The Poppy creates shade for people to gather under in the hot sun The Poppy provides shelter from the rain during the intense monsoon season. A place where family and neighbors can keep an eye on the children and youth as they play on the fountain.
Unseen and Underserved User Youth and children in the city. Women
C-261
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
Rooftops
Level 3
Level 2
Ground Level
Well Water
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-262
The Poppy and the People A woman washes her wears and dishes in water, collected from the rain, the din of the morning light as her son hangs in the high hammock.
C-263
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
Petals of the Poppy perch in the Pol capturing storm water and providing shade.
The patient people in the pols use their hands to heroically hang the kite-like Poppy pieces in a converted well from a former house in their Pol to collect storm water for daily domestic use.
He hangs in the hammock, swaying slowly in the sweltering heat, shaded by the sailing petals of the Poppy.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-264
Making The Poppy andthe thePoppy People A woman washes her wears and dishes in water, collected A factory of fabric folds kite-like textiles through the from the rain, the din of the morning light as her son night. Workers prepare boxes to swiftly ship pieces hangs in the high hammock.
of the Poppy to the patient people in the Pols.
C-265
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
Bolts of fabric bounce in the big truck. The
Petals oftruck the Poppy perch in the Pol capturing storm water traces a well-known route through the Old providing shade. of the Poppy to the City toand deliver to pieces
patient people in the Pols.
The patient people in the pols use their hands to heroically hang the kite-like Poppy pieces in a converted well from a former house in their Pol to collect storm water for daily domestic use.
He hangs in the hammock, swaying slowly in the sweltering heat, shaded by the sailing petals of the Poppy.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-266
C-267
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE POPPY
A gust of wind blows up the street of the old Pol. A shutter catches the wind and slams above the boys as they half-skip, half-run down to the square. They are greeted by the tailor and a chai stand, as they cross the threshold of the Pol. The boys run down the road past the gold shops, past the Hindu temple in the middle of the road, past the concealed Friday Mosque, and through the gate into Bhadra Square. They pass by a cow, overtake a woman on a bicycle with a trailer filled with sacks of rice, and weave in and out of the rickshaws clogging the road. Quickly they move through the maze of merchants, passing vendors selling clothes, jewelry, bowls, shoes, chai, toys, and more. Then, they spot the merchant, an old woman, my dear friend, selling sweets. They rush to the her cart, mouths watering in anticipation. I just saw Maya and her friend walking through the market and Kavi delivering her rice. It’s hard to be sure - those boys move so fast.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-268
C-269
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL
A loud crack resonates in the sky. Tanvi, Kavi, Maya, and Doshi, freeze, looking up. One drop of rain hits the pavement, then another, and another. The deluge is welcomed by persons smiling face. The monsoon, is for everyone, every living being, human, plant, animal, insect. Everyone. Life is breathed back into the air. It smells sweet. For a moment, the spirit of the Stepwell sweeps Ahmedabad, as the first drops of the monsoon pull everyone outside to welcome the rain’s arrival.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-270
Book opened to one of the full pages.
C-271
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE BOOK
Interactive pages opening of book.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-272
Pop-Up page of the Cloud.
C-273
SPIRIT OF THE STEPWELL: THE BOOK
Pop-Up page of the Poppy.
SYNTHESIS: INHABITING THE URBAN WATER COMMONS C-274
1
2
3
k Burj
Mane
Sunda
et y Mark
4
Plaza 3
5
6
Miles 1.50 1.00
0.25
0.50