Antizoning

Finding a balance between density and space at Surah Jute Mill

Angelica Door, Architecture Tess McCann, DUSP Gabriela Zayas del Rio, DUSP

JUTE MILLS LEGEND

STATUS

Open Closed

SIZE (# Looms)

0 - 347

348 - 637

638 - 874

875 - 1675

Jute Mill Name % of Months the Mill was Closed, Nov ‘18 to Nov ’19

ABCDEF JUTE MILL

Closed 2019: 0% Production Level:

TYPE 3

From 1874 to 2006, the Surah Jute Mill was part of the sprawling network of jute production in Kolkata. Since then, it has been sitting vacant in an otherwise centric and lively neighborhood. With land being in high demand and low supply in the city, we view the site as an opportunitiy to provide much needed relief to this land pressure. However, we propose to do so through an antizoning experiment that resists to newer, more retrictive, forms of development that result in costly land use misallocation and sprawling. This proposal will instead embrace Kolkata’s dense and dynamic urban fabric by building flexibility and organic growth into its design.

The proposal has three goals: encourage density and mixed use; protect open space; and provide access to essential services. Development will occur in phases. The first phase sets three foundational systems of “the void”–street grid, economic anchor, and water infrastructure. Future phases will react to this phase under the guidance of three equity and design principles.

Form Void

Can the Surah site retain the density & organic form of an unzoned area like Barabazar, while also protecting the void spaces where life flourishes? The lack of a formal master plan in Barabazar has resulted in a diversity of activities, a fine-grained system of land use, oftentimes overlapping mixed uses, and a vibrant economic street life. Its urban morphology is organic street patterns, dense and dynamic building patterns, and lots of flexibility from unregulated use. Salt Lake City and New Town, on the other hand, are the result of a formalized, top-down planning scheme, which has resulted in limited spatial diversity and much less density. Morphologically, its straight street patterns, straight building patterns, leave little room for flexibility. We see potential in the organic density of Barabazar to address some of the main challenges arising from India’s high pace of urbanization, primarily, the unrestricted expansion of cities. This proposal is an opportunity to reduce that pressure by building more densely on existing underutilized and undervalued land. Yet, we are hesitant to fully embrace Barabazar as a formal model. Given the density of activity, common goods, and the open spaces they reside within, are subject to immense pressures and often encroached upon.

As such, we will design what we are calling the void –meaning systems like streets, economic activity, and infrastructure– rather than the form (actual physical buildings) as a measure to ensure the protection of open space.

Barabazar vs.

New townships

vs.

This drawing represents the Surah site after 20 years of “anti-zoned” growth and development.

Part of the mill building has been retailed as a center of MSME manufacturing. The rest of the mill building has been carved out, creating a protected open space at the center of the site. Density was brought to the site through the introduction of a street grid, which was drawn based on patterns of the streets in the surrounding neighborhood, and on the footprints of the buildings we were retaining on the site.

The site is connected via a system of bridges and roofs. The central artery connects the factory to the export hub, which is placed in an existing building at the southwest corner of the site. These connective elements act as anti-zoning elements, physically restricting future growth.

The site is serviced by a decentralized and dispersed water system, the centerpiece of which are three treatment tanks and a pond in the center of the former mill. The pond celebrates the city’s heritage as a wetland region, and the treatment tanks filter water that is collected on the building’s roofs.

Taken together, our proposal experiments with how to create a vibrant and dynamic area of a city, leave room for flexibility and change, and also ensure that public spaces are protected.

The following pages show the three systems of our anti-zoning proposal, the site phasing, and other details of our proposal.

Figure tk. Surah, 20 years after acquisition. New density has been brought into the site, blurring the boundaries between Surah and the surrounding neighborhood

Acquisition 1 year Intervention 1 - 5 years

Figure tk. In the first phase, the city purchases the Surah site, which currently sits vacant and undervalued Figure tk. In the second phase, the city funds the implementation of the three “anti-zoning systems” outlined in our proposal; they also sell and lease buildings to the tenants who are introduced along with these systems, namely an MSME manufacturing cluster and an export hub. These programs are located in the existing buildings on the site.

Growth 5 - 20 years

Figure tk. In the third phase, the city sells the remaining parcels at Surah to developers over the course of 15 years. Developers are free to develop these parcels how they choose, but are constrained by the systems established in the Implementation phase, and by a series of equity and design guidelines set out and enforced by the city. 70% of the land is sold at this time.

We don’t fully know what the Surah will look like at the end of 20 years, and this is largely the point of the development approach: by not fully preconceiving what the end-state of the site look like, we avoid locking the project into a design and development plan that cannot accommodate future uses of space.

EXISTING CONDITIONS

The mill building sits vacant right in the middle of the compound, which is approximately the size of Harvard Yard.

We got interested in this mill, first, because we believe it is the one that best encapsulates Kolkata as a dense and dynamic city. Density can be seen in the compact street design to the north and east of the compound.

The dynamism is evident in the diversity of building type and type of commercial activity: both busy commercial activity and quiet residential area to the west, historic cemetery to the south, and mixed use ranging from residential to industrial to the east.

Its location is also cantral, being near Sealdah station which connects the logistics sector from north to south, including to the two ports in Kolkata, and near cultural attractions like the Salt Lake stadium.

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IMPLEMENTATION PHASE SITE PLAN OF PROGRAM AND SYSTEMS

GROWTH PHASE EQUITY AND DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Street grid +open space

Export hub Housing

MSME textile manufacturing cluster

Water infrastructure

Connection between export hub and manufacturing hub

1.Inclusionary and equitable development

25% of a development parcel’s total square footage, regardless of whether it’s for renting or selling, must be below market rates to meet low-income people’s housing needs. Development reflects the social and economic conditions of the neighborhood. 2.Public health

Given the proximity of MSME to residential areas and open “natural” areas, sustainable practices must be put in place to protect the health of residents and the ecosystems upon which residents depend for water and air. 3.Formal guidelines

General guidelines that ensure formal diversity and flexibility, including guidance on building heights, arcades, balconies, and other design elements to protect open space and promote street life.

SYSTEM 1: ACCESSIBILITY

Figure tk. Survey of the surrounding streets.

Figure tk. The site’s new street grid was drawn based on existing buildings and on a survey of the patterns of the surrounding street and their hierarchy.

A FORMAL PARADIGM THAT DENSIFIES THE SITE WHILE PROTECTING PUBLIC SPACE.

Fuzzying boundaries • Site-neighborhood integration • Street heirarchy • Placemaking • Flow of goods and people

Figure tk. To protect the newlydensified site from overcrowding, we introduce an open space We chose to place the open space at the mill for two reasons First, its location at the center made it ideal—the density around the perimeter of the site blurs the border between Surah and neighborhood… and having an open space at the center made sense given this new density. Second, the physicality of the mill—its massive structure, its already-existing footprint, can be leveraged to give this open space definition and therefore protect it. There’s also a nice tie-in here to Surah’s history by preserving the remnants of the mill structure.

Figure tk. The view cuts through existing housing that will remain, and is surrounded by new housing and mixed-use development. Here you can see how the water system that permeates the site provides water to these buildings. The view shows several parts of the water system: pumps along the street, pitched roofs and water towers, all comprising the dispersed but connected system.

Figure tk. Here you can see the mixed-use nature of the new and existing buildings, with residential units above and commercial activity on the ground floor. The public bridge in the upper right of the view both limits building heights and regulates the secondary public space that rooftops provide in the city.

SYSTEM 2: CONNECTIVITY

N 1KM Figure tk. Numerous local and regional multimodal transit corridors run close to Surah, like the eastern railway line, Sealdah Station, two Metro Lines, and a major road, Narkeldanga to the south.

Figure tk. Kolkata itself sits at the nexus of national and international flows of goods like transnational freight corridors and transshipping routes. Our proposal takes advantage of Surah’s location by establishing an export hub and an MSME manufacturing cluster at Surah in the implementation phase. The connectivity system begins by physically joining these two areas of the site, which allows goods produced at Surah to flow into these global and regional commercial routes.

AN ECONOMIC PROGRAM THAT TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THE SITE’S STRATEGIC LOCATION.

Connections between buildings •Defining new spaces • Harmonizing different scales

CONNECTIVITY SYSTEM ROOFS AND BRIDGES

Figure tk. Two of our anti-zoning systems are activated on the roofs. Here, the purple roofs are connective elements that join the site. Design details like these are covered in the formal guidelines.

Figure tk. This central corridor between the economic anchors represents one of two typologies of connectivity: Bridges are used to connect buildings Roofs are used as communal space shared between buildings These two typologies both act as anti-zoning elements by limiting further building and protecting open space ROOFTOPS

Figure tk. This view shows the existing building that will be turned into an export hub due to its proximity to Narkeldanga road. Again, the export hub is connected to the manufacturing building through the bridge highlighted in gray. This circulation infrastructure supports the movement of goods from the MSME cluster.

Figure tk. This is a view of the export hub from narkeldanga road, with the bridge connection and water infrastructure shown above.

SYSTEM 3: UTILITIES

Figure tk. Kolkata is a wetland region, and our site sits between the wetlands and the hoogly river Contemporary development paradigms have tried to hold the water at bay—Salt Lake City and New Town are both built on former wetlands. But we want to bring water back to Surah in a way that embraces its role in the city’s landscape, and responds to key needs of the site’s future residents.

N 1KM

Figure tk. We propose a water collection, filtration, and storage network that would run through the whole site and service residents and businesses.

A SITE SERVICE THAT ADDRESSES LOCAL NEEDS AS WELL AS ESTABLISHES A CONNECTION TO THE SITE’S HISTORY.

Clean + accessibile water • Disaggregated + dispersed system •Ecological remediation • Cultural heritage

WATER COLLECTION ROOFS

Figure tk. Two of our anti-zoning systems are activated on the roofs. Here, water collection will happen on the roofs marked with blue. Design details like these are covered in the formal guidelines.

STORAGE

ROOFTOP COLLECTION

TREATMENT TANKS

Figure tk. We envision a system of water pumps that would allow passersby to easily retrieve safe and clean water. The buildings themselves would be part of this functional system: water would be collected on buildings’ roofs, and stored in water towers that dot the site. The water would be treated in a series of treatment tanks that would be placed in Surah’s central open space.

Figure tk. Though there are some ponds nearby, their number in the city has dwindled as the value of land has skyrocketed and development pressures increase. This central landscape feature mostly suits aesthetic and recreational purposes, but it is also an anti-zoning element, as it prevents any building in this central area.

Figure tk. The trees and plants have grown inside the mill-turned-greenspace. Surrounding the site are more mixed-use buildings, with bridges and connecting rooftops limiting unchecked growth. These typologies feed each other to sustain a dynamic and functional system.

CITY INVESTMENTS AND EXPECTED REVENUE

There is a dearth of land available for development in Kolkata. This mill compound offers a large tract of open land that is currently undervalued and can be developed with high returns.

We expect the land value to increase by $20 million over the course of the development—that is nearly 50% of the original value of the land.

The city will front the up-front costs of this ambitious project, leaving developers who buy Development Parcels in the Growth phase to make returns more quickly than in traditional development models.

KEY TO VIEWS AND SECTIONS

OUR PITCH TO DEVELOPERS

Compared to prevailing development patterns in Kolkata, most notably townships, which are new formally designed development on former wetlands in the peripheries of Kolkata– we believe our anti-zoning approach is a better approach.

First, it provides a quicker return on investment, reducing fiscal costs in the long-term. Anti-zoning allows for more flexibility in uses, whereas the new township approach relies on restrictive zoning that locks the developer into one specific and permanent use. Studies have

shown that that approach results in costly land use misallocation and overconsumption of resources.

Second, the city will have delineated clear market roles through an economic anchor in the form of an MSME manufacturing and exports hub.

MSME is a growing industry that accounts for 30% of India’s GDP and is expected to employ 10 million people by 2022.

The city will also provide essential amenities such as water infrastructure for industry, households, and public use.

Figure tk. Surah, 20 years after acquisition. New density has been brought into the site, blurring the boundaries between Surah and the surrounding neighborhood