Ruba fauzan portfolio

RUBA FAUZAN Housing Urban Designer

Portfolio 2009-2014

De-Gentrifying the Mill lands Studio Mumbai (Graduate)-Fall 2013 Submission for UN-Habitat Competition 2013 Theme: Urban Revitalization of Mass Housing

Water Water Rites-Worli Koliwada Studio Mumbai (Graduate)- Sprng 2014 Hydrospan-Eastern Waterfront Studio Mumbai (Graduate)- Winter 2013 Submission for Vertcal Cities Asia Competition Theme: Everyone Connects Cumberland Bay at Sulphur Dell-Nashville,TN Submission for ULI Hines Competition 2014

Transportation Harmonizing Vehicular and Pedestrian Circulation Undergraduate thesis-2012

Parks and Heritage Rejuvenating Gem street -Lahore Professional Work- 2009 Parks and Horticulture Authority Lahore

I invite you now to see what I see so you may know what I know...

INTRODUCTION I received my architectural education in Lahore, Pakistan at an interesting time. The regional government was working fervently, building mega-structures to resolve vehicular congestion in the city Initially, I appreciated the efforts, but published critiques by the intelligentsia and a simultaneous introduction to global urban concerns in college, opened my eyes to how politics oftentimes turns a blind eye to farsight and actual need This motivated me to look beyond what was quintessentially labelled as urban Design and who were the wardens incharge of its transformation Resolving basic need, is what we need An emphatic realization of the importance of things like education and water is where my personal premise lies Currently I have concentrated my efforts towards informing myself about the impending global water crisis, something that became a concern for me during my exploration of Mumbai in a year long graduate studio, dedicated to the study of the remarkable city

Mumbai Studio 2013-2014

Spectacular..Spectacular..

The island of Mumbai is increasingly falling prey to gentriication and is in a steep downward tumble towards a glaring societal inequity Skyscrapers and the squalid sprawl battle it out in this city by the sea which daily re-defines ideas of citizenship and title View from Kanchanjunga Picture by Jongbang Park (MUD 2014)

Where there is no land to spare, vast expanses of an archaic legacy- the Mumbai textile mills, could and should run to the rescue Digvijay Mills-Mumbai Picture by Jongbang Park (MUD 2014)

OPENINIG the doors to OPPORTUNITY Housing

HOUSING

Surrounding activity pouring into site

Project AIM:

De-Gentrifying the Mill lands Studio Mumbai (Graduate)-Fall 2013

To create opportunities for equitable housing on the mill lands of Mumbai

Group Project with Jongbang Park-MUD 2013

The Mill lands are large pockets of prime real estate in the sardined city of Mumbai that currently have dececript factories on it, which once housed the thriving cotton textile industry

Organizing the ground plane

PHASE 3

Serving the rich and Speculation are the key words that ring out of every publication relevant to the Mumbai real estate market

Creating connective ramps on site Connect to off site buildings for connections across the railway track

60%of the population dwells in either slums or on the streets while residential high rises keep going up- unaffordable and vacant

PHASE 2

Creating the built structure Intermediate common spaces

Population

Proportionate Landmass

PHASE 1

Breaking the boundary wall Opening up the ground plane for spontaneous appropriation

SITE

DE-GENTRIFICATION Penthouses-the income generators for the private developers middle income towers

Elphistone Mills TATA Mills

The Mumbai Mills Central Railway line Parel station

SECTION

Low-income housing at the intermediate levels, along with commercial activity and public space Slum and pavement dwellers re-housed at the base, open floor plan

The project was titled:

Theme 1: Festivals unite the multifarious population Are an exhibit of how people appropriate the spaces in the city

Theme 2: Overcapacity Overcapacity in time and space It reigns over all aspects of city living

Mumbai Anthropocene which brought attention to Mumbai as the largest democracy of the third world Themes were chosen that were representative of this identity and were adapted into the project

Theme 1: Opening up the ground plain to be appropriated by the city spontaneously reflects how the festivals cause for people to unite and self-organize and appropriate space in order to acomodate all

Theme 2: The formal program of the development, is an embodiment of overcapacity, accomodated into a singular form

The project has been critiqued as an embodiment of the very gentrification that it aims to contend However, we wish for the proposed development to be seen, not as a concrete solution, but a statement that emphasizes the need to overcome all that it brings to the table

Most of Mumbai lives and works on the streets,

the project embraces this local mannerism Bred by need, it is effective, given the limitation of space The project emphasisez the democratic agency of those who do not have 4 walls to dwell in, as entitled to space within the city

THE commons Water

“You are standing in my sun...�

What is mine and what is yours?

Questions of commonly held assets within the city The project explores the potential of water to create community within the city, and make a claim, that the city belongs to all Banganga-Mumbai Picture by Jongbang Park (MUD 2014)

Fishing is the traditional occupation of the villagers of Worli who reside on the site

Water Rites Water as a Catalyst for Community Studio Mumbai (Graduate)-Spring 2014

The project however explores the possibility of using real estate development to create an alternative source of income while allowing the villagers to retain their share of title in the land instead of having to sell it off to a private developer, as is trend

Water is an element that binds not just through necessitiy, but through culture as well It is a large part of religious ceremony among the many ethnicities in Mumbai Worli, in particular has a uniue inclusivity for all The project aims to enhance this aspect by creating development based around a shared Commons, and a shared model of housing which enables title to property

Worli village is one of the oldest inhabited land masses at the western edge of Mumbai Unlike other low income communities, this piece of land is owned by the village folk themselves It is a commonly held asset, catered to by the Worli Koliwada Owner’s association Current development pressure to house new populations in the city is seeing the potential development of the area with a threat of eradication of the village through its designation as a slum

Daily Ablution-Islam

Baptism-Christianity Ritual Bathing-Hindusism

The project divides the whole site into 4 parcels Each parcel is divided according to proximity of a temple and a calculation of FSI Temple space with enlarged footprint

Each household in every parcel will lend an FSI of ONE to enable a high rise development built atop the common space of the temple

Banganga is a historic religious water tank in Mumbai that serves as an excellet example of the use of water as a commons

infrastructure improvements

Each cluster has a temple situated on site In the new design that temple becomes the anchor for the Commons or commonly shared space The enlarged footprint of the temple houses a high rise development created by the lent FSI of the cluster These new developments bring in improved access, water infrastructure, a ground plane held in common with the temple as a node and most importantly, it brings in, the rest of Mumbai

These are various configurations of the type of water commons at the base of each high rise cluster These are visually and physically permeable spaces that thread into the rest of the site, serving as: A passage A node A place for commerce A place of religious ritual A place for recreation A place for All

Hydrospan Water

A minnimum of 7 lpcd per person is required on a daily basis.

The data from Mumbai reflects supply per household, averaging 4-5 persons

Hydrospan RE-Connect/ Vertical Cities Competition Studio Mumbai (Graduate)-Winter 2013

Residential Buildings

Group Project with Lilliana Gonzalez-MUD 2013

Slums

25% of slum population

The Eastern Waterfront Mumbai is a post-industrial, hazardous backwater where there are shipyards, petrochemical industries and oil refineries

of

Water is one of the most disputed resources in India, with a particular chronic dearth in Mumbai

Designated as undesirable, this part of the city is disconnected from the bustling South

Inaccessibility rather than a shortage is the cause for this

The project aims at making use of this waterfrot to re-connect the area back to the city The span doing so will be guided by water as an organizing mechanism

There is no formal water infrastructure in place and the low income residents suffer the brunt of the rampant water politics

The projects attempts to integrate water mechanisms into models of: 1.Brownfield Remediation

2. Housing

3. Integrated communal water distribution points

Acharya Donde Road The linear span being developed

Collection and distribution centre at existing school Adapting industrial infrastructure to water storage and treatment facility

Aqueduct water distribution for housing model Megastructure Bridging the gap Housing Future Urban Development

This aim of this project was to re-connect, using water A medium that unites the whole city

School/distribution centre

-Cleaning of the waterfront to make the space more habitable -To create another civic waterfront for the entire city -To increase access to water by embedding it into a low income housing system -Creating public amenity program on site

Aqueduct Housing Megastructure

A section of the entire span

Outdoor theatre as one of the activities

Park underneath the structure

aqueduct

The Development is done along a linear artery, Acharya Donde Road, that continues all the way into the city hub A megastructure stradles the railway track and elevated freeway, connecting this road to the water’s edge

A passage

It serves as an aqueduct carrying treated water from the facility at the waterfront to the distribution points along the stretch It is also a pedestrian passage and is large enough to serve as a centre for community activities A rendering of the structure bridging the span Flamingos appear at this waterfront seasonally This particular aspect is used as a magnet for recreation A section of the entire span

Hines Competition 2014 Water

Cumberland Bay Hines Competition-2014 Halthy cities

Multi-disciplinary team project-team of 5

Sulphur Dell

The 2014 Hines competition,was aimed at re-developing a sparsely occupied brownfield area, just south of downtown Nashville The objectives were: Creating a healthy city Mediating the threat of flooding

The flooding pattern shows the existing topography

Cumberland River

Downtown

Bay Creating a corridor that leads all the way up to the bay It creates a passage, populated with activty, between the stadium and the bay

Creating the Bay itself and populating it with restaurants, shops and other commercial activities

Introducing the various forms of housing that cater to different income sets and ensure that there will be no gentrfication

Stadium

creating the pier

Plan for developing a recreational bay near the baseball stadium Phase-1

Phase-2

Phase-3 Section

stadium Housing Housing Housing

waterfront villas

Big Box retail as an anchor Housing

Housing

Beach at the bay Retaining a structure that spans the water and houses a farmers market etc

Office space

Park at the bay integrated with a bike path Office space

ULI Hines 2014 Brownfield redevelopment Nashville, Tennesse The focus of the exercise was to emphasize the significance of a healthy urban environment Redevelopment of a hazardous and desolate landscape into an active waterfront space

Pier on the bay for river cruises and watersports

Hotel

*Commercial activity at first floor level in all strcutures *Creating a commercial corridor leading to the Bay

The bay serves multiple purposes: 1. Mediating the flood that threatens the low lying area 2. Creating a magnet point for development 3. Recreational centre on the riverfront for the city

Topographically the site is a low lying basin right next to the riverfront. For this reason, our team carved out a bay at the waterfront to control varying water levels at the time of a possible flood

6 feet

10 feet The water-facing commercial activity breathes life into this part of the city, encourages real estate development

Treating the topography in a manner that it encourages physical activity is an attempt at catering to the health aspect The pier at the waterfront encourages water sports, introducing healthy activities into the public realm The river cruises capitalize on the presence of a waterfront and connect the area to surrounding ones in a creative manner

20 feet

Other Work 2009-2012

Mediating the differences

Transportation

Harmonizing Pedestrian and Vehicular Traffic Undergraduate Thesis (2012)

A car is speed and sex and emancipation It makes its driver a self-sufficient nation of one It is everything a city is not.

Walking down the sidewalk, until there was no more...

Lahore,is the second largest city of Pakistan-a population of 11 million and growing The project was a critique of the existing efforts of creating a city for the car, where the majority population is pedestrian

Lahore

Ferozepur Road

Linear Site: 1.2 Km in Ichra

Ichra

Major cloth market

60% of the population is pedestrian 90% of infrstructure funds go to road building

Shama intersection

Major furniture market

Shahjamal ntersection

A Sketch of the existing activities and traffic flows on site

The Design attempts at integrating not just circulation but stagnant activities as well

A study of the circulation patterns of different modes of transport on site This is one of a series of studies, overlaid and applied to the design

A few of the activities on site that allow social interaction

The chosen site in particular is a hazard for pedestrians. Due to a lack of infrastructure for circulation people cross the road at random and there are a lot of pedestrian fatalities

All the traffic goes piling into the side lane

A bus stop, in the middle of nowhere

no place to be seated The solution was to : -Create a dedicated bus corridor at road level -Depress the vehicular circulation to 8 ft below road level -Create cantilevered side walks at grade level -Overhead pedestrian bridges and passages to connect the sidewalks and parking structures

The connective elements are designed to house activities that allow for spontaneous interaction between people

Public space is a gift for the people of a city Creating more and diverse kinds of public space invites people to connect and communicate-urban performances that take place in the public realm are what characterize a city and breathe life into it

Creating Happy Cities Parks and Heritage

Gem Street Preservation and public area dev Professional Work-PHA (2009)

Gem street Lahore is a narow alley behind the crumbling wall that encompasses the ancient quarter of Lahore This is one of many unique spaces in the ancient walled city, being preserved as heritage that need to be re-introduced to the fast growing city

Lahore

Gem street

Ferozepur Rd

Wall of a park opened up to view

Decorative wall where the vendors will be designated to sit with their wares

Walled city

Existing situation in the Alley

Vendors line both walls selling gems

The ancient walled city was established by the Mughals that travelled to the Indian Subcontinent from Central Asia and conquered the region Lahore was the centre of culture of the empire The Architecture of all that exists in the walled city is reflective of the reign The attempt of the project was to incorporate certain architectural elements that are from the Mughal era

These elements include: Planters in the wall in the alley The overhead shades on the wall A vaulted entrance to the Alley itself A vaulted etrance to the Park The Commemorative wall in the Park

Commemorative Park Kabbadi and The great Gama The alley is alongside a park that shall commemorate a veteran of a traditional Sport “Kabaddi�

The park is aptly placed next to the wrestling ground where memorable matches were held

Decorative Wall dedicated to the Great Gama A pioneer of the sport, The Great Gama

A legendary match of Kabbadi

The park as it is

Kabbadi ground next door

Posters of wrestlers

RUBA FAUZAN

ruba.fauzan@gmail.com/ 734 578 4380/ 48662 Central Park Drive, Canton MI 48188

EXPERIENCE

EDUCATION

University of Michigan-Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning Masters in Urban Design Ann Arbor ,MI (July 2013 - June 2014) National College of Arts Bachelors in Architecture

Lahore, Pakistan (Feb 2007 - Jan 2012)

SKILLS & LANGUAGES

AutoCad, illustrator, indesign, photoshop, sketchUp, Microsoft Office Suite Learning Rhino and Revit English, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi

COMPETIITONS & AFFILIATIONS

Safe Safar (NGO for Road Safety, HQ: Lahore, Pakistan) Co Founder & Gen Secretary

Skidmore Owings & Merrill Urban Design Extern Albayrak Construction Architect

Chicago, IL (May 2014- one week)

Lahore, Pakistan (Aug 2012 - July 2013)

OCCO (Office for Conservation & Community Outreach Research & Design Asst/Summer Intern Lahore, Pakistan (June- Aug 2010) The Heritage Foundation- NGO by Arch Yasmeen Lari On-site Architect/Volunteer Swat, Pakistan (April 2010)

ULI Hines Competition 2014 (participation) UN- Habitat, MassHousing Competition 2013 (participation) Vertical Cities Asia 2014 (Participation) Institute of Architects Pakistan (IAP) Affiliate Architect

University of Michigan-Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning (Oct 2014 - Present) Independent Research Assitant for Mclain Clutter

2009- Present 2012-2013

Architecture Students Association of Pakistan (ASAP-NCA chapter) Co Founder & Student President 2009-2011

Parks & Horticulture Authority - Government Organization Design Consultant (Part- time) Lahore, Pakistan (Aug 2009- Feb 2010)

And miles to go before I sleep...