Ruju Joshi UD4516 B. Urban Design Program Faculty of Planning CEPT University, Ahmedabad -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vertical Studio, 3rd Semester Streets and the City
Introduction
Description
Content
The Indian cities are transforming at a very faster rate which is accompanied by a tremendous change in land-use; both in terms of form as well structure. In this process of transformation, especially the change in land-use; the urban areas started generating enormous interactions as compared to the rural areas, which has drastically increased the need to travel. People started preferring to take specialised occupations which are more decentralised so that they get benefited with the reduced travel cost and travel time. The spatial organisation of the city has an extremely important impact on the way people move through the spaces to reach their pre-selected destinations. However, this benefit is not showing any impact on a larger societal level. It is due to the fact that people still prefer to use their personalised vehicular modes for their daily commute due to the poorly maintained transit facilities, unattractive streets and the associated built-environment.
Under the theme of Streets and the City, this vertical studio introduces design as a speculative process of inquiry and experimentation. It comprises of knowledge acquisition and the preliminary development of skills to conceptualise, resolve and present well-reasoned street design ideas through drawing and modelling. The studio will consider local, national as well as international contexts to explore the ideas of designing streets and its associated environment. The course introduces techniques of analysis and critique of design outcomes as well as fundamental principles applicable to the transit and street design. This course engages students to design the existing streets and to intervene its associated environment in a very sensitive and holistic approach, which needs both, anthropometry and ergonomics. The studio has been conducted in four phases;
User group study : Pedestrians, Wrond siders, Traffic police
One of the immediate results which have been observed is the proliferation in the figure of motor vehicles on streets which predominantly consumes the street space. Due to the immense travel demand, the streets turned into the conduits for personalised motor vehicles and as a consequence the streets started losing their multi-functionality to a single use i.e. to move motor vehicles. Most of the Indian cities design their streets which are primarily deliberated for vehicles with a lack in holistic peopleoriented design approach. The adverse effect of this approach has made the pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users as the most vulnerable users of the streets in any Indian city. This vertical studio will focus on rightsizing and re-designing of existing streets to turn them into Complete Streets which enables safe, attractive and comfortable access and travel to all the users of the street. The primary aim of this studio is to bring the sensitiveness and importance of anthropometry and ergonomics in the process of street design.
case study : Manhattan, New york Site introduction : Navrangpura, Ahmedabad Site analysis : phase 1 Project introduction : Inner pedestrian network Site analysis : phase 2 Design
In first phase of the studio, students will study various users of streets and the associated everyday life on streets. The reconnaissance about the users will provide a completely new urban lens to the students to broaden their ways of seeing how various user groups of the city exists in relation to our built-environment. In second phase students will do case studies of cities. The idea of doing case studies is to expose them with best practices which cities are adopting for making resilient and liveable cities. It will also help them in building the foundation for studio assignments in the next phase. During the third phase, students will be assigned with specific sites within the city of Ahmadabad. Students will undertake the introductory survey and analysis of the respective assigned sites. In this phase students will explore the complexities of the street and its associated environment through a complex multi-dimensional matrix of social, economic, environmental, political and cultural forces. In the last phase, students will take the inferences from the first three phases to build the foundation for a major urban design proposal and also the development of the same for the end semester assessment.
B. Urban Design Program Faculty of Planning CEPT University, Ahmedabad ----------------------------------Vertical Studio, 3rd Semester Streets and the City Subhasish Borah, Sandeep Paul, Bhavesh lohar
ALL USER GROUPS AND STREET ELEMENTS
FOCUSED USER GROUPS
PEDESTRIANS
WRONG SIDERS
Individuals - men, women, students, senior citizens, people usintg mobile phones or headphones, students Groups - people waiting for buses, people around vendors
autorickshaws, cars, two wheelers, cycles, pedestrians, mobile vendors
KEY MAP
TRAFFIC POLICE
MOVEMENT PATTERNS TRAFFIC POLICE ISSUES - CONCERNS
PEDESTRIANS
Continuous wrong siders Accidents honking
SITES
WRONG SIDERS
Health??
USER GROUP STUDY IIM road
LD road
Anandnagar road
Kalupur railway station road
Manekchawk road
CG road
Six lane wide street with wide footpaths(non-continuous), parking on both sides, street elements and a flyover
Six lane wide street with unutilised footpaths, on street parking, instituitional use areav
Four lane street with parkings on both side, no footpath, higher median heights, mixed use buildings around
Four lane street with footpaths, on street auto parking and continuous bus traffic with flowing traffic
Hardly a lane wide, parking during day, street food at night, heart of the old city
Highly commercial, one of the designed streets of the city
Low visibility on the road takes more time Absence of street elements like continuous Using earphones or mobile phones to cross the road(individually or in groups) footpath, zebra crossing trees etc while walking on the road
WRONG SIDERS
ISSUES AND CONCERNS
PEDESTRIANS
Breathingwheezing coughing
Wide roads welcoming wrong To avoid congestion siders to ride faster and easier
To avoid longer U-turns and save time
Streets are a major part of a city. They connect the core to the extremes and act as the veins of the city. Every city in India with its diverse culture has variety of people with several beliefs and cultural values. People make streets liveable and theirs lives and livelihoods are dependant on streets in such a way that it forms a complete new face of the street. The best and the easiest way to fit yourself into the context is to understand the very important aspect of ‘anonymity’ of the streets, by understanding its users. This exercise was about studying different types of streets considering same groups of users found on all six sites in different areas, by recording their activities and movements on streets throughout the day to understand the functionality of the streets from a user’s perspective throughout the city of Ahmedabad.
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK
Manhattan is the most densely populated part of New York City’s 5 boroughs. It’s mostly made up of Manhattan Island, bounded by the Hudson, East and Harlem rivers. Among the world’s major commercial, financial and cultural centers, it’s the heart of “the Big Apple.”
Goals and Principles for Street Design Design for safety Design to balance local access and mobility Design for context Design streets as public spaces Design for sustainability and resiliency Design for cost-effectiveness
Densely populated cities like New york, not only by human density but also by built density, have streets as their only possible left out space which is a huge part of their daily life and considering that, designing streets that encorporate all the users from children to universally challanged to senior citizens, is the most appropriate approach. Strong Enforcing guidelines and even small urban design intervention enhance its functionality.
Street network : Manhattan
PERCENT OF NEW YORK CITY LAND AREA BY USE
Buildings and parking lots
Streets
P a r k s , Airports, other Vacant land Cemeteries, transportation other open facilities and spaces miscellaneous
Building footprint : Manhattan
The case study is focused more on different street elements and its specific usages based on the guidelines.
CASE STUDY Developed countries have achieved quite a bit in terms of street design compared to developing countries of the world, which facilitates and accommodates all the users on street by creating an inclusive space that welcomes their activities and frees their movements, each by its context. Aim of this exercise was to study and understand the importance of street design and how the benchmarked cities of the world have designed their streets and spaces considering their users’ perspective and how successful they are in terms of their design strategies. Twelve cities and some universal guidelines were taken into consideration.
Bus Lane and Busway
DESIGN : Crosswalks, Medians, Curb Extensions and Other Traffic Calming Elements
Lane narrowing
Comparing issues and concerns of pedestrians of ahmedabad to newyork to find out alternative adaptable solutions to facilitate their needs
DESIGN : Roadways, Lanes and Sidewalks
Bike Lane and Bike way
Ribbon sidewalk and Full Sidewalk
NEW YORK
wide sidewalks soft/ physical separation from the road Continuous footpaths curb extensions in case of parkings or bus stops Separate lanes for buses so that it does not disturb the pedestrian movement lower median height that help crossing the road Zebra crossings Median islands to cross the road where there are no medians along with zebra crossing shared street that accommodates more pedestrians and prompts walking separate cycling lane Ramps and lower sidewalk heights(if present) help physically challenged people interim planned plazas that encourage public gatherings Appropriate shade and lighting street furniture supporting pedestrians to rest if wanted Traffic calming elements designed pedestrian friendly (with boulevards, street furniture, landscaping etc.) that help pedestrians to wait while crossing the road one way lanes
Speed humps
Speed cusions
Diagonal crosswalk
Raised crosswalk
Chicane
Pedestrian safety islands
Traffic calming crosswalk Gateways
very narrow or broken sidewalks, in many cases no sidewalks sidewalks with height of 20-30 cm Discontinuous footpaths when there’s an intersection broken curbs, no demarcation between sidewalks, cycling lane or carriage way no such lanes, buses stop on the carriage way and creates traffic High rises medians difficult to cross not everywhere neither zebra nor medians, people walk and cross the road unsafely, on their own risks no such streets except for happy streets on CG road on specific days and time during the year Designated lanes on some routes but not everywhere no such facilities except for some places Unplanned plazas (manekchowk) which creates traffic congestion not on every street no street furniture and if available, broken or unplanned No designs just an element no such distinctions, if made not followed, hinders pedestrians
Pinch point
Conventional crosswalk Curb extention
AHMEDABAD
Neighbourhood circle
Speed table
Staggered crosswalk
Pinchpoint Crosswalk
traffic
CASE STUDY Followed by identifying the complexities of earlier studied user groups and kind of approaches and guidelines that can be adopted from those developed cities that fits the context and facilitates the user groups.
ABOUT : Navrangpura - How has it grown? and what has it become today!
SITE LOCATION : Navrangpura FIRST IMPRESSION It is said that you can interpret a single thing with hundreds of different means through different lenses and also the perception defers from person to person. But, the first impression of any such thing remains constant, only the views change. Keeping that in mind, the very first thing was to make a first impression of the navrangpura ward without having any preconceived ideas of what is it going to be, which further led us to a defined area of which starting with the basic study, some specific clues and characteristics were further translated into a learning by analysing those factors.
User group and street element study of Navrangpura : compliment or confict?
Way forwards .. what kind of urban fabric exist? street hierarchy? building footprints? how does it function? what is the built density? - what kind of blocks exisit? human density? building heights building typology? do the commercial buildings building orientation! have basements? what is its impact on street? what is the land use? do street elements exist? how does the edge change? How is the tree cover ? vendors ? do junctions matter? shared lane ustilisation? parkings and v of buildings?! how’s the street light affecting the area?
SITE INTRODUCTION After learning how to study and analyse a particular site more effectively and efficiently via previous exercises, the studio was divided into two groups with two sites(two major wards of Ahmedabad) having completely different characteristics of which one was Prahladnagar and the other was Navrangpura. Reason behind choosing these two sites specifically was to understand the growth pattern of both the wards, both being built up in complete different situations. Navrangpura being in central Ahmedabad and an organically grown area and also a major CBD of the city vis a vis prahladnagar as a growing CBD of Ahmedabad, all precisely planned from the beginning.
NAVRANGPURA Navrangpura is located in central Ahmedabad and is a major CBD of the city. Evolution of this area from highly posh residentials to becoming the most expensive street of Ahmedabad(once upon a time and even today), the journey has been interesting so far. Famous shopping centres, restaurants, huge bungalows, renowned colleges, large commercial hubs, huge garden, street shopping, street food and what not comprises to this area. The area caters to all the classes of our society, creates experiences and accommodates a huge amount of flowing as well as static population of the city everyday and night.
Block Analysis
Land use
Edge condition
Building heights
SITE ANALYSIS : NAVRANGPURA Being a tiny part of a huge profession ‘Urban Design’, it is very important to understand the site so that when you intervene, the probability of it becoming successful, doubles up. Reason being the knowledge of that site as the base of your design intervention. Here in Navrangpura, in-depth analysis of way forwards was done in order to learn how to approach a site, how it functions and also for the further support of the coming designing phase. The site analysis was divided into two parts : 1) overall site study of way forwards 2) in-depth analysis of specific site for individual design approaches Here are shown different parameters of analysis which were carried out as a group
Vendors, trees and street elements
Street light
Street hierarchy
CG road transact (swastik to panchavati)
on site drawings for CG road transact
SITE ANALYSIS : NAVRANGPURA CG road being the busiest streets of the area and its diverse nature in terms of land uses, building orientation, ‘designed street’, etc were the key points to choose it for detailed analysis Aim behind doing this exercise was to understand the negotiations of spaces between public and private rhealm, what are the boundaries, How do those boundaries affect the streets and other physical factors related to street design and land use A mass and void model of the site was also made to understand the urban fabric, built-unbuilt spaces This exercise enhabced not only our thinking process but also taught us some amazing lessons for lifetime
mass and void site model
VISION : STREETS FOR PEOPLE
VISION AND PROJECTS After studying and understanding the whole site, six of our group members took one one way forwards based on whatever we had learnt so far and came up with a vision for the area as a group with respect to individual projects which aimed to propose six different urban design interventions with unique approaches in different parts of the area
CONCEPT
SPECIFIC SITE ANALYSIS : block analysis
Integrated spaces which cater the daily needs
On street parking and unattractive streets discourages people to walk Smaller blocks help in increasing accessibility
SCOPE user(pedestrian) friendly enhances the inner network tree cover light visual accessibility safety exclusively inclusive spaces (only for pedestrians)
LIMITATIONS user specific exclusively for pedestrians land use only for inner streets propert ownership
Exclusive inner pedestrian network with integrated spaces
Reduced walking distances Activities incorporated
SPECIFIC SITE ANALYSIS Recreational spaces for all user groups Reduce visual barrier
Make commercial and residential inclusive as well as responsive to each other
2) Spicific or focused site analysis is about understanding the area with our project concept to find out possible space where it can be implemented
CONCEPT The aim behind choosing this project was to reduce walking distances and to create welcoming spaces which attract and encourage people to walk. Also the concept of carving out spaces from building setbacks or utilising unutilised inner streets, was further supported by a case study of Singapore, which mentions that the city is following similar concept. Another inspiration was walled city of Ahmedabad, which is so porous in nature, whatever be the land use or building use, those carved out spaces lead you to your destinations in half of the actual walking time and people tend to take shortcuts while walking and also prefer safety which this area does not offer.
SPECIFIC SITE ANALYSIS
And while doing so much, why not to think about the users?!
Building use and street hierarchy
The idea of integrating spaces is specially for the users of those buildings who will allow us to make our network and as a part of negotiation, what is wrong in providing them with their daily needs just next to their doorstep? Also this area can be compared with any of the developed country’s CBD area, let’s say Manhattan! Which has designed its streets and buildings according to the users with certain regulations which offers them a better livelihood in return then why can’t we as a developing country can take up such initiatives?
Plot orientation
Building orientation
SPECIFIC SITE ANALYSIS 2) Spicific or focused site analysis is about understanding the area with our project concept to find out possible space where it can be implemented It also gives us the rationale behind our project
NETWORK DESIGN Network design is a very important part of this design process as it gives us an overall understanding of the connectivity
DETAILED DESIGN All the plans and sections show movement of people in the created space and how it is being positively utilised by them Because at the end of the day we are designing for people so they are the most important aspect of our intervention
DETAILED DESIGN All the plans and sections show movement of people in the created space and how it is being positively utilised by them The hieght of the wall between two commercial buildings has been reduced to 1.5m so that removes the visual barrier and gives the feeling of openness and also acts as a seating space potentially planted trees provide shade experiece when you walk and also a gathering space strategically put bollards restrict the vehicular entries Such designs can solve vulnurable issues with less efforts and smart work. It is always good to learn and adapt new things. Our societies are changing, accepting such kind of projects will definitely make it more powerful and successful.