SIDDHARTH NADKARNY SELECTED INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
ARCHITECTURE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIC PLANNING
Siddharth Nadkarny Bachelor of Architecture | KRVIA Mumbai Master of City Planning | UC Berkeley siddharth.nadkarny@gmail.com +1.302.430.2033 | +91.9820102870 673 10th Street #5, Oakland, CA 94607
__ National Housing Policy for Informal Settlements - Kenya with Center for Healthy Global Cities, UC Berkeley/Muungano Support Trust __ Sustainable Tourism for Oaxaca - Tlacolula Valley, Mexico with UC Berkeley/Oax-i-fornia __ Incremental Housing for Community Stability - Port-au-Prince, Haiti with Affordable Housing Institute/Cordaid __ Tourism Management Plan for the Taj Mahal Complex - Agra, India with RMA Architects/Archaeological Survey of India __ Prototype Community Toilets for Informal Settlements - Mumbai, India with RMA Architects/Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centers __ Reclaiming Public Spaces in Juhu - Mumbai, India with KRVIA Design Cell/Mumbai Waterfronts Center __ Critique of the Dharavi Redevelopment Plan - Mumbai, India with KRVIA Design Cell/Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centers
CONTENTS
Cordaid is an international nongovernmental organization based in the Netherlands that has provided healthcare, education and social support to communities in the Canape Vert neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti since the late-1980s. In the aftermath of the 2008 earthquake, Cordaid expanded its role to encompass the provision of emergency shelters and financial aid to return stability in the neighborhood. Desiring to enhance some of the gains in achieving community stability, Cordaid sought to assist residents in the development of permanent housing. The Incremental Housing Plan for Canape Vert envisioned Cordaid playing a limited, catalytic role in building permanent housing for residents. With the plan, Cordaid would help set up democratic processes for sustainable development in the neighborhood, and financial and technical support to initiate community savings scheme that could leverage funding for urban improvements and housing. As a critical member of the Affordable Housing Insitute’s team, my responsibilities included policy analysis, designing housing typologies and site plans, preparing financial feasibility models and developing phasing strategies for the development.
Incremental Housing for Community Stability Affordable Housing Institute, 2012 PARTNERS LOCATION
Cordaid Port-au-Prince, Haiti
ROLE
Strategic Planning, Architectural, Urban Design, Financial Planning
Populated primarily by the indigenous Zapotec community, the Tlacolula Valley in Oaxaca, Mexico has a rich heritage in agricultural production and small-scale crafts and secondary agricultural products. The Valley’s residents are closely interlinked through specialization and trade in this uniquely urban region. One of the products of agriculture in the Valley is Mezcal, a form of artisanally produced alcohol whose popularity in the USA has spurred industrial production and ‘Mezcal Tourism’ in the area, with adverse effects on the economy and lifestyle in the Valley. Oax-i-fornia is a nonprofit organization in the Tlacolula Valley that supports indigenous crafts people and farmers to creatively sustain existing processes of production by creating new markets for these products. Building up on similar nascent, localized efforts, the Sustainable Tourism Plan for Oaxaca leverages the tourism generated by industrial Mezcal to spur economic development for artisanal, small-scale craftspeople and producers. With the plan, existing sustainable production methods can be supported through organizational and supply-chain strategies, while providing critical alternative transportation infrastructure for the benefit of the residents and tourists in the Valley. As a member of this team of students and consultants, I focused on transportation strategies that serve locals and tourists alike and an economic development plan for artisanal Mezcal producers that takes advantage of existing supply chains within the Valley.
Sustainable Tourism in Oaxaca UC Berkeley, 2012 PARTNERS LOCATION
Oax-i-fornia Tlacolula Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico
ROLE
Strategic Planning, Infrastructure Planning, Economic Development Analysis
Since 1996, the Kenyan slumdwellers’ federation Muungano wa Wanavijiji and the nongovernmental organization Muungano Support Trust (MuST) have aided residents of informal settlements in major Kenyan cities in upgrading their neighborhoods with a unique approach centered around community savings schemes. MuST is one of the members of a Policy Committee for Urban Housing that seeks to implement new housing policies under the new Kenyan National Constitution formulated in 2010. The Center for Global Healthy Cities at UC Berkeley has been providing development and technical support to MuST on its various slum upgrading programs since 2005. For this proposal, the Center worked closely with MuST in Nairobi and in Berkeley on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of comparative housing policies, policy formulation and technical support on upgradation. I led a team of graduate students in policy analysis of similar models from around the world and housing policy recommendations that enable MuST to scale up their decentralized, savings-scheme based financing strategy nationwide.
National Policy for Informal Settlements Center for Global Healthy Cities, UC Berkeley, 2013 PARTNERS LOCATION
Muungano Support Trust Kenya
ROLE
Policy Analysis Policy Recommendations Technical Support
The Taj Mahal Complex in Agra is a UNESCO-certified World Heritage site with over 1.5 million visitors every year. Its status as a protected historical site requires any development within 500 meters of the site to obtain approval from the Supreme Court of India, within which a substantial proportion of Agra’s 1.25 million residents live. Moreover, the land in and around the monument is owned by eight different central, state and local government entities that frequently have contradictory plans for the area around the monument. In line with new security needs, the Archaeological Survey of India required a Tourism Management Plan that could balance the interests of visitors with minimal impact on the monument and locals living within the 500-meter radius. As Associate Architect for the project, I led a team of planners, architects and lawyers in the planning and design of two Visitors’ Centers and a tourism management plan for the Taj Mahal Complex that aids in conserving the Complex and provides a comfortable tourist experience, while negotiating the political and administrative landscape at the local, regional and national levels. As the lead planner and architect for the project, I presented the scheme to a special bench of the Supreme Court of India for approval, which was obtained unanimously.
Tourism Management Plan for the Taj Mahal Complex RMA Architects, 2010 PARTNERS LOCATION ROLE
Archaeological Survey of India Agra, India Strategic Urban Planning, Architectural Design
Informal settlements in Mumbai house over 50% of the city’s 15 million residents, but suffer from an extreme deprivation of basic needs and infrastructure. The Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC) has worked with the National Slum Dwellers’ Federation (NSDF) for over thirty years and made substantial progress on securing rights and building housing and infrastructure using a community-driven, decentralized approach. Through the Community Toilets model, SPARC seeks to create locally built and managed infrastructure assets for neighborhoods in informal settlements that also become community engagement hubs. As Lead Architect for this project, I led a team of architects, engineers and community representatives in the planning and design of an environmentally sustainable, low-maintenance community toilet prototype that could be replicated in other part of the city, and the construction of a toilet in Govandi, Mumbai. I also worked with SPARC to set up metrics for performance evaluation of this prototype and the eventual expansion of this model in other communities.
Prototype Community Toilets for Informal Settlements RMA Architects, 2009 PARTNERS LOCATION
SPARC Mumbai, India
ROLE
Strategic Planning Community Organizing Architectural Design
While it is now considered one of Mumbai’s most affluent suburbs, Juhu historically was a marshy area that formed a critical part of the city’s natural stormwater control system. Owing to changes in development guidelines, the suburb has seen its population increase by about three times since 1991. The observed effect of this growth has been frequent flooding during monsoons and infrastructural issues. The biggest impact of growth has been on the 40% of the suburb’s residents who live in old agricultural settlments and informal settlements in ecologically sensitive areas. The Mumbai Waterfronts Center is a nonprofit organization that organizes to protect and improve the city’s recreational spaces, and intended to pursue similar objectives for the suburb of Juhu. Based on current patterns of urban space usage, the project sought to expand the idea of recreational spaces to include all forms of public space. The means of protecting recreational space was in its dual use as a recreational space and as critical public infrastructure - for example, lining natural stormwater channels with recreational spaces that become overflow zones during monsoon flooding. At the same time, treating public spaces as part of common public infrastructure helped make the case for equitable access to these spaces for all residents in the suburb. As Project Coordinator, I oversaw community organizing, design and strategic planning for this project.
Reclaiming Public Spaces in Juhu KRVIA Design Cell, 2008 PARTNERS LOCATION ROLE
Mumbai Waterfronts Center Mumbai, India Strategic Urban Planning Community Organizing
Dharavi is popularly considered to be Asia’s largest slum, but is actually a group of 85 active live-work communities housing over 400,000 low income residents, with each neighborhood showing unique urban typologies. A state government plan for redevelopment of Dharavi planned to re-house current residents in cramped skyscrapers or evict them from the site, while changing development guidelines to allow developers to construct four times the allowable area on the site. Another grievance for community based organizations and resident groups in Dharavi was the autocratic nature of the government’s plan. The Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC) has worked with the National Slum Dwellers’ Federation (NSDF) for over thirty years and made substantial progress on securing rights and building housing and infrastructure using a community-driven, decentralized approach. SPARC and NSDF sought an alternative redevelopment plan that rehoused all original inhabitants of the slum in the same neighborhood and followed a decentralized, community driven approach in surveys, planning proposals and typology design. The goal was to present this alternative plan to the state government with the intent of critiquing the existing process. As a team member on the project, I conducted physical and social surveys, assisted with financial projections for the proposal and designed housing typologies. I also presented part of the proposal to the state government entity entrusted with the project.
Critique of the Dharavi Redevelopment Plan KRVIA Design Cell, 2007 PARTNERS LOCATION
SPARC, NSDF Mumbai, India
ROLE
Strategic Urban Planning Urban Design Guidelines Architectural Design Financial Modeling