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India

How to Choose Vehicle Floor Mats for Better Interior Protection

Car floor mats may appear to be a simple accessory. They collect mud that would otherwise reach the original vehicle electronics flooring. Because they are exposed to shoes, moisture and changing weather every day, auto floor mats should be selected…

Delhi’s nature as commons: Whose labour for
whose designs?

While natural resources and biodiversity in a Delhi’s park can be seen as the commons, the question is if urban design can move us towards more of a ‘commoning’ society. To look at urban nature as the commons, it would…

Making classrooms comfortable, responding
to heat

Schools need to be viewed as unique sites of heat risk, but thermal comfort and heat adaptation in schools remain poor. Children are physiologically more vulnerable to heat but lack the awareness to recognise their bodies’ distress signals and the…

Why cities need care committees, why rehab buildings are slum-like

Planning a city without adequate attention to design at macro and micro levels across it makes for chaos, clutter, difficulties in access and more. At the intersections of design and gender, and design and rehabilitation housing in Mumbai, Question of…

‘No spatial planning instrument designed for people’s decisions of public space’

Designing sustainable and liveable spaces, conserving and expanding open spaces, drafting and implementing policies for inclusiveness, involving people across class and geography in the design of their living and working environments can make cities where people live comfortably and ecology…

The Etawah design: An 123-acre urban forest as its lungs

The rapidly urbanising city of Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, developed an abandoned 123-acre sprawl into an urban forest with native trees under the government’s Nagar Van Yojana. One of the 30 Nagar Vans in the state, its canopy, fencing, wide walkways,…

AI can design cities. Ten ways to keep humans in control

Generative AI can analyse traffic and pedestrian movement, test land-use and density options, and simulate issues such as urban heat and air quality besides speeding up research and helping designers explore ideas. Urban design is shaped by history, culture, politics,…

Architecture of walls in the neoliberal remodelling of Bengaluru

The city once known for balancing gated enclosures with open, tree-lined, planned neighbourhoods has turned alienating and disquieting with business parks, gated communities, and flyovers fragmenting it. Neoliberal architecture favours interiority and fragmentation. The obvious built form are flyovers which…

How development rules reshape childhoods in Mumbai’s rehab colonies

In Mumbai’s Lallubhai Compound, a resettlement and rehabilitation colony, children co-created the 13,000 square feet of derelict land strewn with trash into the Indradhanush Garden that they now use and care for. Play and education are integral to the overall…

Urban imaginaries and spatial inclusion in Kozhikode’s
Gujarati Street

Once the hub and home of traders from Gujarat, the street has been transformed into an ‘art street’ with a new heritage-cultural entrepreneurship, and repurposed walls and structures turned into aesthetic cultural establishments. Those who own or curate the street…

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