Urban Planning | Development and design of urban landscapes

A reality-based, sustainable urban planning order

The abysmal living conditions and perpetual stress for millions in cities like Mumbai are not accidental but the intended outcome of planning that’s increasingly skewed towards exclusive city-making and profiteering. The prevailing approach to planning has manufactured social and ecological…

What do Mumbai’s buildings owe the street?

Modern architecture has become mesmerised by the skyline and silhouette, and forgotten the human scale, the intimate two metres at which people…

Woh kuche, woh galiyaan, mohalle kahan hain?

The narrow streets, winding lanes, and intimate localities were once the social spaces at the threshold of public and private life. Beyond…

The vertical Panopticon: Architectural violence in
rehab towers

The multi-storeyed rehabilitation towers for slum dwellers, by their design, are nothing less than the intensification of the very conditions in slums…

Planning does not make space for women, children, and
the informal

The way cities are planned and built reveals a disconnect and inequity in how they treat the marginalised, the informal workers, women…

Copy-paste riverfront model discounts Godavari’s ecology and heritage

Real estate over ecological restoration, multiplicity of agencies, and Kumbh Mela-driven deadlines are three faultlines of Nashik’s Godavari riverfront development, based on…

An open letter to the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand

Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, is grappling with waste management -- a crisis visible in every overflowing drain, every littered riverbank, and…

Climate action saves lives. So why do climate models
ignore well-being?

Extreme weather events have impacted people’s lives and well-being. However, heat deaths, lost working hours, rising food insecurity or education, cultural heritage, subjective well-being, and governance are missing from climate policy models. This means decisions about climate action may be…

City looks: Not facades and boulevards, but people’s lives and creative expressions

Urban aesthetics has been either historically inspired or drawn from the post-industrial city’s grand geometry of imperial worlds, mercantile splendour, and cruising…

‘Aesthetics not an after-thought or beautification, it’s harmony of city spaces and environment’

Cities become beautiful not only because of the quality of architecture but how it intermingles with nature, other life forms, and visual…