KRVIA MASTERS: SEM III- STUDIO: DENSITIES & AMENITIES: FIRST SESSION ENGAGED BY CHARLES CORREA

KRVIA MASTERS: SHIMLA HOUSING PROJECT: FINAL JURY 2013-Photographs: Credit: Krvia Masters

CONSTITUTIONAL TO INSTITUTIONAL TERRORISM

The beginning of new parliamentary session usually bring the unseasonal shower from all directions. It was expected that prior to monsoon session the retail/FDI/Food related regulation shall be strategically pushed into the parliament and announce the election during the month of January or February. But political adjustments moves much faster than the institutional adjustments and now it’s time the ruling associations are realizing the hard fact. The territorialized geography & ideology is to be negotiated with terms that perhaps was never reckon with. The administrative mismanagement & unconstitutional/unethical operational motives can not be undone. It has been a debate in public domain clearly stating that the  strategy “if you cant erase than efface” which has been the mantras to retain hegemony.

It is perhaps the weakness of our democratic psych to not to remember and be subservient to strategically announced pre-cautionary measure. How bizarre the imagination that compels the rightist thinking left way or leftist thinking right way. The democratic behaves in disguised autocrat.  The ruling hegemony is the most controversial paradigm in its constitutional frame and is able to sail through without question is an eye opener. It solely means that constitutional incorrectness has democratic means for institutional correctness.

The internal issues are given global understanding and global issues are networked for hegemonic destination. This is the democratic framework for the majority of us who are not willing to comprehend the democratic traits in democratic manner. It’s an extreme surprise to note that every issue that crops up is deeper than the predecessor. Is it the inability to sustain democratic virtues or is it the inability to produce able leadership or is it that political wisdom lays in marginal moving away from democratic framework? These are the issues that shall dominate the strategic thinking. The political affiliations are less ideological and more about convenience of institutional terrotorialization. As ideological necessities are deeper where institutions and constitutions are paramount but this is replaced by hegemonic aspiration than the central conditions that perhaps begin to oscillate for undesirable ends.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING: WHOSE TERRITORY?

The urbanity has given new definition to  triad relationship of food, shelter & habitat and has become far more complex process. The recent private/public band wagon of affordable housing agencies are yet another attempt to generate land ownership pattern. The attempt is to prove the affordability by numbers that are acceptable by scheme definition and develop its own market strategy to promote. Hence the affordable housing is a marketing strategy for unforeseen pattern of capital building. 

The recent launch of several schemes and its promotion suddenly raises the question on why developers are turning into philanthropic utopias?.The share market has seen phase of slump and as a ploy it is energize the market, the investors are lure to invest in defensive market and subsequently the market manage to gain some capital mobility. Its similar attempt in the real estate where mobility is constrained the affordable becomes buzzword to create capital mobility. The affordable housing is deceptive as one gets closer to understanding of the feasibility. The land cost is the main factor while material cost is the least factor. The only factory has little value is labour cost. The planning objective perhaps have most insignificant value. Every country has clear definition of what is affordable housing, while in India, its perhaps very clearly understood and not defined is that its far from city and un-affordable to travel to work long distance. The real understanding of affordability is in economic opportunity as a social security which goes beyond the norms of price of a unit. The western countries have clear definition that "if you spend less than 30% of your income on housing it belongs to affordable range". The only reliable example in Indian context is the housing loan which is calculated based on 30 times of your monthly income. Hence it defines the affordability which is based on income and expenditure (everything). The ration defines the affordability, while low cost is completely different areas and group. However the affordable housing has become the unchecked paradise for investor.

It is glaring to note that any affordable housing scheme prices are checked in the beginning  during construction and post completion, the prices appreciation is following the similar pattern of normal housing schemes. 

It is not exaggerated to state that the affordable housing is a disguise for land acquisitions in peripheral areas. It also to create vast land bank for controlling future growth by restricting affordable housing, which in turn becomes seamless part of metros.

IUDI: 2013: VENUE: SPA BHOPAL

PARTICIPANT: KRVIA- SPA DELHI- CEPT- SPA BHOPAL

The IUDI thesis symposium is beginning to shape into a serious platform to share the research and discuss the theoretical questions in Indian context. The participants have clearly demonstrated that the regional questions are important in theorizing urban research. The four institutes that participated have managed to address the urban issue as a regional question and action as an aspiration of localized idea.

CEPT demonstrated that research and thesis is an outcome of studio project extended into the stack holder’s participation and channelizing the contested participant into local governing bodies. Both the case seems to identify the issues and demonstrating seamlessly into actionable thesis project. The both the case study build on the platform of vision to transformation with multiple trajectories. The KRVIA demonstrated the terrain specificity with greater emphasize in empirical sense as well as phenomenal sense. The ideas related to administered foot print, eco-foot print, co modified foot print demonstrated the point that land is community and not commodity. The tools to regulate the changing phenomenon, the values system as a product of tangible and intangible process, that regulating the ambiguity and vitality of everyday urban ism  are also the product of multi-valent nature of urban education that is embedded into the most complex forces of urban agglomeration.

Both the institution demonstrated that urban design practice deals with spatial phenomenon as a product of social and cultural process. The spatial practice informs the urban design decisions and a guardian of urban fabric and quality of life.

The KRVIA stance as being subservient to regional imperative as urban conditions and CEPT imagination of evolving as continuous urban process surely brings the main discourse of Urban Design practice as being thinking & integration of architecture for collective will. The conclusive answers to all empirical and phenomenal questions are in open ended-ness. The super impositions of variations and opportunities within are the larger learning for such open ended ness.

INTRODUCTION

THE LABORATORY APPROACH TO BUILT ENVIRONMENT EDUCATION.

The project URBAN LAB+ is an initiation to set the interactive platform for various educational institutes who are involved in higher education in urban studies. The URBAN LAB+ is involved eight partners with TU BERLIN (Technische Universitat, Berlin, Germany) as host and coordinator for the entire project.

The Larger interest of URBAN LAB+ is to promote higher education, improve services of international students & strengthening relation among the institutes across the world. The partners of the URBAN LAB+ are as follows:

-        Technische Universitat, Berlin, Germany (TU)

-        University College, London, UK

-        Ecole Ploytechnique Federale De Lausanne, Switzerland.

-        Universita Della Calabria, Italy

-        Pontificia Universidad Catolica De Chile.

-        University of The Witwatersrand, South Arfrica

-        Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture & Env. Studies, Mumbai, India

-        The Chinese University of Honkong.

The contact persons are from TU Berlin entire coordination of the project for next three years:

Dr. Ing. Daniela Konard

Johannes Novy

Dr. Ing. Paola Alfaro d’Alencon.

(Email Contact: urbanlabplus@architektur.tu-berlin.de)

THREE DAYS SYMPOSIUM HAD THREE COMPONENTS AS FOLLOWS:

21/03/2013

Urban Lab 210313: 9.40am

SESSION I:  INTRODUCTION TO URBAN LAB+  

SPEAKER: Dr. Ing. Paola Alfaro d’Alencon.

URBAN INCLUSION

It began with emphasize on process of urban dynamics of our cities that needs clear planning strategies for future projection that may have impact of our daily life. It needs to be articulated through dialogue that needs to be synchronized among universities across the section for global learning. The speaker invited the international partners and elaborated the subject of international urban issues which requires collaborative research

Intellectual and disciplinary resources & how URBAN LAB+ can facilitate the entire process with in collaboration with EU.

The speaker further enhanced on the larger theme of the URBAN LAB+ as being “URBAN INCLUSION” where various sub themes can be discussed with respect to context specificity. The reason being that city is our larger objective and issues are diverse, complementing or contradicting which needs to address through the areas of interest as per the partner institute strength.

The broader areas are as follows:

Social Inclusion

Topological Objective vs. Pedagogical Objective

Right Answer vs Addressing Right Issues.

SESSION II PARTNER INSTITUTES: CHAIR PERSON: PROF. UWE-JENS WALTHER

The Second session invited the partner institute to present & share the academic and research areas as a larger pedagogic intent & how it can aid to the process of inquiry on URBAN LAB+ theme on “URBAN INCLUSION”

-        The Chinese University of Hon Kong.: Emphasized the contested space versus designated space within the city of Hon Kong

-        Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture & Env. Studies, Mumbai, India: Presented the case of city of Mumbai as global city dealing with challenges that are at various scales & imaginations.

-        University of The Witwatersrand, South Africa: Elaborated the social exclusion and economic aspects, Housing and informality, Urban Politics and Governance, Sustainability related issues within the city of Johannesburg.

-        Pontificia Universidad Catolica De Chile: Discussed the planning and urban management, Competitiveness, uneven development, segregation and climate change and its impact on our cities.

-        Universita Della Calabria, Italy: Elaborated the issues of Mega Region, Shrinking Phenomenon, Urban Sprawl, Megalopolis & Urban Geographies & Regional Exclusion.

-        Ecole Ploytechnique Federale De Lausanne, Switzerland. Emphasized on Periodicity and dual polarity Phenomena through ecological concern of sea level rising and desertificatin

-        University College, London, UK: Emphasized on Creative Urban Thinking, teaching, research and practice. The strategies for pedagogic intent are: Cross & Inter Disciplinarity, Public Collaboration & Participatory Approach, Experimentation & internationalization. The areas of activity are, Housing, Ecology, Change and Crisis, Data and Place.

-        Technische Universitat, Berlin, Germany (TU): Presented the ephemeral structure,

The Case of need to establishing integrating project work with master student in architecture, Urban Design, City & Regional Planning. The need for Case Study based and action oriented urban teaching method. The teaching method needs to test the innovative forms and method through application of media and technology.

PROF. UWE-JENS WALTHER in his concluding speech summarized the partner institute concerns with remarks on strength that each institute can bring it to the URBAN LAB+ forum.

-        He acknowledged the KRVIA concern and effort on academic intent through the city as laboratory.

-        The University of The Witwatersrand stand on social phenomena where city as lab for urban sociological studies and reality for information, approach to reality

-        Universidad Catolica De Chile case of urban research enlarges the scope of city as regional question

-        Universita Della Calabria concerns with setting: complexity n irreducibility is challenging our cities

-        Ecole Ploytechnique Federale De Lausanne on ecological concerns

-        University College on Urban Thinking

He stressed on the work Lab as being scientific terminology which brings the object and dissects for analysis while plus is unlike box approach to natural science is interactive, investigates the new method of documentation of city experience. It strives to break away from mummy of natural science boxed in approach.

In his concluding remark he elaborated the issues of boundary trespassing unquestioned enthusiasm of either or approach, as urban question. The question of production & dissemination of knowledge is larger concern to URBAN LAB+. It further metaphorises the experimentation n test approaches as really cannot be simulated. The URBAN LAB+ is thinking platform about the urban inclusion, cross disciplinary concessions & phenomena and  experimentation which are beyond the scope of scientific gloss.

SESSION III: INTERNAL WORK SESSION:

URBAN LAB+: PARTNERS ROLES, RESPONSIBLITIES, EXPECTATION, QUESTION

The session elaborated the cluster configuration and need to identify and dismantle variables to understand dynamic, method of communication, dissemination process, website and publication as a tool to build knowledge structure, which in return can facilitate to strengthening relation, improve services of international students, Larger interest is to promote higher education.

EXPAECTATIONS: Enumerated Topics by Partners Inst.

Comparative Research Commong Issues among the Urban Labs Experimental Teaching Methods Develop Short Terms Initiatives Exchange Knowledge Site Specificity (Contextualism) Contemporary Urban Conceptions Integrate  Stake Holders Compendum Urban Lab Methodology Building Long Term Research Partnership Research Exchange Potential Addressing International Research Potenti “Urban Inclusion” Specific Issues Reseach & Practice Integration Production of Knowledge Intsitutinalize Framework for Research Partnership Channels for Communication Beyond Cluster Work

.

SESSION IV: LECTURE BY PROF. UWE-JENS WALTHER

URBAN INCLUSION: POTENTIAL N PITFALL

He discussed the the plural of discourses on urbanism  resulting into phenomena of  tower of bable syndrome as very often the issues regareding “INCLUSION” are not specific to context and urged for the issue based research on inclusion rather than generic conceptual framework.

The Potential of generic coneptul framework has to deal with the issue agreement on perspectives of various contexts specific ideas that perhaps can result in unity in variety. This attitude may result in addressing the “Urban Inclusion” on longer time period. He further stressed on mapping the variey of disciplinn perspectives which makes the inclusion phenomena more comprehensive and wil able to break the boundaries.

Social economics exclusion, inequality.

In the concluding note he called for partener institute to enumerate issues that are context specfic to their region. He shortlisted the issues that URBAN LAB+ may have to deal with for next three years.

INCLUSION ISSUES

Housing market

Race and Ethnicity

Urban Context and Area Effect

Class Difference or Physical or Symbolic Barrier

Geography.

Legal Right

Age/ Abilities

Caste/ Religion & Food Habits

Accebility

22/03/2013

DAY 2

SESSION I:  INTRODUCTION TO URBAN LAB+  

The second day first sesssion was spent on half a day boat tour highlighting the dynamics of water edge reponses of City of Berlin over the period of last few decades. The water edge delienated the various attitude in response which can be categorises as follows;

-        Administrative Corridor

-        Cultural Corridor

-        Economic Corridor

(Note: Visuals are available in KRIVA Library)

SESSION II: LECTURE BY DR. REGINE SHONENERG F.U

ACADEMIC AND PRACTICE DIALOGUE

She discussed the idea of knowledge as a basic unit to bring two premises of “academic & Practice” together. She primarily described knowledge as context based and specific and such context based knowledge needs identification of “Knowledege Communities”. She elaborated the point that community produces their own knowledge and their own set of rules of dissemination. The issue that may perhaps divides the nature of academic vs. practics lies within the rules and cannons that operates dissemination. She called for commission of knowledge and building larger community of knowledge.

HISTORY AND INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

Division of knowledge is hint to possible need of cooperation Practical knowledge produced in political and administrative context Interface between aims of academic and practice Dialogue across border of knowledge communities Information on power structure Method to deal with power factor.

COMMUNICATING KNOWLEDGE

Kind of knowledge to exchange Common interest Common question

SHARING KNOWLEDGE AND POWER

Create New Knowledge Communities New Practice of Knowledge Exchange Respect Context of Knowledge Academic world and power Construct frames for dialogue Learn other perspectives

SESSION III: CLUSTER THEME CONCEPTS

 

             

									SWITZERLAND
	CHILE				MUMBAI		HONG KONG
			SOUTH AFRICA

 

                                                                                                                                         

Urban Reversion High Density Social Vulnerability Region: Valparaiso.

Accentuated Fragmentation Local Identity Public Space Informal Housing

Typology delivery system & mechanism Perspective on class & economic inclusion.

Inclusion exclusion Informal, housing, transport system, Urban village, public housing,

Articulate global phenomena. Compare cultural specifics The space of urban culture Language of spatial articulation Distill spatial knowledge

                                                                                                                                         

                                   

INCLUSION NAVIGATES THROUGH INTERNATIONALISM AND GLOBAL PRACTICE AMOUNTING TO PROMOTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

 

SESSION IV: LECTURE: JENIFER ROBINSON

COMPARATIVE URBANISM

She began with the problematrizing the existing comparative methods as being parochial theory driven dwells on scientific structure of explanation and research methods. It excludes the diverse contexts considerations.

The methodlogical reseach need to qualify the phenomena of Cities Now that challenge the global urbanism and work towards the “Refitting Comparativism”. She called for thinking about cities through elsewhere and understand outcomes by composing/ following analytical constellations/ proximities across diverse to particual urbanism.

Urban Studies as Research Question.

PARTICUAL URBANISM RELEVANCE:

Why Compare Differnet Cities?

Growing Post Colonial Critique

Globalizing Processes

International Urban Policy Circuit

Relevance of 20 Century Urbanism

Urban Growth are expected outside the West Domain

PROCESS

City is Stereotypical: Generic: Present State of Urbanism

Archetypical: Present State Through its Extremity

Prototypical: Future of Urbanism due to trend setting character

Practice is Theorizing

Locating Urban

Theorizing Urban society Global Totality

Multiplicity of Co Existing Temporalities and Spatialities "The Urban Now"

"EMBEDEDNESS IN MULTIPLE ELSEWHERE"

22/03/2013

DAY 2

SESSION I: Cluster Meeting General Discussion.

The last day first session revolved around the individual cluster meeting and working out the nature of cluster meeting and its relatin to the studio of host insitute and guest insitutes.

The KRVIA cluster is expected to happen between 20^th November to 7^th December depending on the suitability of partner insitute semseter schedule. The cluster meeting shall have case studies/ site visits/ workshop and susequent carryforward into a studio assignment.

-        KRVIA. MUMBAI INDIA

-        EPFL: Ecole Ploytechnique Federale De Lausanne, Switzerland.

-        UCAL: Universita Della Calabria, Italy

SESSION II ISSUES RELATED TO URBAN INCLUSION IN GENERAL WERE DISCUSSED AS FOLLOWS:  CHAIR PERSON: PROF. UWE-JENS WALTHER

FROM INCLUSION TO GLOBAL.

LABORATORY APPROACH

Need for Wider Approach

Reflections on cultural specificity.  North-south dialogue

Method of Communication

Dissectiono of Disciplinary Boundaries

PRACTICE CRITERIA

Knowledge Community

Mapping Development + Group work

Dissemination

Inclusion- Cluster Workshop- Answer for Higher Education-Symposium

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THREE CLUSTER MEETINGS

(PROF. UWE-JENS WALTHER)

CLUSTER I                                         CLUSTER II                                        CLUSTER III

 

SESSION III

The group site visits to various Housing schemes was carried out with post graduate students of TU Berlin. The various issues of inclusio and exclusion were enumerated through live example of housing gentrification & transformation that Berlin has witnessed during post-war & post – unification period.

NOTE: This report is prepared by KRVIA Faculty & HOD (UD): Prof: Manoj Parmar:             email: hod.ud@ krvia.ac.in