Street Design
Studio by Urban Centre, Mumbai
Introduction
Streets are significant to the well-being of a city and urban areas- they are important public corridors for moving people through various modes of transport and on foot. Hence, street networks are integral to urban planning, and design of street environments is a vital part of urban design.
In Mumbai, over 50% of all journeys are made on foot, every day, but walking on Mumbai’s footpaths is full of challenges - non-uniform, unlevelled surface, hindrances in the path, and lack of mobility options for physically challenged, senior citizens and women with prams amongst others. Every 50 to 100 m, the footpaths have a changing scenario with different material, width, levels, and a clutter of signage, presenting an unkempt streetscape, unfit for pedestrians.
In this Studio, we have reflected on the larger picture or the larger urban plan and the city vis-à-vis street network connectivity, and have honed in on street and footpath design as one element of an urban plan. The Studio has covered socio-cultural and physical aspects of street and urban space design. The emphasis of the Studio was on the design and delivery process ofgood quality city-scale pedestrian infrastructure (footpaths) for a local authority i.e. BMC using principles of universal accessibility, pedestrian priority, walkability, reducing vehicular and pedestrian conflict, safe streets etc. The Studio has focused on different aspects of street design such as surface finishes, technical design, BOQs and BMC processes, crossing ramps, median refuge island, street furniture, lighting, landscaping and signage through urban design interventions.
The Studio format comprised of lectures, site visits, photo documentation, analysis and design , understanding overarching principles, scalability and visualizations across the five weeks, culminating in a printed booklet format. The design process and book was developed through a series of group-wise review sessions and discussions on each site.
The students were divided into five groups with four to five students in each group to study five urban street typologies through the following sites:
Site 1: Eksar Talav Edge and Junction (Borivali) [Lake/ waterbody and surround area]
Site 2: Pedestrian approach to Kandivali Station [Suburban railway station areas]
Site 3: Pedestrian access to Aarey Metro Station (Line 2A) [Metro Station areas]
Site 4: Pedestrian approach to Mahakali Caves (Andheri East) [Heritage/ ASI sites]
Site 5: City Light Market Entrance, Mahim [Markets and surrounding areas]
Studio Structure
Across the five weeks, the Studio covered the following:
Week 1- Introduction to city, public spaces and streets through the lens of urban,
introduction to aesthetic/ Kevin Lynch survey, figure ground mapping to understand
public space.
Week 2 - Guidelines and best practice, UCM walkability projects, understanding design
principles, graphics, representations and stakeholders, understanding and carrying out
total stations survey on site, site visits to each respective site.
Week 3 - Working with BMC session taken by BMC Engineer, preparation of BOQ and
tenders, pre-execution processing, photography session with professional photographer
to capture urban and architectural elements.
Week 4 - Develop design/ visualizations/ guidelines/ scope through understanding of
detailed design elements, detailed discussions on each site through open studio sessions.
Week 5 -Understanding urban landscaping, detailed discussions on each site through open
studio sessions and streamlining study and the process into a booklet.
Guest Lectures
The studio consisted of guest lectures from different people who have expertise in their respective fields. These sessions opened up a detailed understanding of the particular subject and added a different lens of seeing/perceiving the city.
Street Photography by Rajesh Vora
Rajesh Vora is a professional photographer who has primarily focused on architecture and cultural subject matter. In this session he presented his work to the class and the thoughts, processes behind them. The session broadly had discussion around capturing urban spaces, architectural elements, play of light, dealing with the people on site, etc. Later on group wise works and photographs were discussed by students. Every group presented their site photographs and their stories, processes behind the photos. This session really added a valuable lens to look at photographs and spaces.
Tendering process by Sudarshan Shirsath
In this studio, Sudarshan Shirsath, a BMC engineer from Heritage Department, explained the tendering and execution process. The structure of the BMC, various agencies and departments involved in accepting and executing the proposals, making of BOQs, USORs etc was explained in detail. The intend of this session was to make students understand the practicalities and formalities one needs to go through while intervening at an urban scale.
On Urban Landscaping by Ravi Punde
This was an online session with Ravi Punde. It was a provocative lecture that made students rethink our role as designers. Ravi talked about streets being a void in the city that under privileged people use to make a living and streets as a complex network with multiple layers of claims and negotiations involved. The session had a discussion around what could be the different ways of seeing, communicating ideas and what are the larger questions one needs to address. Designing urban spaces is about understanding rhythms, rhythms of trees, rhythms of street lights, rhythms of pavement, etc. This session definitely provoked the idea of having stronger intends, explorative and experimental attitude while proposing solutions when dealing with design as architects.
