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DESIGN STATEMENT

Resilient Communal Design

The project is based on Re-thinking and Re-designing the previously proposed design of a community in Bahria Town Lahore which was based on Communal Living. The idea is to make it pandemic resilient with various design interventions. After the analysis of previously proposed design, sector D out of four sectors was selected to undergo design interventions.

The first issue to cater was the circulation of the community which was not as resilient. So, I started off by separating the pedestrian circulation from vehicular circulation by providing overhead bridges for pedestrian movement. The curved elevated bridges will be on different levels which go throughout the sector. The bridge not only connects directly to the houses through terraces and roofs, but also provides enough space for interaction to people. The spacing which was designed initially according to the concept of communal living might not be enough in case of a pandemic. As the design of the community is was already proposed, it was not possible to increase the width of road and pedestrian pathways, that is why the over- head bridges are provided which start at the entrance of the sector and reach the individual houses. There will be vertical shafts as well which will allow people to exit the bridge at any moment. With two curved bridges on different levels connected through ramps, there will not only be enough views to the surroundings but pollution and vehicle free area for people to walk. People on cars will be able to travel underneath the bridge and due to curvilinear form of the bridge, there won ́t be any ventilation or light penetration issues in the space underneath. The bridge will cover the 30 ft wide road and the width of one curve path would be 8 to 10 ft to maintain safe distance and work in post pandemic times as well.

Second design intervention was to change the commercial building with Vertical Drive-thru commercial building. This provides a faster and safer way for people to have all the amenities under one roof and with this the “lengths” of the roads will be reduced. With transformable shops the building provides more space in pandemic and in post pandemic times. Adding a drive thru to an existing commercial building or just design a parking plaza with shops and cafes will give an opportunity to the sector to work independently and people will use personal vehicles which are preferred to be the safest way to travel in a pandemic and not getting out will prevent any contact with the virus. In post pandemic times it will also work efficiently and still will be faster way of shopping reducing the vehicular traffic on junctions or congested nodes.