Journal of Landscape Architecture - LA 73

B.V. DOSHI A EULOGY 1927-2023

He left us too early - he was young. Everyone has a story about him.

DESIGNING URBAN YARNS

Urban Design may not overpower but may weave into a landscape as seen in Idea Design's Crafts Village in Kovalam in generating a composite pattern by landscape' and in Recyclebin's model eco corridor in Athirapally by extending a string with small Urban beads. In Kozhikode Deearth Architects' Freedom Square stage is an Urban 'Bobbin' of Historical and Cultural threads. Other projects bring life and vibrance to voids.

DESIGNING URBAN OUTSIDE

For many people Street is the city, or City is the street. 'Urban Design begins where the building plot ends'. Pradeep Sachdeva retextures the entire floor and designs new edges in Chandni Chowk of old Delhi to empower pedestrians over the vehicles reducing an overload. Prasanna Desai in Pune, StudioPod in Mumbai and Studio Code in Delhi introduce robust street furniture and lighting even with soft landscapes and signage to make a street a destination by creating spaces of pause next to the parallel lines of movement neatly categorised, dedicating them to pedestrians and vehicles of diverse speeds by different paving textures.

DESIGNING URBAN INSERTION

The insertion of the large parisar around Kashi Vishwanath Dham by displacing old fabric creates a new identity which however seeks to mitigate the necessarily produced form-al’ disruption by attempting to camouflage the alienation itself as integration and primarily through representation. Whereas, the formal and spatial insertions in Patna Riverfront Development provide additional support to current human activities and the identities of the series of interventions are acquired not by any representational scheme but primarily by their functional role, thus making the public domain more amenable to ritualistic celebrations at an individual level or to a large mass of people.

DESIGNING URBAN INSIDE

Minor identity of the circulation spaces in the building may be turned around by metaphorically conceptualising them as public streets. In the showcased projects, those public elements break out of that metaphorical state to become real in themselves and start affecting the overall organisation in their favour. Either through independent production of the public realm in Correa's Salt Lake City Centre in Kolkata or by an independent representation of a formal complexity in Somaya's Indore campus, and for Hundredhands and Architecture Red, where the urban designers are able to generate a substantial and dominant spatial realm, where public and private places remain almost seamlessly integrated. Studio Lotus converts a gated private part of the city into a public space by partial transformation and brings the city directly into the site.