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Humane Aspects of Urban Planning
The book is an effort to evolve and present a humane approach for planning practices in India.
The planning approach, followed in India, mostly ignores the cultural peculiarities, habits, preferences of Indian users. This is mainly because, all the city planning… preparation of development plans is based on the planning norms formulated in Europe or North America. Due to socioeconomic, demographic and cultural differences in Indian context, the Indian users and their preferences are very much different. It may be useful to incorporate culture-specific user aspects and evolve a humane approach to city planning in India. The consideration of user preferences will not only reduce conflicting situations in urban areas due to non-congruence between planning principles adopted and principles of urbanism rooted in the place, but will also be congenial to developing appropriate social environments.
Anubhuti II : Eco friendly architecture of Harsil Valley
Uttarakhand, one of the most beautiful states of India which is termed as ‘land of gods’ experienced a major disaster in 2013. Harsil valley is part of Uttarakhand and is en-route to Gangotri, one of the sacred four important pilgrimage destinations for Hindus. Harsil is known for its unmatched natural beauty and very fine quality of Apples. It has an interesting local history and also very beautiful 200-300 year old wooden houses. With the sudden increase in religious tourism after 2006, it has developed as important transit tourist place. Students of Smt. Manoramabai Mundle college of Architecture, Nagpur had visited two villages, Dharali and Mukhba, in Harsil valley in 2006. Extensive study and documentation of the traditional villages, existing wooden houses was done with respect to their planning, materials, technology and ornamentation. It was observed that these vernacular settlements were unmatched examples of socially and environmentally sustainable developments. The visit to same place after the 2013 unfortunate calamity made few revelations. Most of the vernacular houses and old settlements were almost unaffected due to their well though locations and flexible wooden construction technology. The new developments suffered damages. In the fast pace of rapid technological developments and globalization, vernacular architecture is mostly neglected in architecture education and practice. Undoubtedly, if appropriately transmitted, interpreted, negotiated and adapted vernacular knowledge, skills and experience; an indigenous approach for eco-friendly developments can be evolved. The book is an effort to do so. The book is divided into three parts. Part I focuses on the background of the Harsil valley and its unmatched architecture. Part II discusses in detail the settlement planning and vernacular houses of two villages in Harsil valley. Part III demonstrates the eco-friendly approach to deal the future developments in the valley. The book also emphasizes on the aspect of experiential learning in architecture education. It is second publication in series of ‘Anubhuti- Horizons of Experintial Learning Architecture of Bhutan’.
Anubhuti : horizons of experiential learning : architecture of Bhutan
Anubhuti is an outcome of experimentation with experiential learning by staff and students of Smt. Manoramabai Mundle College of Architecture, Nagpur, India. It is basically a documentation of research generated from the study tour to Bhutan in 2007. This tour coincided with a crucial moment in the history of Bhutan marked by the change from Monarchy to democracy. The essence of Anubhuti is the examination of ‘Impact of Socio-political and religious setup on Traditional Architecture of Bhutan’ through exhaustive documentation. Hence as a part of field work, the various typologies of traditional architecture such as Dzong, Lhakhang and Monastries were studied and documented. For emerging trends in contemporary Bhutanese architecture, the works of Ar. Christopher Benninger were referred. The traditional Bhutanese Architecture and its possible future was studied and explored through design studio.
The book gives an insight into evolution of the iconic traditional architecture of Bhutan as a result of peculiar Socio-political and religious setup. Also it tries to highlight the role of study tours and documentation as an interesting aspect of architecture learning.
The documentation also includes symbolism, social use of spaces at building as well as settlement level, traditional construction techniques using materials such as wood, mud and stone. This documentation and exploration of Bhutanese architecture has been used as a means to discuss fundamental design issues which remain constant yet there are variations in it due to context and time, which is architecture of place and period.
Urban disasters and Resilience in Asia
Authored a Chapter titled ‘Vernacular Built Environments in India: An Indigenous Approach for Resilience in the book ,Urban disasters and Resilience in Asia.
Edited by Rajib Shaw (Professor, Kyoto University, Japan ), Atta-ur-Rahman (Associate Professor, University of Peshawar, Pakistan ), Akhilesh Surjan (Associate Professor, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia) , Gulsan Ara Parvin (Researcher, Kyoto University, Japan ) and Published by Elsevier in 2016.
Journal / Papers
Conference Papers
Understanding the importance of user’s perception about Aesthetics- in creating more per-sonalised environment for a better living
International Conference ,’ THANIMA 2’ on Aesthetics at NIT, Calicut, India
2017
Cognitive approach for Urban planning/urban design practices in India: Need for Indian Planning Norms as per Indian Users
International Conference on ‘Research for Resurgence’ held at Nagpur
2016
Vernacular Architecture of Vidarbha Region
National Conference on Green Building Design held at Nagpur
2013
Spatial Cognition and Built Environments in Urban India
National Conference on “Cognitive research on Human Perception for Health and Wellbeing”, held at Visakhapatnam
2012
Spatial Configuration of Urban Cores in Central India
Eighth International Space Syntax Symposium (SSS8) held at Santiago, Chile
2012
Cognitive Response to Spatial Design: Built Environments in Urban India
International Symposium on “Spatial Cognition for Architectural Design” held at New York
2011
Urban Built Environment in India: An approach using Geographical information systems
National Conference on Sustainable Development of Urban Infrastructure, held at VNIT, Nagpur
2010
Healing Our Habitats
International Association for Humane Habitat, Rizvi College of Architecture
2004