Publications

Now Urbanism: The Future City is Here. Routledge. Jan 2015

Publication of ongoing research and thesis on "Messy Urbanism" in recently published book: "Now Urbanism: The Future City is Here”, (Ed.); Routledge (Jan 2015): After more than a century of heroic visions for Utopian cities, urban dwellers today live in suburban subdivisions, gated communities, edge cities, apartment towers and slums. While some cities are shrinking, others continue to grow rapidly, spurring migration and expanding urban ecological footprints. Faced with the uncertainty created by challenges such as climate change, political unrest and economic stagnation, these dynamics are likely to continue. In recent decades, a significant body of discourse on urban futures has emerged offering discrete visions of future cities and alternative processes for city making. Rather than simply adding to this discourse, this book explores the intersections of critical inquiry and immediate and substantive actions. It recognizes the rich complexities of the present city not as barriers or obstacles but as grounds for uncovering opportunity and unleashing potential. Now Urbanism asserts that the future city is here by examining the diversity, richness and potential of the present city. It views city making as grounded in the imperfect, messy, yet rich reality of the present city and the everyday purposeful agency of its dwellers. Through a framework of situating, grounding, performing, and speculating, a multidisciplinary group of practitioners and scholars present essays that illustrate specificity, context, agency and tactics in the re-making of the contemporary city.Link

Reimagining Lutyens' Delhi. A publication based on GSAPP Spring 2014 Studio | Columbia University. Jan 2015

Reimagining Lutyens' Delhi is based on the studies on Lutyens' Plan for Imperial Delhi, by the Urban Design Studio, Spring 2014 (Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design), Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University in The City of New York.

ABSTRACT The subject of the Studio was a comparative urban dialogue between New Delhi, Kisumu, and Medellín. Like dynamic cities everywhere, they share concerns about the form of their continuing expansion and the consequent mandates for compact growth. This dialogue is of particular interest given the diversity of character and context of each, within the broad context of development in the "Global South." The New Delhi mandate involves densification of the Lutyens' Plan for the original colonial city, long considered an international landmark in early 20th century urban design. In question is the evolution of this culturally significant and highly formalized hallmark from its ceremonial significance as new Capitol of India to expanded meaning as center of a new commercial metropolis. For each of the three cities, detailed study sites were carefully chosen as particular "fragments" that could serve as windows through which to view the larger question of their respective development modes, and to comparatively explore "saturation" levels of density within the respective urban contexts.

REIMAGINING LUTYENS’ DELHI examines the present day situation of the landmark historic plan for the new capital of India by the British architect Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), completed in 1931. The original plan has been considerably modified in ad hoc fashion over the past two decades due to real estate pressures related to the large growth of the city and region during this period. Yet much remains of enduring value within the plan such that consideration of preservation measures is crucial, while recognizing that Lutyens’ composition has entered an era of transformation. The four “provocations” presented in the exhibition aspire to address the contradictions between preservation and development. Developed by post-professional students, faculty, and experts at Columbia University in collaboration with local partners in Delhi, each urban design proposal examines a typical condition between the center and periphery of Lutyens’ Delhi. They are the Bungalow Zone; the Janpath; the remnants of Baoli, Hauz, and Nullah; and the adjacent Kidwai Nagar neighborhood. They are proposed with the hope of making a positive contribution to the debate on the future of the past for this world landmark in urban design.

InFormal City. Times of India. June 5, 2010

Informal Cities in Formal Cities is a reality many of India's cities contend with..... What would be the role of architecture and urban design in response to such culture of informality that shapes urbanity in these parts of the world where the sheer scale of informal human settlements leaves a lot to desire.... and very few options for urban planners and designers...Link

India's Messy Urbanism. Architects Newspaper, New York. June 3, 2009

Like other megacities, the large cities of India are grappling with the conflicting logic of globalization and localization. As new networks of global trade and finance create new opportunities, developer-friendly architecture and planning are appropriating contemporary discourses, and producing urban forms hitherto unknown. Globalization and its influence are thus transforming the city as physical, social, and cultural boundaries are being renegotiated. Link

Vacant City: Brussels' Mont des Arts Reconsidered. 2001

Vacant City deals with the project to revise and reconfigure the Mont des Arts, a neighborhood in the center of Brussels where the museums and cultural institutions are concentrated - the city's 'Museum Quarter.' Originally designed from the perspective that concentrating national cultural institutions and large-scale works in the heart of a city would make a crucial difference in the city's development, the Mont des Arts is now considered to be in need of some serious revision. Vacant City offers a fascinating insight into the problematic history of the Mont des Arts as an urban site, and also proceeds from this concrete ‘case study' to questions of the significance and role of museums and cultural institutions for and in the cities of the future. Vacant City shuttles between the issue of vacant structures in today's cities, the role of culture in urban and spatial planning, and the changing significance of the museum.

Project Team: Richard Plunz, Viren Brahmbhatt (Partners in-charge). Our team was invited by Brussels2000 Committee to prepare urban design proposal for the Center of the City of Brussels. The project brief included redesign and revitalization of the historic core consisting of the Royal Citadel, Museums, National Library & Archives, the Palace of Fine Arts and Central Station. The fundamental approach to design was to make the historical layers of the city legible though a series of transmutations and careful de-masking. The controlled excavation of the site allows it to be de-masked. The de-masking makes a series of public panoramas, transforming the hermetic domain of royalty to a new populist presence. The panoramas are understood sectionally; La Putterie is returned to the body politic through its diverse layers. The Mont des Arts is opened to the city as an emblem of the cultural diversity of the Belgian state.Link

Hell's Kitchen South: Developing Strategies. 2001

Hell's Kitchen South: Envisioning Community-based Development. 1999–2002 (A project of the Design Trust for Public Space with the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association) This three year community-based planning project culminated with Hell's Kitchen South: Developing Strategies, a guide and tool for local constituents, including the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association and Manhattan Community Board 4, as they steer future development in their neighborhood for the good of Hell's Kitchen and the larger city. The Design Trust for Public Space's efforts to facilitate a community-based vision for Manhattan's far west side is encapsulated in this report. The document includes findings from a community planning conference, as well as the results of a subsequent design study carried out by Design Trust fellows. Contents include design studies and planning reports, feedback from public exhibits and symposia, and a discussion of a series of goals: ensure that new development respects varying area scales, increase residential population while assuring a mix of incomes, improve public amenities, and mitigate traffic congestion. Link