UD_SU21_126

Ideas.

Graduation Portfolio Nupur RoyChaudhury Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design - 2021 Columbia GSAPP

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utopia ~ ram-rajya

the benevolence project

no man’s land

udht / fall 2020 gujarat p.3

ud studio 1 / fall 2020 new york city p.5

rnyu / fall 2020 new york city p.11

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route zero

the attack on maidans

swIm

ud studio 2 / spring 2021 pittsburgh p.13

ud seminar / spring 2021 bangalore p.19

ud studio 3 / summer 2021 memphis p.21

01 / utopia ~ ram-rajya (excerpt) Location: Statue of Unity, Gujarat Urban Design - History & Theory Seminar Fall 2020 / Professor Noah Chasin

The Statue of Unity - tallest in the world - beside the Sabarmati River, Gujarat.

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History is testament to the fact that it is innately human to aspire towards the general amelioration of one’s quality of life. In my opinion, it is critical to understand this in conjunction with the acknowledgment that it is fundamentally human to act in one’s self interest; in order to form a comprehensive understanding of the Utopian ideals that have had an overarching influence on humanity since the beginning of the 19th century.

Another vital piece of information that doesn’t seem to figure into most usages of the word ‘utopia’ is that Sir Thomas More (1516) created it as a pun on the Greek words ou-topos (no place) and eu-topos (good place).

When did ‘no place’ become the ‘good place’? For the peoples colonized by the Europeans, freedom was the absolute inverse of their lives as ‘the natives’. Therefore, their ideas of amelioration post emancipation were based on ambitions of becoming equal to and eventually better than their former masters, the pioneers of Utopia. This is evident in the way that India has developed since gaining independence in 1947. Individuals at the forefront of the European ‘mission to modernize’ were invited to help with the rebirth of the country.

Their invitation and consequent influence on planning and related pedagogy is illustrative of the underlying issues with the Utopian concept.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” said Saint Bernard Clairvaux. The city of Chandigarh is an example of the dehumanization involved in the process of creating the proverbial paradise. The Indian government made a decision on behalf of its citizens to invite a man who they believed would be able to create what he believed was Utopia

without accounting for the culture and values of the people who would eventually inhabit it. This sequential homogenization of more than three hundred million people has been lethal in that it has set a precedent for Modernity that has not changed, though actively challenged, for seventythree years.

The God Complex that seems to be a prerequisite for the conceptualization and subsequent realization of a Utopia has only exacerbated the long history of religious tensions that exist within the Indian subcontinent. In Kannada, the regional language of the State that I’m from in India, the word for utopia is ‘rama-rajya’ which translates to ‘Ram’s State’. In Hindu mythology, Rama is an avatar of Lord Vishnu who is a very important figure to the Hindus - the majority population and therefore the loudest domestic political influence.

There are a number of instances in Indian architecture and planning that can serve as examples of the ramifications of a Utopian approach to the development of a nation - the most recent being the construction of the Ram Mandir in the place of the Babri Masjid that was demolished by Hindu radicals in 1993.

I believe that the Statue of Unity in the state of Gujarat is a better metaphor for the injustice and almost comical disillusionment attached to this one-dimensional concept of paradise. The statue has the distinction of being the tallest in the world and cost the government the equivalent of fourhundred-and-thirty million dollars.

02 / the benevolence project Location: Inwood, New York City Collaborators: Yifei Luo, Chao Li and Yong Zhuang Critics: Nans Voron, Austin Sakong, Sagi Golan, Tami Banh & Ifeoma Ebo Fall 2020 / Urban Design Studio 1

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URBAN PERMACULTURE Our project is an attempt at fostering community resilience by transposing permaculture - an agrarian sustainability concept - into the urban landscape. The testing ground for our hypothesis is the neighborhood of Inwood, in the north of Manhattan.

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REAR LOTS ARE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR COMMUNITY RESILIENCE. This community lacks public space that is essential to build social capital.

We believe that there is opportunity to mobilize the under maintained rear lots in each block to create spaces of resilience.

Given the typically dark and narrow nature of these spaces, they would have to meet minimum sunlight and surface area requirements for residents to mobilize them for social activity.

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Broadway

C2 - 4

Potential POPS

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C2 - 4

Sherman Av.

C2 - 4

PS 207

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Potential POPS

Nagle Av.

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R7

Potential POPS

R7

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE VIA BACKYARD BENEVOLENCE Each rear lot is made up of a patchwork of property lines. Each property owner and tenant would receive a ‘benevolence tax credit’ in exchange for the use of the land or their own services in potential skillsharing programs.

In this section, we have illustrated the benefits to both quality of space as well as opportunity for activity in the rear lot.

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03 / no man’s land (excerpt) Location: Morningside Park, New York City Fall 2020 / Reading New York Urbansim Professor Cassim Shepard

The pond in Morningside Park after snowfall in November 2020.

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The massive stone wall that runs along the ridge

by Morningside Drive drops down into a mess of stairs and lush foliage that eventually is at one with Harlem in New York City. It is among the lesser known public parks on Manhattan Isle - surprising, given that it is nestled between Columbia University and one of the most famous neighborhoods of the world.

Tito Bayne’s children spend most of their weekends in this ‘Narnia’. They’re among the few families that do. The park is otherwise desolate, ‘lifeless’, ‘unattended’ and therefore the site of a plethora of crime and other dubious activities that are perpetuated by an overwhelming inequity that afflicts not just the city - as we have come to see over this past summer - but the entire country.

Born of coincidence and inadvertently raised on a diet of socio-cultural tension, the park is now the receptacle for what its community now recognizes as systemic injustice. This geographical ‘aberration’ appears as serene and benign as most parks on the island. However, one can feel a shift in the atmosphere as one navigates the steep stairs and the meandering pathways - fenced up to ten-feet on one side and defined by a wall of rock and foliage on the other.

The park itself was an afterthought. The stubborn geography of this area rebelled against the Commissioner’s Grid of 1811 and was thought of as wasteland until its potential as an extension to the great Central Park was identified. A series of designers and planners have worked on it since 1887 with improvements being made to it’s fabric to this day. However, the scale and intensity of

these improvements is noticeably insignificant when compared to the social, capital and cultural investments made in other parks across the city.

Is this a result of it’s position as ‘no man’s land’ between Columbia University and West Harlem?

Each is and has been the other’s antagonizer since the university moved into the area in 1897.

The most significant pressure points in recent history have been the proposal for a universityonly gym inside the public park in the 1960s and expansion of the university’s campus that has begun since the last 2000s - both offensive moves against the neighborhood. The time in between and around these events is littered with crimes against students and vulnerable members of the community alike.

The annexation of public park space for the construction of a gym in the 1960s was followed by a massive uprising by the community and the individuals at Columbia University. In the Spring of 1968, the students took over the campus.

Their demonstrations against the unjust actions of the administration and city officials took place in faculty offices, on the ledges of every department’s building on campus as well as in Morningside Park. Come May, the dispute had not yet reached an amicable resolution and so, Graduation Day was held in the park.

Interestingly, the proposed site for the construction of this gymnasium is what Tito’s children recognize as Narnia.

04 / route zero Location: Manchester-Chateau, Pittsburgh Collaborators: Corina Fuenmayor, Yoo Jin Lee and Chrys Kouloumenta Critics: Kaja Khul, Thaddeus Pawlowski, Anna Dietzsch, Shachi Pandey Spring 2021 / Urban Design Studio 2

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Highway construction has scarred and traumatized America’s poorest neighborhoods, especially those in which Black families and recent immigrants once thrived.

NEW CASTLE PA 65

Prompted by the Biden administration’s commitment to building climate-conscious infrastructure, our team is working with community members and urban development experts on a proposal to decommission PA65 and physically remove it in the neighborhood of Manchester-Chateau.

ELLEWOOD

ROCHESTER

AMBRIDGE

PITTSBURG

MANCHESTER CHATEAU

1. Route Zero heading south to Pittsburg 2. PA-65 runs for 50 miles between Pittsbrugh and New Castle.

THE LIGHT RAIL AS THE SEAM

PA-65 CON

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We aim to provide in its place a catalyst for regional just transition.

Our proposal, Route Zero, is a new transit typology that aims to heal the trauma left behind by what was once called urban renewal.

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LKA BILI T Y

Urban Renewal Museum

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CHATEAU

MANCHESTER

The Splash Park

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THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Community Library

Memorial Station

Market Street

THE WETLANDS

West End Ave.

Manchester Park

Allegheny Station

1. Potential region-wide change in streetscape 2. The light rail will democratize streetscapes, allowing a wider range of socio-ecological activity.

3. A bird’s eye view of Route Zero in Manchester-Chateau

THE FOREST

OHIO RIVER

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THE NEIGHBORHOOD

THE WETLANDS

05 / the attack on maidans (excerpt) Location: HSR Layout, Bangalore Spring 2021 / Rhetorics of the Pedestrian: Public Space Professor David Smiley

A satellite view of the maidan in HSR Layout in 2019.

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Once called the Garden City of India, Bangalore is now known as ‘that place with the bad roads, traffic jams and failing infrastructure’. The fastest growing city in the country is largely unable to keep up with the economic growth that is the source of its prestige in both national and international discourse. The reasons for this are many.

The biggest impediment, according to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), is the disparity between available funding and the population it serves. Over the last 20 years, the city has seen a 128% increase in its citizenship; while the resources allocated for the construction, operations and maintenance of supporting infrastructure has purportedly remained insufficient.

This story is not unique to this particular urban center or even the country. All over the global south, governments and development experts are engaged in a continuing battle to control and direct funding. Often, the solution takes the form of consolidated investment in so-called civic amenities with a focus on revenue generation or return on investment.

Under this regime, development that is “propelled by impatient capital” and defined as “an aspiration by private interests” as well as the State. The result is rampant privatization that fosters socio-economic exclusion and inhibits public participation in the shaping, and transformation, of the public realm. The effects of this neoliberal project can be seen across the built landscape of India. The shrinking footprint of the maidans in

Bangalore is a testament to the negative impacts of this trend in contemporary development.

To fully appreciate the impact of the retreating maidans, it is important to understand the role they play in the Indian urban experience.

Originally a Persian word for a ‘town square’ or ‘public gathering area’, the term ‘maidan’ refers to a levelled, open and unprogrammed space in all major Indian languages.

Developed and maintained by the BBMP, these huge spaces for public recreation are nothing more than some acres of sand interspersed with weeds and maybe, if the neighbourhood has the favour of the local corporator, a concrete slab for a “playground”. The maidan next to Bethany High School in the Koramangala neighborhood is evidence of this favouritism.

Such “playgrounds” consist of some six hundred and fifty square feet with some steel rods slapped together to make climbing frames for the kids and some funky looking exercise equipment for anyone who might not be able to afford the pleasures offered by one of the expensive private gym chains in the city. While this description paints a rather dreary picture, these essentially barren landscapes are a fixture in the lives of every Bangalorean irrespective of the socioeconomic strata of society they are identified with. Similar to what Latham describes, these recreational grounds are a site to negotiate social qualifiers through the medium of play. Your caste, the colour of your skin, the amount of money you make - none of these matter when you’re there to play.

06 / swIm - safe water in Memphis Location: Memphis, Tennessee Collaborators: Anirudh Venkat, Yifei Luo and Kai Guo Critics: Kate Orff, Geeta Mehta, Dilip da Cunha, Adriana Chavez and Justine Holzman Summer 2021 / Urban Design Studio 3

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St. Louis

Ste. Genevieve

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KY Cairo East Prairie Tiptonville Caruthersville

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Osceola

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WOLF RIVER WATERSHED MEMPHIS, TN

Tunica River Park

Helena West

Greenville AL Vicksburg

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LA Natchez

Memphis represents a dense urban condition along the Mississippi where infrastructure such as levees, roads and concretized creeks have severed the natural connection between tributaries such as the Wolf river and their watershed.

This results in increased flood risk and incidence of toxicity in communities along the water. The water inequity issues faced by these communities are closely linked to their geographic location in the city as a consequence of historic redlining .

Baton Rouge

New Orleans

Gulf of Mexico

1. A vision for natural pools to increase water education.

2. Areas affected by the 2011 flood event in the Lower Mississippi Basin.

HYDROLOGICAL CONNECTIONS SEVERED BY A LEGACY OF GRAY INFRASTRUCTURE AND DIVISIVE SOCIAL POLICY. Parks / Potential Floodplain Concretized Creeks Major Tributaries USAC Levees

SWiM believes that the revolutionary act of swimming can demand better quality of water and safe access to it for all citizens.

TO SWIM IS TO DEMAND A CLEAN, SAFE AND EMPOWERING WATERSHED...

WATERSHED EDUCATION

WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT

FLOODPLAIN RESTORATION

Our project proposes a bold new retreat strategy, in addition to existing efforts to preserve the Wolf river watershed, as a way of creating room for the river in the city. Our project is also an attempt to right historic water inequities by giving the people of Memphis free and fair access to clean recreational water.

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Affected Neighborhoods

Loosahatchi River

FRAYSER

RALEIGH

NORTH JACKSON

Cypress Creek

Wolf River Watershed

Nonconnah Creek

DECONCRETIZING THE CYPRESS CREEK One of our testing grounds is where the Cypress Creek passes the Cypress Middle school in the Hyde Park neighborhood. The school closed in 2015 due to poor infrastructure and consequently poor student performance.

We believe that this school - this social condenser - can be brought back to life through our creek strategy which will allow for natural pooling of water along its banks that can be mobilized to teach students and community members how to swim - an expansion of the ongoing efforts by the University of Memphis and Wolf River Conservancy to spread watershed education.

Phases Over A 10 Year Period

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Exisiting Condition Channelized creeks lack resilience for flooding and usage of surrounding spaces.

Jan-Mar Proposed Pool

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Pool is home to seasonal birds and animals from spring.

Apr-Jun Flooding Event

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Pool as a detention infrastructure when the water comes to high level with flooding event.

July-Sep Gathering Activities

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Pool has appropriate depth for students and neighborhood when vacation.

Oct-Dec Drained Playground Pool is extension of playground when it is drained in winter.

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Existing Channelized Creek

Backyard

Daylighting the Creek

Stormwater Filter

Flow

Wastewater Treatment

Parking Lot

Cypress Middle School

Pool as Habitat

Pool as dentention infrastructure

Swimming Pool

Extended Playground

Stormwater Filter

Flow

Wastewater Treatment

Flow

RECLAIMING THE FLOODPLAIN At this point, the cypress meets the wolf.

This fringe condition has not been evaluated from a planning perspective since the 1960s something the Planning department is going to change soon with what the city is calling the Memphis 3.0 plan. We believe that there is potential to reprogram this area to ensure holistic development.

Phases Over A 30 Year Period

GRAHAMWOOD-HYDE PARK INDUSTRIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

CYPRESS CREEK

2021 Existing Condition

KILOWATT SHOALS

2023 Creating Fingers.

2030 Established high and low grounds NEW FRAYER PARK

2040 Floodplain Reclaimed

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WRC GREENLINE

CYPRESS MIDDLE SCHOOL

LEATH PARK & WATER RESEARCH

RECOGNIZE

2021

REFAMILIARIZE

2025

RESTORE

2035

CENTER

LEATH CREEK

FIRESTONE PARK

2050

NORTHSIDE INDUSTRIAL RETREAT HARBOR TOWN MUD ISLAND

WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT

Nupur RoyChaudhury Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design - 2021