CITY SYNTHESIS ASSIGNMENT 2 ASC
a city synthesis of the Worli area in the city of Mumbai, India.
sakeenah numberdar
523
table of contents foreword
the social city
the compact city
the metabolic city
the resilient city
citations
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The objective of this assignment was to explore four urban ideas and apply them to a 500 metres radius of a chosen city. These four urban ideas consisted of: The Social City (explored along with the idea of The City Beautiful), The Compact City, The Metabolist City, and The Resilient City. The chosen city for the synthesis was the city of Mumbai, India. The area of Mumbai analyzed and synthesized in this assignment is the Worli area located near the coastline and home to the fishing industry along with well-known landmarks such as the Worli Sea Face, Worli Promenade, and the Worli Sea-Link. The idea of the four urban cities were interesting to test in Worli due to it’s multicultural and mosaic urban fabric. Worli’s urban context consists of highrise development, recently developed infrastructure oriented towards automobile sufficiency, and a diverse commercial industry. However, it also contains patches of slums, unused abandoned land, an untreated coastline, and open drainages. Worli, like the rest of Mumbai, is a patchwork of the urban context, making it an interesting area to apply urbanism ideas that might look small but serve the community and its inhabitants at a larger scale- attempting to upbring the community at large.
The fundamental intention in exploring these ideas was to enhance the city from people up, following Jan Gehl’s theoryenhancing the city for its inhabitants will result it in being more liveable, instead of forcing people into a pre-built mould of large built forms. The idea that was explored successfully in this area, was The Social City- Mumbai due to its high density and tight spaces may seem like a difficult area to explore this idea. However, I believe this is the actual driving factor that makes this idea successful because any design move made is fully adapted and ‘inhabited’ by the residents. Yet, the patchworked urban fabric and almost arbitrary roads does pose its own challenges. Mumbai’s high density along with increasing vehicular traffic in numerous forms: rickshaws, taxis, cars, bicycles, hand carts, buses, motorbikes, and scooters with the addition of a large number of pedestrians can be filtered with the introduction of continuous skywalks. This has been explored through diagrams, collages, and sketches.
Going through the other ideas made me realize that all these ideas can closely be intervened with each other if the underlying concept is followed through. That being said, The Metabolist City was challenging to integrate because of what Mumbai is. Mumbai quite literally is living- a city that never sleeps and a city that never dies.
At the same time, making smaller interventions for the larger community makes the city more liveable.
3 Foreword
Currently, Worli has a mixed lower class income demographic, with rich cultural significance. Even though civic and infrastructural developments are beginning to increase the exisitng situation of Worli’s amenities and urban landscape is deteriorating. Current infrastructure is being burdened with improper waste disposal, lack of flood proofing during the monsoon season, open fish market and plenty of opportunities for the spread of disease through the densely populated slums.
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the social city
The idea of the social city has become popular over the years in an attempt to orient cities towards the people. As cars take over the city, and make us believe it is almost impossible to navigate through everyday life without the use of cars, Jan Gehl’s theory allows people, commercial, and residential to co-exist once they become more human in their approach.
The specialty of Mumbai, especially low income areas like Worli- is that unlike North American cities residents of these low income areas cannot even afford public transport let alone their own personal cars. This forces them to become resourceful and create a life around the area they reside in, even though it may seem limiting to the average first world country citizen, the people of these areas can walk miles on foot- because sometimes thee feet are faster and more affordable compared to Mumbai traffic.
As a result, the social city proposal for Worli is to build a continuous skywalk over the major arterial roads that run parallel and perpendicular to the coastline, with access points at intersections of major and minor arterial roads, streets, and paths.
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the social city
a view of the skywalk against the Worli sea face, sea-link bridge, and coastline. enhancing the exisitng coastline, towards a welcoming well landscaped civic space.
The intervention would introduce an idea that has been implemented in some parts of Mumbai already, however, it proposes the idea of sky-walks to be introduced with formalized vendor stalls to create floating bazaars, and enhance activity on the upper level, reducing congestion of vehicular traffic, pedestrians, and street vendors on the ground level. The advantage of such an approach would be the opportunity to create direct connections to the railway and Mumbai ‘locals’ line. Along, with covered, nonflooded walking spaces in the monsoons.
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a variety of vendors on the skywalk
the compact city
The idea of the compact city is to achieve efficiency through the design of the urban fabric of a city. From an idea that emerged in the 1970s, over the years the compact city has been achieved through the design of 15 minute cities, such as Barcelona and Copenhagen in Spain and Denmark. Additionally, the 1 minute Swedish city.
The basic idea of the 15 minute and 1 minute cities is to provide all essential amenities within a walking distance without the reliance on cars or any other transportation methods.
Mumbai’s complex urban fabric can accommodate for such detailed and skillfully designed cities. However, an intervention to this degree would require intense development time and displacing current residents that already live in makeshift homes and low income housing.
The solution to making Worli more compact is to identify the variation of roads, streets, and pathways and create designated lanes to reduce congestion and create a ‘faster moving’ citytackling current insufficiencies.
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city
a lane for: a) bicycles, hand carts, scooters, and motorbikes. b) rickshaws, taxis, and cars. c) buses and trucks. d) wider sidewalks.
a lane for: a) bicycles, hand carts, scooters, and motorbikes. b) rickshaws, taxis, and cars. buses, and trucks. d) moderate sidewalks.
a lane for: a) moderate sidewalks b) only a lane for cars, rickshaws, and buses.
a wide sidewalk to create a pedestrian dominated street with a single lane for limited bicycle, hand carts and possible rickshaws.
streets
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major arterial roads
major arterial roads paths
the metabolic city
The idea that cities are living and growing is not a surprise, because the city’s inhabitants are living and growing. As cities grow and expand quite literally, cities also grow with the introduction of technology. As inhabitants of the city, we have a desire to control the city and create opportunities through the patterns we perceive.
The idea of the metabolic city can be applied in Worli by working through bottom up and creating an opportunity for equality in the quality of life in the area. This can be achieved by concentrating on improving the lowest areas first and working the way up.
“Tactical urbanism is strategic, as the name implies. Instead of building entire cities the concept relies on building in areas where impact will be felt the most, with the least investment and with the least effort in time and social negative impact.”
In this intervention, the slums have been identified to be transformed into a more long-lasting residential colony assuming that this can create maximum impact. Shipping containers are used to create modular, uniform, and efficient homes that are affordable and can be created in a lot less time- but increase the quality of life for the residents. A modular approach results in a more flexible approach that can easily be modified, moved, and changed over time.
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the metabolic city
the collage expresses layers of the exisitng slum with an overlay of what a modular shipping container colony of homes could look like. These homes can be modified by adding more containers or elements over time.
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the resilient city
A resilient city’s idea is to create a city that can overcome challenges or situations that can hurt or damage the urban context of the city. A resilient city in today’s time would be a city that can overcome a climate change crisis through its urban planning. In 2021, a resilient city must be able to overcome a pandemic and the social, financial, and economical consequences of such a crisis.
Mumbai has failed to overcome most of the major crisis that it has faced over the years. More developed and wealthier parts of the city have been affected lesser than others. However, area like Worli are often overlooked and usually the areas that are hit the most. Worli’s geographical location places it straight up against the coastline. As a result, during the monsoon rains and as sea levels continue to rise, the area witnesses flooding.
The resilient city approach proposes to implement development that is constructed at a height with prefabricated steel flood-proof structures that can collect rainwatersimilar to the ones in Thailand.
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the resilient city
The city of Mumbai is not the most resilient cities known to people. Yet, it is worth mentioning that when cities fail it’s people the people become resilient themselves. As sad as it is, the people of Mumbai and lower income demographic areas like Worli have learned to face crisis head on.
Along with creating leisure spaces such as the ones proposed in the social city, implementing flood proof structures and encouraging development around the ignored and less appealing coastline.
“The firm Site-Specific Co Ltd was inspired by vernacular housing strategies of Thai communities to create an affordable flood-proof home to the modern-day cities of Thailand. Built as rafts, the design uses a prefabricated steel floating system that sits under the house to collect rainwater while remaining hidden. The house prefabricated panels with steel framing allow it to be stronger and much lighter than traditional construction. As the water level rises, the depression gets filled with water and the house will be pre-buoyant in case of a flood.” (Ankhitha Gattuplai, 10 Examples of Flood Resistant Architecture)
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citations
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