Chennai Urban Campus Workshop Documentation

The Chennai Urban Campus At Urban Mela

Our Water Our Waste Our City WORKSHOP on Urban Participation and Intervention Facilitated by Vidhya Mohankumar - Urban Design Collective

September 01, 2012, 5 p.m. – 7 p.m. at YMCA College of Physical Education, Nandanam, Chennai Talking about cities ought to mean talking about people. But how can we include bottom-up approaches and the perspective of the inhabitants into city planning and urban development? What do we understand, if we talk about participation? How is participation linked to responsibility? What urban intervention is possible? The workshop presented background, ideas and examples and discussed the necessary role of people within urban development.

Chennai

Objective and content of the workshop The general purpose of the workshop was to highlight the importance of public participation in the process of building cities.

This was achieved through a short presentation that demonstrates successful instances of public participation as an integral part of the planning process. The presentation was then followed by a hands-on workshop during which participants were required to break into groups for thematic discussions after which they made presentations to summarize the discussions.

Each of the groups had a facilitator and a note-taker.

The group discussions were facilitated so as to account for the specific objectives listed here• Increase awareness about the current state of conditions • Identify key community assets, issues, and joint opportunities • Identify potential partnerships between citizens and stakeholders -government departments/ agencies, experts, NGOs • Share knowledge on initiatives, projects (past or ongoing) and proposals that already exist to address major challenges • Identify specific interventions that can serve as solutions or recommendations • Document and present community opinions to the decision- makers

Program 17:00 – 17:05 Official opening and introduction to the workshop by MOD Institute 17:05 – 17:25 Presentation on ideas and examples illustrating the necessary role of people within urban development by Vidhya Mohankumar, Founder, Urban Design Collective 17:25 – 18:10 Group discussions Participants will be divided into working groups to discuss 3 themes- Our Water, Our Waste and Our City 18:10 – 18:50 Presentations by Working Groups with an open Discussion 18:50-19:00 Summary and vote of Thanks

Introductory presentation

The workshop began with a short presentation by Vidhya Mohankumar of Urban Design Collective (UDC), demonstrating various examples of participatory planning from different parts of the world as well as the benefits of such a workshop based approach to planning and intervention.

Preserve Change Create Connect

Group discussions Our Water/ Our Waste/ Our City

All participants were divided into 3 groups under the 3 themes ‘Our Water, Our Waste and Our City’ and each of the 3 groups was led by designated facilitators who were incharge of getting the best out of the group discussions in the given 45 minutes. The facilitators worked with a framework of ‘Preserve, Change, Create and Connect’ i.e. for each of the 3 themes, the groups had to come up with a list of what they would like to preserve from the existing scenario, what they would like to see changed in the future, what they would like to create anew and what they think is fragmented in the existing scenario that would work better if connected.

The following spreads showcase what each group came up with-

Our Water

The ‘Our Water’ group touched on the imbalances caused by excessive extraction of ground water at certain locations in the city and the need to have a check on the amount of water consumed at all levels. They were also deeply concerned by the many disappearing water bodies in the cityscape and recommended more stringent guidelines and enforcement to curb development that infringes on our waterbodies as well as the shared water resources.

Preserve

Change

• Ground water quantity and quality • Drinking water sources of the city like lakes and rivers • Adyar and Cooum rivers • Maintain existing storm water drainage system

• Clean polluted water bodies around city to make their water potable • Regulate water consumption of domestic and commercial users even for ground water • Prevent construction/encroachment in water bodies • Prevent pollution of water bodies and underground water sources throughout the year by maintaining proper sewage drains and treatment system

Create • Proper planning while construction of storm water drains and other infrastructure projects so as to create a free flow network of water channels • Enact policies to prevent and penalize encroachers on water bodies • Enable water table monitoring at various levels for continuous assessment of water scenario and take appropriate preventive and preemptive measures to conserve and preserve water sources

Connect • Community awareness to bring together citizens for the cause • Mass propaganda • One-to-one awareness campaign through volunteers

Our Waste

The champions of ‘Our Waste’ strongly recommended the segregation of waste at source and believed firmly that a well-executed awareness campaign starting all the way from primary school will be the best way to ensure that we all learn to manage our waste more effectively. They also stressed the role of NGOs and also identified a few NGOs working in this sector. Incidentally, one of the school kids who was part of this group had actually managed to convince his entire class in school to segregate their waste!

Preserve

Change

• Role of NGOs/Civic groups such as Exnora • Eco-clubs in educational institutions (schools and colleges) • Accountability for waste management

• • • • • •

Educational approach Technological approach Legislative approach Accountability Trash segregation at source Personal levels of awareness and consciousness

Create • Composting at neighbourhood level • Encourage more eco-clubs in educational institutes (schools / colleges) • Opportunities for public participatory exercises • Better process of collection and segregation • Waste as a profitable and rewarding business opportunity • Campaigns where celebrities / politicians lead by example and show us how its done

Connect • • • •

People at a neighbourhood level Role models Education and execution Local government

Our City

The ‘Our City’ steered their discussion towards land use and transportation. Given the 45 minutes, they did a fine job to identify the things that make up Chennai from a land use and transportation perspective as well as put together a list of what is lacking and needs to be fixed. They came up with a set of recommendations to augment the assets of Chennai such as the heritage precincts, the waterfront zones, a network of coherent public spaces and also called for integration of the many different transportation networks that support various parts of the city including infrastructure for walking and cycling. They also called on the role of both NGOs as well as residents to demand and make a case for these improvements which would if implemented well definitely add to the sense of pride for the city among its citizens.

Preserve

Change

• • • •

• • • • • • •

• • • • • •

Neighbourhoods with distinct identities Georgetown as the historic core Mylapore and other similar temple precincts Water bodies- Beaches, Adyar estuary, Buckingham canal Pallikaranai marsh Public transportation network- bus and rail Sites and buildings with heritage value Culture Cosmopolitan character Malls as air-conditioned public spaces

Slums Provision and maintenance of public toilets Pallikaranai dump yard Restoration of the 500 waterbodies and rivers Land ownership and acquisition Improving public transport efficiency Redistribution of densities

Connect Create • A consolidated body incharge of public space design • Innovative ways of harnessing waterways for transport etc.

• Heritage precincts as areas for revitalization • Facilities for intermodal connectivity between MRTS, suburban rail and buses

• • • •

Various departments – consolidate functions Land use – water – transport Connect the beaches More connection between employment centres – ECR/OMR/GST/ARCOT Road • Ports & industrial corridor (North Chennai) • Sewage treatment plants/bio-methane htinfrastructure

Group discussions

Presentations by Working Groups

List of Participants S No Name Designation Institution 1 Madhusudan Reddy Student SAP, Anna University 2 Janeshwara Raja Student SAP, Anna University 3 Govindarajan DELL 4 A Boopalan PhD Scholar Madras University 5 Mohit Gupta CTS 6 Kathiresan M MIDAS/MARG 7 Tharani Priya R 8 GR Mahendran Universal Associates 9 Sophia Salma Student SAP, Anna University 10 Roohia Salma Student SAP, Anna University 11 Sharath VJB Financial Services 12 Mano Kumarasuriyar MARG 13 S S Subramaniam 14 Abhishek Varun Student SRM 15 Akshaya Madhavan IIT Madras 16 Aunshree N Student Measi Academy of Architecture 17 S Heera Jerine Student Periyar Maniammai University 18 K Sivaji Ganesan Deutsch Bank 19 P Kalaimani Police Department 20 V Kannan Business 21 Aasaithambi R Apas Water Solution Ltd 22 Jeevanantham D Apas Water Solution Ltd 23 Sathiyaselan Dinamalar 24 A P Raja Dinamalar 25 S Rajesh Business 26 S Karthik Ford 27 G Parvathy Student Vidyodaya School 28 Kavitha A Temenos 29 Bharath VJB Financial Services 30 Selvam 31 Karan Student SRM University 32 Sebakumar VISTFON

33 Nikita Harikishan Student BMSCE 34 T Anand Student Crescent Engg.College 35 Rakesh Sham Virteon 36 Balaji Srinivasan R R Software engineer 37 Kapil Anandagiri Software engineer 38 B Kuppuswamy Electrical engineer 39 Anand Software engineer 40 K Murali Business Analyst 41 Mahesh Radhakrishnan Architect MOAD 42 Julian Petrin Urbanista

Working group facilitators- UDC • • • • • •

Balaji Mohan Bankim Kalra Bharath Gandhi Palanisamy Nischal Buddhavarapu Tahaer Zoyab Vidhya Mohankumar

Urban Design Collective (UDC) is a non-profit organization that works as a collaborative platform for architects, urban designers and planners to promote livable and sustainable cities through community engagement. info@urbandesigncollective.org www.urbandesigncollective.org