An insight into the Sabarmati riverfront development project
by Shagun Singh
Designwala recently organized a panel about local people regulating local spaces. The panel was timely given the political unrest in the Middle East and Africa with people standing up to reclaim their rights. The video for the panel will be posted shortly. Our three panelists Jyoti Hosagrahar, Lina Srivastava and John Geraci come from different [...]
The Planner : Deepa Mehta
by Shagun Singh
In this interview, Deepa Mehta who is an urban planner living in San Francisco, talks about heritage, modernity, technology and urban design. She explains how the integration of modern tools and technology with traditional arts and crafts will help carry these age old techniques to the next century. Deepa mainly works in cultural heritage planning [...]
Redefining the Public Realm in Mumbai
by Jasem Pirani
Mumbai as a city is expanding with public spaces diminishing. Studies indicate that 2 hectares of quality open space per 1000 residents in dense urban settings is an acceptable benchmark. Mumbai has a severe dearth of parks and playgrounds to cater for it’s rapidly increasing population. The quality of public realm in our cities is [...]
Most expensive house in the world – wasteful or lavish self-indulgence?
by Jasem Pirani
A few years ago who would have imagined that the most expensive house in the world would be in Mumbai. But then India is full of surprises – on one end you have the most expensive house in the world at the same time 42% of India’s population is below the poverty line. In the [...]
The Sustainable Urbanist – Jyoti Hosagrahar Part 1
by Shagun Singh
Jyoti Hosagrahar is faculty at Columbia University, New York and Director of Sustainable Urbanism International at Columbia University, and Bangalore, India. Architect, planner, and historian, she advises on urban development, historic conservation, and sustainability issues in Asia. Her research interests include urban heritage, cultural and environmental sustainability of cities focusing on the intersections of nature, [...]
A Grand Idea – Inhabit Section Finalists
by Shagun Singh
A Grand Idea -Inhabit Section competition culminated on June 17th. A lot of interesting entries came pouring in from all round the world. The ones published are a few that stood out. Our judges Raul Smith Correa from FAISCAS and Soo-in Yang from The Living are going over the entries and plan to pick a [...]
The Better India – Positive news. Happy Stories. Unsung Heroes.
by Ria Rajan
Tired of the sensationalized reports and negative journalism of Indian newspapers and magazines, Bangalore based husband and wife duo – Anuradha and Dhimant Parekh decided to set up a platform that focuses only on happy stories. Thus The Better India was born. It was an honest attempt to celebrate and bring together those unsung heroes [...]
Mapunity – Social technology at work
by Ria Rajan
Mapunity uses and develops technology to tackle social problems and development challenges in India. They provide map based services and design geographical information systems along with mobile technologies mostly for government departments and civil society organisations. They are also extend their services to R&D initiatives of commercial ventures. Of all the various project Mapunity is [...]
Bambike – A Bamboo Bicycle
by Ria Rajan
Bruce Sterling’s short story The Interoperation , featured in the Technology Review published by MIT, (Massachusett’s Institute of Technology) can be briefly summarized as a tale of a future where robots build and tear down buildings based on pre-set programs and a future where people ride bamboo bicycles. In present times, this story is not [...]
Babajob.com – Connecting employers with informal sector workers
by Ria Rajan
Babajob.com is a Bangalore-based start-up that uses the web and mobile technology to connect employers and bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) informal sector workers (i.e. maids, cooks, drivers, etc.) with the goal of creating a scalable, replicable and profitable solution to combat poverty. Babajob aims to do this by creating greater market efficiency in the informal sector through [...]
Jaaga – Creative Common Ground
by Ria Rajan
Having spent a long weekend with Archana Prasad –Co Founder Jaaga, National Institute of Design alumnus and Bangalore based artist, in Pondicherry, where she was performing with her group The Manjunauts, (she is also a VJ) at the Freedom Jam; I had the chance to engage in a dialogue with her about Jaaga. Jaaga’s name [...]
ReThink Waste = Thunk in India
by Ria Rajan
India’s headcount of approximately 1.17 billion people consists of more than one-sixth of the world’s population. In a country as large as this, it is rather alarming that there is no Indian policy document, which examines waste as part of a cycle of production-consumption-recovery or perceives the issue of waste through a prism of overall [...]
Designers as Change Makers – Part 2
by Shagun Singh
Shweta Mudgal is an architect previously working with L&T in Mumbai and SOM in New York City on the Mumbai International Airport. Shweta acquired her BArch in Mumbai and her MArch from Southern California University of Architecture (SciArc). For the second part of the Designwala feature – ‘Designers as Changemakers‘, Shweta talks about architecture as [...]
