12. CITIES OF THE FUTURE

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9. KHOTACHI WADI

CITIES OF THE FUTURE

-Kshitij Khare

Imagination is the testing ground for most of the human innovation and projection. Humanity has dreamt about the future of society and order since the days of antiquity, and for most of the known history we have envisioned a future more prosperous than one we live or have lived in. While some of these visions may seem to be farfetched, most sprout from one’s understanding of and response to their contemporary social reality. The collective form of these dreams and visions hence have a key role in shaping the future of the society that envisions it, when it comes.

This, however is a doubleedged sword. It can work like a positive feedback loop or also a vicious circle such as ones we see in extremely impoverished countries ridden by disease, poverty or/and dictatorial regimes. Instances of radical changes can erupt out of the seemingly blues for the better or for worse but more often than not they result from a rejection to the current social order and its practices. Therefore it is in a society’s self interest to take the selfbuilt foresights of its people seriously, nurture the innovative and prosperous ones, and investigate and eliminate the potentially harmful ones. Architecture as it is one of the strongest derivatives of the society that builds it, is a key part of these projections as it successfully and very visibly incorporates within its frames, the complexities of social order such as the politics, social hierarchy and economic balance. For the past century, a majority of all the future cities envisioned, may they be a work of animations, cinema or words have had a skyline brimming with skyscrapers with exotic spires. These structures emergent from an established social order and the use of sophisticated engineering technology suggest scientific progress. However they are quite deficient by themselves in painting a complete picture.

Scientific progress doesn’t equate or lead to social progress, or social equity by extension. Several future cities envisioned by great minds are the best examples to explain this. Cloud Atlas, a 2004 bestselling novel by David Mitchell envisions a neoSeoul with a similarly impressive skyline with translucent flying roads. This clever act of raising the datum of the city allows the utopian city to conceals its disturbing underbelly. While the parts over this it are of the prosperous and the powerful that

rule the society, the ones that are ruled are relegated to the hightech slums under it hidden by this new and open handed starting point of the society.

Having a fragile and suppressed community ruled by anarchy and made to bear weight of the civilized dome above it certainly doesn’t makes for a stable social structure and is likely to default. This projection of a top to bottom social hierarchy is not unique to the novel as well. Though this might make for a good genre, it is also noteworthy to ponder over this trend of an ever increasing number of literary and cinematic works encompassing a pessimistic future of the society.

One may argue that this can be a result of a population that is becoming increasingly aware and is overcautious of the longterm consequences of its actions fact cannot be denied that it may also be a reflection of the society of extreme disparity that we are heading towards. In present day, more than half of world’s wealth is controlled by the richest one percent and close to fourfifths by the top 5 percent.

Courtesy: Milan Mathew

The richest 50 people on the planet alone account for more wealth than the lower half of the human population numbering at around 3.8 billion people as of 2019.

Whatever be the future, or our perception of it, these works certainly warn us of the factors that might culminate to these dystopian realities. While plutocracy of neoSeoul or the totalitarianism of George Orwell’s classic 1984 are more visible in their visual frames, several other dystopic futures that have been envisioned are more subtle to be caught in a glimpse. Modern dystopian fiction continues to reflect an increasing number of anxieties like government control, climate change, biological warfare and global epidemics. However the presence of this critique itself is a good sign as perhaps the only fine line that separates our imperfect societies from true inescapable dystopias is that of critical thinking. Though enacting on this critique might be the most noble action one can take in favour of a societal progress.

- Shyam Samani

“There are historically two fronts in architecture, one side there is this Avant Garde(wild and progressive ideas) detached from the reality that they fail to become, something other than eccentric curiosities thinking about the extremeness of the design, and on the other hand there are these well-organised corporate consultants that build predictable boring boxes of high standards. Architecture here seems to be entrenched between these two equally fronts: either naively utopian or petrifyingly pragmatic.”

-Bjarke Ingles

SPACES FOR HIGHER LEARNING: INSIGHTS INTO CAMPUS PLANNING

-Ar. Swati Ray

The design of an educational campus reflects the institute’s image, its culture and its future. In essence it portrays its pride and soul, what it stands for and the ideals it wishes to impart to successive generations. A campus should evolve around a good urban community where people live a common life for a noble end.

Thomas Jefferson once described an educational campus as an “Academic Village”. Since higher learning is an intensely personal enterprise, students should be encouraged to interact at group levels and be able to introspect, when so, the time demands. For most students the period spent in academic pursuit on campus forms not only an integral part of the process of maturing but is also marked by heightened creative abilities, powers of reasoning, ethical delineations and political inclinations. The architecture must support this transformation that students undergo from adolescence to adult hood. As an architect, to be entrusted to conceive, design and build such a centre of learning would indeed be one of the most gratifying moments of his or her career. While the planning must be efficient, it is equally important to develop a common thread that weaves itself through the architecture, cognizant of social and environmental exigencies as well as prospects for future expansion. The built environs and the landscape design must complement each other in a cohesive response to the surroundings in which the building sits. The campus must be an emotion and an experience; a residue that is left over after one has meandered through it.

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.” -Thomas Paine

I believe, the real success of the design, however, lies in what Vitruvius wrote nearly two thousand years ago that architecture should provide “firmness, commodity and delight”. It is the last requirement that is often the dialectic, the hardest to define. As architects we endeavour to impart that ‘delight’ by the juxtaposition of the buildings, scale, proportion, the spaces and the use of materials. However, it is often hidden in the elements of surprise, the touches of the whimsy and the wit in the architectural abstractions. It is these details that create eternal imprints in a student’s memory and what they fondly in later life recall as part of their ‘student days’.

Another facet of campus design and which is very often the case, is the development of a Brownfield campus. This may involve the augmenting of the existing facilities, adding new structures, renovating the old ones and possible adaptive reuses for others. In this case an architect’s job is far more enduring.

He or she will also have to evaluate the prevailing context and create architecture that enhances the existing spaces. The use of the architectural vocabulary, whether to blend with the existing context or stand out with a more contemporary rhetoric would be the major decision.

While designing such a campus in Rajasthan, I realized that one of the most important criteria the architect must consider besides his or her vision are the sentiments of the users who have been associated with it for a large part of their lives and who are “wary” of any change. The challenge is first to convince them that the design proposed will not affect the everyday functioning of the campus and their nostalgic ‘connect’ with the campus shall remain.

The phasing of the project also plays a crucial role in the development of a logistical challenge for the architect. It is here that the architect must closely work with the faculty and project management team to develop the design and realistic timelines for it.

In conclusion, I feel that a successful campus is one that unfolds young minds by broadening their horizons and stimulating their senses. As the poet Schiller once said- “A really good poem is the soft click of a well made box when it is been closed.” A great campus ought to infuse the same kind of satisfaction.

GMAIL : fyimagazine@aditya-arch.edu.in CONTACT : 022-61106135

GMAIL : fyimagazine@aditya-arch.edu.in CONTACT : 022-61106135