ARUN HAZARIKA
Key words
Urban landscape, Infrastructure, Urban transformation, public node, public space, open space, inner city, urban projects, residual space, Barcelona.
Role: Speaker at cities in transformation research and design by EAAE/ARCC (European association of architectural education)/ (Architectural Research centers Consortium) at Milan, Italy, June 2012.
Abstract
Some urban theorist and designers in Europe, particularly in Spain have been trying in the last decade or two to find new design expressions for the characterless soup of urban sprawl that one finds within and between many cities today. The Idea is to think landscape as infrastructure for development. It could also be described as designing the glue between developments – a notion of new shared space. The methodology tries to unravel geological and cultural history of the site.
Today urban transformation and open spaces have attained a new scale and acquired new qualities. These transformation also changes our way of looking at urban landscapes and shaping the pictures we have of them. Particularly in the case of Placa de les Glories which could never follow the Cerda’s plan because it is one of the most critical areas of the city. It acts like an Urban void in time and space in the city’s fabric designed by Cerda. This residual space has historically resisted attempts at developments, but until recently Municipality of Barcelona has proposed a new Master plan for the area, that tries to define its boundaries in a rectangular space and proposes a flat surface or ‘green blanket’ that covers the infrastructure beneath.
Key words
Urban fragmentation, Infrastructure, landscape, globalization, shopping
Abstract
Commercialization and shopping are often criticised in both public and political debate, as well as in academic urban literature for producing spaces that are not entirely public and its distortion of the ‘true needs’ of the masses through commercial manipulation. This article tries to understand the urban fragmentation of cities both physically and socially due to negative impact of globalisation and other economic forces, and explains how shopping spaces can be a new catalyst in integrating fragmented urban spaces by intelligently composing and compressing different programs within these blocks that is closely related to the city. Moreover, the article tries to seek the possibilities to integrate shopping with infrastructure and landscape which can become a new node for intermodal infrastructural junction of future cities and it also questions how shopping spaces can become new centrality for multiplicity rather than an isolated object in the urban landscape.
Key words:
Urban design, Landscape Urbanism, Ecological Urbanism, Geography, Public spaces, expanding cities, Infrastructure, River cities, sinking cities, climate change
Abstract:
The world’s population continues to grow, resulting in a steady migration from rural to urban areas. This effect of migration is commonly seen in all cities in India and all over the world. Increased number of people and cities go hand in hand with greater exploitation of limited resources. Every year, more cities all over the world and in India facing new challenges of housing, depleting resources and unstable economic conditions. What are we to do? What means do we have as architects and urban designers to address this challenging reality? How can we define Urbanism in relation with ecological science? Can we use some metaphors as a tool to bridge the gap between urban design and ecology?
Key words:
Urban design, Landscape Urbanism, , Public spaces, expanding cities, Infrastructure, Housing
Abstract:
The reaction to the problem is to remain ‘voiceless’. We try to sculpt spaces by going downwards to balance the polarity between the verticality and horizontality and lay an ‘urban carpet’ that forms a collection of different public spaces in that area. Agbar tower dominates the skyline brutally and has a powerful landmark quality. We believe that we cannot compete with it so we take another route to create urban spaces that are enclosed, contained, and acts like a vortex in the present system of traffic mobility. Proposed urban space will try to absorb the streamline motion and generate a sense of buffer space between eastern and western ends of the city. Suddenly the junction of the main streets becomes an important ‘public courtyard’.
Key words:
Housing, society, , Public spaces, living choices, functions.
Introduction: Antonella Contin & Arunjyoti Hazarika
Abstract:
These few houses are selected from a body of work which responds to an increasingly noticeable demographic shift in domestic habitation in New Zealand - for a variety of reasons, more and people are deciding to live alone. They may be widows and widowers, for example, where the choice is made for them; or the separated and divorced, where relationships may fall victim to the ‘empty-nest’ syndrome of departed, grown-up children. More surprisingly, perhaps, they may be young, single people whose view of the future is not dominated by aspirations to the traditional nuclear family.
The buildings they require, therefore, are not family houses, and therein lies the significance. Their basic functions are less complex. They are considerably smaller in size, and consequently less expensive. And they offer fresh architectural opportunity to ideas of habitation which have become jaded and predictable.
Key words:
Architecture, urban design, landscape, edge conditions, Soil, Urban fields, climate, enclosure, urban form, composition.
Role: lecture assitant with Prof. Sandro Rolla for Master of science in architecture and urban design of edge course at Politecnico di Milano, 2012/2013
Abstract:
Aims and objective of this course is to understand the inherent meaning of edge. What are the tensions and multiple meanings associated with edge? How it can be related to a city or a particular object , place or a situation. What are the conditions that gives definition to an edge? What knowledge and tools we need to work with an edge?
We move forward by investigating edge conditions in multiple paradigm and seek answer to the above questions. We encompass multiple meanings in nature, geology, architecture, philosophy,science etc.
With our knowledge of edge and the city, we try to focus on a particular piece of city that has its own hidden rules and meanings. Those rules and meanings can be altered, manipulated, developed, according to some logic that has to improve the quality of space and accentuates its behavior as an edge to the city. Students are required to develop a vision about the given piece of the city, and their flow of ideas should be from abstraction to reality.
Key words:
Architecture, Houses, budget constraints, wooden construction, New Zealand, Gerald Melling
Role: Prepared a training report for Chandigarh college of architecture, India that focuses on selected built projects by Melling:Morse architects and internship work on split box in Coromandel peninsula, New Zealand.
Note:
This training report outlines my experiences,learning and documentation of small houses while working as a student apprentice at Melling:Morse Architects in Wellington, New Zealand, for six months. I would like to convey my gratitude to Gerald Melling for guidance and motivation to make the project a success. I thank also the Melling: Morse crew for their trust and support.