The Hindu Business Line : Big, bad city

My work reflects my increasing fascination with the diversity and complexity of the city,” notes Delhi-based architect S.K. Das. An alumnus of the Sir JJ College of Architecture, Mumbai, Das however says he learnt more from the strong social dynamics of 1970s’ Mumbai that brought together all kinds of professionals — artists, journalists, filmmakers, musicians and political activists, all “at the lunatic edge of their professions” — to d erive inspiration and pleasure from others’ experiences and to debate issues over drinks, in cafes and bars, and late-night discourses.

Many years later, he witnessed the planning and making of New Bombay, or, as he puts it, “the degeneration of what was touted as a self-help city by some into a suburban mass that lacked the energy and dynamism of Bombay and subconsciously negated it”. It is perhaps to the quest for the golden mean between these extremes that he owes the activist in him:

On the one hand, he has worked on the reconstruction of slums and against the mass eviction of squatters by “a city that did not have a better alternative with which to provide them”, while on the other hand, he has also done a lot of reconstruction work in areas such as cyclone-ravaged Orissa.

Yet, it is the state of the city that intrigues him the most. His accent is on organising “democratic, inclusive and socially interactive spaces and built-forms”, which respond to people, places and contexts through architecture instead of sloganeering.

To Das, each city, with its varying degrees of association with and distance from globalisation, represents specific needs, interests, aspirations and sensibilities. “The public domain must be seen as an overlay of multiple sensibilities, as specific representations of the parts,” he says.

His firm, SKD as Associated Architects — established over two decades ago after he left his teaching and global consultancy position at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, Rotterdam (The Netherlands), has clients in the private, public and non-profit sectors across Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin and North America.

“In my work, a neighbourhood or business district becomes a microcosm of a city,” observes Das. “Narrow, winding streets, or rivers and tributaries long ignored or denied their rightful existence as public spaces begin to flow through the last bastions of individuality in an increasingly power-driven society. These concepts grow and mature in the cellars of the imagination, only to emerge stronger when given the chance,” he says.

Das is aware that his work deals with a territory that is traditionally viewed by architects as a planning domain and by planners as part of architectural concerns.

“This territory is the logical extension of both — of architecture in a larger spatial playfield and of town design and planning for parts of cities. These parts contain the potential to be more complete than the whole,” he says. According to Das, fast-growing Indian cities have relegated their social and environmental objectives to the backburner while unabashedly pursuing rapid growth. Besides, an undemocratic planning bureaucracy working behind closed doors has hijacked the planning exercise and failed to engage the communities and the professionals.

“Some urban problems can be nipped in the bud by drawing upon the skills and knowledge available with the professionals and the schools of architecture in a city; they, in turn, can draw upon a wider set of knowledge and understanding about the city among artists, theatre persons, writers, social commentators, and so on,” he says.

“We forget that in order to inculcate civic sense, we must have a city that relates strongly to the lives and real needs of the people. Too many agencies are doing their own bit without coordination or a coherent framework.”

The unfortunate result: Pockets of affluence turning their back to poverty and environment, the poor deprived of access to services and shelter, and communities segmented based on land prices.

Das says planners should replace rigid two-dimensional master-plans frozen for decades by a more resilient, adaptive and evolving plan within a master-plan framework, without forgetting that they are social agents of change. He says it is time they discarded archaic planning instruments that encourage mono-functional land-use and zoning that push living, work and recreation spaces far apart, thereby putting extra burden on mobility, transportation and connectivity.

“Infrastructure provisions are grossly insufficient and are of bad quality,” he says. “Because infrastructure delivery is seen merely as public works, we have ignored the artistry required to exploit natural assets of any city and to generate substantive public spaces that people can relate to and feel proud about.”

Das believes that high-quality public places with easy and free access can make people own up cities and not vandalise. “The charm of impressive cities throughout history is that they managed to mobilise an entire society to willingly and passionately contribute to city development directly or indirectly.”