THE WILDERNESS CITY

Today, most of the developing countries are facing a series of urban challenges amidst the digital age. With rapid technological development, with expansion of IT industry and with increasing awareness and demand for high quality education, these cities and urban units face crisis that must be acknowledged and dealt with immediately. Whether it is high levels of water and air pollution or acute shortage of built and unbuilt resources, whether it is climate change or socio-economic factors, all these ‘hot topics’ of concerns are the cry for help that we need to immediately act upon. Indian city of Pune is no exception. One of the largest IT and educational sectors of the country, Pune attracts thousands of people from outside the city every year. In order to accommodate such large number of diverse population, Pune has expanded rapidly but not in a planned way, instead in an extremely haphazard manner. This unplanned expansion of the city has lead to a number of complex urban issues that needs to be catered urgently. The city of Pune, like almost every Indian city has a very rigid zonal planning. Residential areas are usually concentrated away from the work places and educational institutions, thus increasing the commute time. With an inefficient network of public transport, people have no choice but to resort to private vehicles. On an average, a family of 4 owns at least 1 car and 2 two-wheelers. With these number of private vehicles, traffic congestions have become a major concern, which not only adds on to the commute time for travelers but also poses a high risk of road accidents. Further adding to this issue, roads are inefficient and narrow without pedestrian pathways and cycle tracks.

Once the spine of the Pune, Mula-Mutha river cutting through the entire city, today is a dead area that acts as an infrastructure barrier. The river front areas are lifeless, unsafe and highly polluted especially in the city center.

The area selected for development is along the river bed, river dividing the site into two distinct urban fabrics, old city and modern cosmopolitan area. The JM Road (Jangli Maharaj Road) which is predominantly a commercial street, marks the start of the cosmopolitan area while Narayan Peth and Kasba Peth marking the start of the old city. The peculiar characteristic of this site is that none of these two divisions actually depict any kind of an architectural character, but comprises of a series of multistoried buildings with extremely dull and lifeless facades. The river also acts as a social barrier between the Peth area and the cosmopolitan region of Pune as all the migrants reside in the outskirts concentrating all the local population in the city center.      

The proposal aims to regenerate the river front, recapturing Mula-Mutha's lost essence by incorporating community activities like activities like commercial street, restaurants with river front outdoor seating, jogging and cycling tracks, water and general sports, water transport and children’s play area. Since the river bifurcates the site into two, one side inhabited by locals and the other by migrants, the river front regeneration would be a great place to bring the two groups together, thus bridging the social gap.

Another important aspect of the proposal is application of mixed use planning. The design proposes mixed use planning not only on a masterplan level but also at individual building block levels. JM Road is converted into a completely pedestrian street with cycle tracks running along side and throughout the site. Along JM Road, upper floors of the commercial areas are turned into student housing, residential units and tourist stays. The lower floors would be used for commercial spaces like shops and restaurants. A number of tourists stays and recreational spaces like water and land sports complex are planned along the river banks along with a small business park attracting cosmopolitan population into the city center, thus bridging the existing social gap. The planning is done in such a way that all commercial and office spaces are at a walking distance and recreation areas, tourist attractions and river front areas connected by the underground and underwater metro and BRTS systems. The design aims to minimize the use of cars and personal transport systems for daily needs as much as possible. It aims to create a self-sufficient urban unit, integrating living and working spaces, commercial and educational spaces, recreational and tourist spaces all under one urban fabric with a holistic and coherent approach. The proposal aims to improve the quality of water and promote pedestrian, cycles and public transports over cars and two-wheelers. Being sensitive towards the carbon footprint of the city and aiming to reduce over coming years, the proposal includes retrofitting existing buildings and using climate responsive kinetic facade systems that would adjust according to the sun position providing adequate shade decreasing the need for passive cooling systems. Additionally, using lightweight construction techniques like 3D printing, using sustainable materials instead of RCC and steel to construct new buildings and using alternative sources of energy generated through solar heat and river water would be an useful approach. The traditional forms of housing typology, typically Wada (courtyard) housing was designed specifically to naturally ventilate the houses during the early 1700s. Reintroducing these ‘Wadas’ as fusion with modern housing would ensure proper cross-ventilation and proper lighting for the houses along with promoting community interactions. 

Wilderness city promotes the integration of built and unbuilt. The proposal aims to introduce a new way of working, amidst nature, instead of having conventional offices which are merely blocks of concrete, the proposal presents an idea of working in the ‘wilderness,. The offices are divided into three main categories depending upon their size, structure and use as: Co-working Spaces (for people looking for a place  temporarily to start a new business), Private Offices (for small scale workplaces) and Corporate Offices. These different kinds of workspaces are designed as a whole, connected organically with nature. The intention behind this kind of approach is to bring down the micro-climate of the city by planting more trees, using materials that will trap cold and hence the design itself will help avoid the need for passive cooling systems and bring people close to nature. These kind of workplaces will allow people to work amidst nature and not just confine themselves within four walls of their offices. Co-working spaces will help young graduates looking to establish start-up companies. Such spaces would provide people with all amenities essential to a workplace in an affordable cost, thus encouraging more establishment of businesses local to the city. Once the business is established, it can move to the upper level of the site contour, hiring a private office accommodating around 10 people. Finally once the business succeeds, it will move to the highest level into the corporate building. All these workspaces are connected through well planned landscapes and outdoor exhibition areas. With minimum permanent built spaces, the projects provides with a flexibility to change its function temporarily if required, for example during an outbreak of a pandemic.

To reach the final design outcome a number of iterations were designed (at least 10 different  options) in order to achieve the best design outcome.

The design programme was derived from a detailed site analysis focusing on the urban issues like social gaps, loss of cultural identity, lack of student housings, inefficient public transport and climate change. SWOT analysis and Visual Analysis was done  to understand the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities the site has to provide. As I have lived in the city of Pune for over 6 years, personal experiences were a crucial aspect that governed the design brief.

The goal is to create a smart city solution to complex urban issues like environment,  cultural identity, social gap, climate change, inefficient Public Transport, etc., in an attempt to create an improved quality of life for the citizens of Pune. The success of this design will be followed by a full scale application of the applied strategies to rest of the city, thus achieving better living conditions, stronger social integration, efficient transport system, carbon neutral environment and a healthier lifestyle for the citizens of Pune.