Dencity lab is part of my life long passion to pursue urban analytics. Having been at the epicenter of the European covid-19 outbreak in Bergamo. I saw early on that there is a need to track and trace cases to make informed decisions.

‍

‍

DISC is an immersive five-week program that explores an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar approach to planning and design of the built environment. Through seminars and lectures, studio workshop sessions, site visits and fieldwork, students will engage in the discourse of urban innovation, and develop creative solutions to tackle the challenges global cities are facing today.

The program is comprised of four components. The Urban Innovation & Global Cities/Global Challenges Seminars will establish a theoretical framework for the program. The Lecture Series & Guest Speakers will expose students to the work of some of the most renowned & forward-thinking researchers and practitioners in the Bay Area. Site Visits & Fieldwork will give students an opportunity to engage directly with the built and natural environments of the Bay Area using it as a living laboratory for study. The Studio Session & Digital Workshops will build core hand-on skills, empowering students to craft their own design solutions. Working in teams, students will develop a project from design conception to prototyping and present the final result of their work to instructors and guest critics.

Upon completion of the DISC program, graduates will have a strong understanding of urban dynamics and a broad toolkit to tackle its urgent demands, as well as compelling artifacts for their academic portfolio. Students will gain the necessary knowledge and skills to develop and represent their design ideas, preparing themselves to become the next thought leaders and game changers in shaping the future of cities.

‍

‍

‍

sakdjfbakjds f,s

asdfm,as[ld,a's

asdasdasd

In the project we assume all the land under EWF is within MbPTs domain of ownership and development rights. It however adheres to Mumbai’s DPR and masterplans. MbPT is its own “Special Planning Authority” and responds to the Central Govt., the land under MbPT is notified as Govt. owned “public” land with the ability to change landuse. The docks are notified as CRZ II, however has not received approval for the proposed Marina, citing environmental concerns y the EAC. MbPT currently has an FSI between 1 and 4. Core : Ecology and Economy, turning CRZ into an inclusive policy, while enabling development in methods that open up the EWF to the citizens of Mumbai. Can we turn CRZ rules to be specific towards inclusive development for the city? Can coastal cities grow without the need to consider reclaiming land from the water? The project considers the princess dock land to be turned into an “Ecotopia” considering economic and ecologically futures (which should/need not be antithetical).

‍

‍

‍

space syntax is a science-based, human-focused approach that investigates relationships between spatial layout and a range of social, economic and environmental phenomena.

These phenomena include patterns of movement, awareness and interaction; density, land use and land value; urban growth and societal differentiation; safety and crime distribution.

The space syntax approach was conceived to help architects simulate the likely effects of their designs on the people who occupied and moved around in them, be they buildings or urban settlements. It has since grown around the world in a variety of research areas and practical applications including archaeology, criminology, information technology, urban and human geography, anthropology and cognitive science.

‍

Urban population explosion, both due to rural-urban migration and growth, will demand 3000 new cities in the next 20-30 years. A major concern for these will be their ability to incorporate high density without compromising the spatial quality and cope with global climatic and ecological changes.

The studio investigated designing in high density neighborhoods. What are the challenges of accommodating large number of people within cities? How do we combat increasing FAR and also address the demands of climate, access to open space, building use mix? Can such neighborhoods address walkability to basic amenities?

Such a design process involves establishing relationships between built -open as well as working with per capita ratios and capacities. It demands embedding analysis within the design process as well as testing multiple design iterations. In order to address this complexity, the studio used computational power (Rhinoceros + Grasshopper and spatial analysis) to establish simple rules of relationships and gradually build in the complexities within the computational model. Students coded to develop evolutionary algorithms in order to use its generative capacity to define simple inter-relationships and design strategies, and checked multiple permutations in order to search for a fit design solution.

‍

India’s geographical features are diverse and varied. Perhaps one of its defining features is its southern peninsula. With a coastline stretching over 6000 kilometers, it is home to mega-cities and villages alike. These settlements thrive off the coastal economy and ecology. In the three decades post-liberalization, India experienced some of the most widespread coastal developments since the colonial era as threats of climate change become pressing issues for coastal cities worldwide. India continues to steam ahead, developing its coastal stretches and its ecology is just as quickly disappearing.

The research builds on the idea that ecology and economy are mutually beneficial parts of our settlements. India, however, finds itself in a dilemma of choosing between economic development and protecting its ecology. Cities worldwide are preparing for what is now an inevitable future of coastal towns. India realized this issue back in the nineties and placed a policy to chart its coastal futures.

This thesis addresses the Coastal Regulation Zones (CRZs), India’s one policy meant to protect its vulnerable coastal ecologies and communities. The research unpacks the CRZs, a blanket policy riddled in broad and vague semantics. It has lent to exploiting enforcement and exemption through several loopholes that only seem to grow. Since its inception in 1991, it has defined development in our coastal cities, towns and villages. CRZs are perhaps among the most contested and controversial development policies. CRZs had numerous amendments and notifications, none of which added any valuable substance in the interest of coastal ecologies and communities.

The research aims to critically analyze case studies that reveal multiple interpretations and applications of CRZs. This research focuses its analysis on Kerala, a hotbed of CRZ conditions over the years.The research further narrows its research area to Kochi and selects specific case studies.

The benefits of choosing Kochi are significant; notably, its geographical location offers multiple ecological conditions. It is a conscious effort to limit variations in governance and implementation of CRZs by focusing on Kochi. Each case study from Kochi allows us to unpack and test the zones of CRZs. While Kochi and India’s CRZs are at the Centre of the research, global perspectives on coastal development added valuable insights to our coastal futures. India needs to take a hard look at the coastal developments it is approving. India’s coastal stretches are home to its most significant economies and ecologies. As climate threats become more pertinent to our futures, our coastal cities, towns, and villages need a plan to lead their futures.

‍

‍

Developed a localized object detection program for a CCTV system. Keeping all data in house, with little or no exposure to cloud services. Using the YOLO V5 and Nvidia jetson nano, we managed to achieve a very efficient way of tracking and detecting people, vehicles and anomalies. The next part is to make the jetson run audio transcripts when unusual sounds or a person is speaking. This transcript would then flag parts which are of interest.

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

A simple Arduino project to monitor environmental data to effortlessly manage a hydroponics unit. We measure data points from temperature, humidity, ph, ec and tds. The IoT part of the project is hosted on Blynk which is an amazing platform to build a small project like this.

‍

‍

Through a combination of ethnographic fieldwork and an examination of visual and written records, our project uncovers how ordinary residents have taken it upon themselves to reshape the environment in which they live and, in the process, to imprint their own vision for the future of their neighbourhoods.Website Link
http://www.seoulbiennale.org/2019/exhibition.view.html?seq=100&cate=cities

‍

‍

‍

‍

The Recomposing the Fragments Neighbourhood Plan provides direction to address those challenges, recognizing the importance of managing and shaping change while addressing the unique context of Mecenate. The Plan is a clear and flexible framework that moves towards positive growth, y integrating policy on land use, housing, transportation, parks and open space, considering long range and short term goals. The Plan recognizes the assets, issues and opportunities unique to Mecenate, and seeks to maximize these in a responsible way.This part of an Exchange program at Politecnico di Milano.

Liquid city is an attempt to be imaginative about speculative conditions situated across scales and their relationships as an urban system. Partly the focus was purely draw/visually communicate speculation on current condition, future and an alternate theory. It is not an attempt to resolve a problem but to look at the system. The drawings aim is to begin a discourse on how we have developed our current systems and to make bold moves towards sustainable and equitable futures. The three sets of drawings portraits my personal views from the learnings over the past four months. Process on asking what, why and how guided the path towards these speculative situations. The conditions do not adhere to political boundaries but on linked systems such as, Narmada and its relation to Sardar Patel statue all the way to Ahmedabad. The location chosen here are at different points in the life cycle of the system, beginning at Sardar Sarovar dam, the water then carried by Canal, not before pumping water at the foot of Statue of Unity, moving further along are farmlands which either receive little or no water whatsoever from the canal as promised. Though the infrastructure exists more often than not they are dysfunctional, at the end towards downstream an accumulated amount of effluents collected from the several industrial belts in the region all land up in the Arabian sea. The base layer with the building footprint is the map of Ahmedabad, with Sabarmati river front creates a questionable sustainable future. “We need to view the fragility of the planet and its resources as an opportunity for speculative design innovations rather than as a form for technical legitimation for promoting conventional solutions. By extension, the problems confronting our cities and regions would then become opportunities to define a new approach” - Mohsen Mostafavi, Ecological Urbanism

‍

‍

As India rapidly urbanizes its cities become a potential gold mine to begin data collection, big data analytics and data mining. One of the most coveted strategies are for healthcare in the United States, companies are often able to create near perfection pre-diction modeling on collating data from its citizens on an open and collectively shared platform. India with the largest growth in the youth sector is yet to extend full capacity to understand its city and let its citizens understand the city they live in.

Ahmedabad with a five million plus population makes it feasible to deploy open source mapping with data input and output pro-grams. The lack of data and the unwillingness to share that data is beyond unimaginable, both from citizens to the authorities. This presented a condition to begin seeing how we could change that, our target was those related to CEPT Nimish Bhai [ Peon ] to our peers. The decision to make a three dimensional model was to both please the community but inadvertently add data without feeling like you are giving up something for nothing, a common feeling as understood by our team.

The model was built to have different layers already existent on ArcGIS and OSM. We utilized ArcGIS Application developer to build our online database. However for people to interactive with the map with an easy UI / UX, we custom built our own communication app specifically design for the task. The app currently runs on any iOS device . The code was built using Rhino 3D + Grasshopper parametric modeling, we pulled code from several online sources. Currently we are in the process to develop up this further and present at a Smart City forum.

The model currently maps point based data, particularly we have been mapping private bore wells, as they were of concerning interests as they continue to go undocumented. I think there would be very stark conclusions from what the eastern and western Ahmedabad may show.

‍

he map divides into two broad categories which are Resident and Floating.The colors simplify relations between multiple layers. Jamalpur has dense populated residential areas and with a major portion of it’s commercial grouped into the southern sector.  

Why a pixelated population map? How does this differ to the other maps? What does it mean?

The pixels were made based upon a typical house built surface area upon which density gradients were mapped. It evaluates the data into physical spaces and relationships between different layers from maps such as landuse. The pixels represent the degree of density in that particular surface area and the colors differentiate between open spaces where we may intervene.

The population density is around 9,900 per square kilometer. The city has grown by about 1.5million people by the last census in 2011. A nearby military base and government institutions bring people from all over India to Ahmedabad and fuel city growth. These estimates represent the Urban agglomeration of Ahmedabad/Jamalpur.

UN World Urbanization Prospects.

Population Projections -

Jamalpur

2017 - 27,342 persons/Km2

2020 - 35,749 persons/Km2 [0.32% growth]

Ahmedabad

2017 - 26,000 persons/Km2

2020 - 40,000 persons/Km2

Current population - 8,019,000

Projected population - 9,010,000

Projections averaged from census and growth rate at 0.32% p.a

‍

‍

‍

‍

Brief

Re Imagining urban strategies for pedestrianizing urban public spaces Provocative spaces in our Indian urban built environment are all around us, but often conflicted like how public spaces should be. However in the case of Bhadra Plaza, the conflict of space is multi layered and one in particular that requires attention to for the functioning of a quality urban public space built for human interactions. Bhadra plaza currently is overrun by vehicles crisscrossing in the plaza. This conflict between people moving, the vendors and the vehicles makes the plaza more like a glorified junction than a quality space for interactions. How do we task an urban space to function as a pedestrian plaza in highly competed spaces? A loaded question but with a possibility to explore new strategies. A key strategy in building towards a public space is access. Access is the mediator to what happens inside a space. It's not the only solution or approach but it has its merits. The access to Bhadra Plaza constitutes of 09 entries of which 03 function as pedestrian only primarily because of its cross section being far too narrow to accommodate a vehicle, specifically also due to spillovers from shops that are in these spaces being unregulated. Maybe this strategy could be applied to the other 06 entries? This project looks at the these 06 spaces and decidedly allows the interfaces [shops / vendors] spill into the accesses, to be utilized by people. Additional programs have been added to make them work towards spatial occupation strategies. The core concept here is quite similar to swarm theories where in smaller functions that may differ [pockets of intervention at the accesses] may in fact work towards a single and larger goal. Here that goal is to build strategies to pedestrianize the plaza working from the outside to the inside.

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍