“IN THIS PROJECT WE TRY TO TALK TO PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT THEY FEEL SHOULD UNDERPIN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD; HOW A SITE WILL AFFECT THEIR WELLBEING AND OTHERWISE BENEFIT THEM”
know people living five houses away from us on the same street. And, if you look at the backs of our houses, there are long, thin, private gardens with fences that rise above eye level,” he says. “There is little or no interaction.” Privacy is increasingly seen as the ideal, while “strangers” can all too often be the focus of fear and mistrust, so opportunities to engage are missed.
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But the benefits of a clearly defined community are clear: reduced crime, greater social cohesion, security in numbers for both children and the elderly etc. As a consequence, there is now greater focus on the regeneration of local areas being conducted in close consultation with residents. By giving local people a voice in the design and planning of their community, developers and city planners are hoping to forge a closer bond between people and the places in which they live. In India the need for community-led design goes beyond these extensive social benefits. According to Jitesh Brahmkshatriya, Atkins’ masterplanning team leader in India, many of the existing Indian community-led masterplans focused on “what” or “where”, rather than “how” or “when”. As he points out, such projects often fail to include robust delivery mechanisms for dealing with the practical viability and long-term management issues that inevitably arise in competitive markets such as India. As a result, Atkins noticed a number of good concepts failing in the Indian market. “We believe that every innovative concept should be backed with a robust
delivery mechanism tailored to suit the needs of the users without compromising viability. Obviously, we want to understand the ways in which different cultures place different value on the significance of public spaces, but we need to make sure we can then produce a realistic plan for reflecting these cultural needs.”
Becoming more engaged In many ways, it comes down to a question of relying on what we know. “The general feeling is that urban design today is very much a cut-and-paste exercise,” says Birmingham City University’s Noha Nasser, founder of the Centre for Urban Design Outreach and Skills, which examines the academic side of the equation. “There are certain urban design principles that tend to be used, no matter where work is being done.” Tanwani agrees: “Through this initiative
we’re developing new characteristics for neighbourhoods, where people interact more often because of the physical form of the neighbourhoods – and not just because they have to. The secret lies in the physical form of the neighbourhoods we’re designing: people just happen to bump into each other more often.” The secret of the initiative’s success is the involvement of members of the community at a very early stage in the design process: during the initial brief, before first ideas are formulated and the standard concepts take over. “In this project we try to talk to people about what they feel should underpin the neighbourhood; how a site will affect their
wellbeing and otherwise benefit them,” says Nasser. “There is also the issue of value systems. People from different cultures place different values on the significance of public spaces and how their neighbourhood dynamics work.” Brahmkshatriya adds that community- led masterplanning “enables local communities to implement and control the procurement process through their own organisations, often resulting in more openness and accountability, reduced corruption and wastage, better value for money, increased use of local workers and contractors and better-quality works and services.”
Social possibilities Through the workshops, Atkins identified a number of essential features for Indian residents. These included neighbourhoods that cater to all age groups; plenty of opportunities for interaction; mixed-use high streets where commercial and housing properties coexist; houses that cater for all extended family members; and “walkable neighbourhoods”. One example of the ideas resulting
from the workshops is a cluster form of some 15 houses, Tanwani explains. These residences have much smaller back gardens than would normally be the case in the UK (about 30 square metres, rather than the typical 70 square metres), all of which converge in a semi-communal space. Together with small, low walls, they each become “more of a semi-private area than a private area of the house”, he says. Similarly, a semi-private porch at the
front includes seating areas that are shared with neighbours. Nasser adds: “We’re proposing more engaging front doors and thresholds with the public realm. We’re creating streets that are sociable streets – places to play, sit and take advantage of the sun and microclimate. At the backs we’re also designing communal spaces where people can come together around social activities such as growing food.” Factoring these social requirements into the designs helped to create a neighbourhood proposal that reflects the
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