CINARCH SPECIAL EVENT AT SAPTAPARNI, HYDERABAD on the 17th of Feb 2012

The Harvard University Loeb fellows of 2012 were in Hyderabad on the 17th of Feb courtesy of Prof. Rahul Mehrotra and Architect Nanda Kumar at one of our Cinarch weekend events. It came as a pleasant surprise when I saw the mail announcing it, and an even better one when I looked up the speakers and their backgrounds. This is what the Harvard website says about the fellowship and the fellows.
It was a surprisingly laid back event considering the speakers and the moderator, though a little more crowded than usual; Prof. Mehrotra's previous tryst with Hyderabad, if i remember right, was at The Park and was covered by CNN-IBN.

Here's my impression of the talk. The talk was divided into two parts, 'the city' and 'the street', the city worked for me, and the street, just didn't add up. Although Prof. Mehrotra did mention that it was a broad categorization, and I think it did add a little to the initial understanding of the event. Each fellow spoke for about 10 minutes - the first of them were Ian Lockwood and Peter Park; transportation engineer and a city planning director respectively. They brought up issues of the failed highway systems and transportation alternatives - both focusing on how cities, and their systems influence the people in the city, and how rarely we seem to notice that. Ian lockwood talked about how the outlook of transportation engineering needs a change, and how it needs to focus more on the interaction between the city and its people with more walkable neighbourhoods and find alternatives to the car as a basic means of transportation – a phenomenon we see as a rapidly emerging as a solution to our cities in India. Peter Park also talked about the highways as a failed model of ‘development’ and described some solutions in mixed land use, transit oriented development, neighbourhood and downtown plans and form-based zoning (I didn’t really get some of this – and hope to explore and learn more about our cities by following his work). Both Ian Lockwood and Peter Park stressed on some positives they noticed from the week they had spent exploring Mumbai – dependence on public transport, permeable ground planes, higher densities and such. They also stressed that India should learn from the mistakes of the west, and try not to emulate the highway systems that created unsuccessful cities like Detroit in the US.

I wish we could take the ‘my way or the highway’ approach to cities here, but the one thing that struck me as a concerned citizen – examining their observations from the point of view of an architecture student who’s constantly complaining about her city is that of un-enlightenment. Some of the positives they noticed, the order in the chaos – it’s just that. It’s unfortunate that all that good is not the result of structured planning or strong public or political will – it just so happens that some of the jugaad that we come up with works. That, and the fact that our legacy in well designed historic cities has left us with a few lessons, and maybe some sub-conscious good sense.

Christopher Callot talked about urban infill and real-estate development, captivating to me and P, but it apparently didn’t impress the set of noisy students sitting behind us. I really wish he'd elaborated more on cultural influences of his work, just for a little bit more context, I guess. Anne-Marie Lubenau’s talk was one that I was really waiting for. I found the work she does fascinating but I was unable to grasp the essence of it, or how such a model could work in a developing country like India. I never really got around to finding out – we decided not to badger the panel with India-context questions, and the mouse in me didn’t venture any further. Her talk, however, was very enlightening on how the community can be a major force in changing the landscape of a city – a similar message to that of Inga Saffron, an critic and investigative architectural journalist from Philly who seems to tread the dangerous and murky waters of politics and corruption to make sure her city does not accept bad design and architecture. With a simple narrative and a little humour, she managed to keep the audience immersed till her very last word. Kudos.

The second set comprised of talks by Jean Lauer (thesweeten.com), curator Andres Lepik, Aga Khan Awardee Anna Heringer, and Streetsblog.org founder Aaron Naparstek,

Jean Lauer touched on another v. important aspect, describing the role technology can play in making design more accessible and transparent – find out more about her work here. Despite my techno-code-virtual-world-phobia, I was convinced. Aaron Naparstek had before-after images from cities that described very well that potential for change and hope where there seems to be none (do you hear me, o whiny architecture students?) Andes Lepik introduced us to the world of architecture exhibitions, although I got the feeling that half the students in the crowd did not know what a curator was, and Anna Herringer’s presentation on sustainability, beauty and design just blew my mind. Her simple yet profound approach to material, community and ‘architecture as a tool to improve lives' was a fitting end to the event. she even topped that off with a ‘dhanyavadamulu’ and she even said it right (wonder if I could have!?!)

I hope we have more of these talks often – it keeps us on our toes and most importantly makes us think. Maybe next time we could un-invite the people in the audience who feel obliged to start a 10 minute monologue in a Q&A session. An embarrassment, every single time! The design community in Hyderabad needs to understand brevity, or lose out on good opportunities like these.
Apart from that, a great evening – I’m extremely glad I kicked my feverish self out of bed to attend. I have a lot more to think about, new ideas to explore – and a blog to revive.

Hope to be able to add a few photographs and a video or two of the speakers. Any contributors?