Glimpse of Everyday Urbanism.

I wholly believe A group of unrelated Individuals (Public) can still significantly impact the urban fabric. I Recall a project from my bachelor's when I read about how a pedestrian looks for a shortcut even in a systematically planned city from "The practice of everyday life." The end-user (different from the client) would always add an extra flavor to space with their own interventions. 

I am trying to bring back my experience on how we tried to propose a solution for the problems created by unplanned, appropriated everyday life from the place I did my bachelor's. 

In brief, I will discuss a street that we studied and surveyed in my 4rth year of B.Arch. The street is in the heart of the city, 10 mins drive from the railway station, and 5 mins walk from City's bus station. It has a vibrant usage from residential, commercial, retail to entertainment like movie theaters in a 5 min drive radius. So it is a bustling street from 6AM till 11PM when restaurants close. 

Green- Food vendors,

Yellow, Jewellery /electronic vendors

The red triangle is the site for PAC. 

In this busy area, street vendors emerged from time to time with an increase in demand. They sell fruits, snacks, plastic toys, cheap jewelry, electronics, second-hand books, and many more. The vendors seem to be increasing year by year and occupy sidewalks(usual in parts of India). 

Street vendors and roadside parking

The retail part attracts many motorbikes and car traffic, and they usually park on the roads. Only the employees had designated parking spaces. There is a lot of public transport going on, which pauses very frequently on the roads. 

These aspects started to evolve from a demand that the place had, which was not realized by the planners way before. These informal activities started adding friction to daily life when the informal intervention crossed the limits. 

So, we, as State university students, took the responsibility(as part of our studio) to understand the core reasons(explained above) for this friction by conducting extensive surveys on the users(Vendors, customers, pedestrians, homeless people, etc.) 

From this survey, we understood that everyone needs these street vendors, they want a designated parking space if possible, they would be happy if the city could provide them with an alternative commute from a parking garage to the retail. Street vendors are actually from the villages nearby who would commute up and down daily; they wanted a cheaper place to stay if possible. And the list went on. 

This is a section from my proposal for that semester. 

This survey became the bible for our studio brief. We ended up designing a Public Amenity center, which provides parking, a shelter for the homeless and vendors, public toilets, a place to relocate street vendors. We proposed to provide Segways and Carts to support people in between retail and parking. This place also serves as a disaster relief center during the yearly occurring cyclone. 

If one can realize this project, Users had given major design inputs than the client(Munciple authority), who would be limited to just provide us with budget constraints.