Re-instating the place identity of a transforming historic precinct in Nagpur

Abstract

Historic urban spaces are the outcomes of social, cultural, economical, technological and political conditions of a period or over a period which have created them. With time, due to the changes in the conditions effective in their formation, most of them are subject to transformation, negligence and destruction. As a result they lose their character and also disintegrate from the existing urban environment. Urbanisation has been a catalyst to this process and has been putting immense pressure on the development and redevelopment on the cities in the past decade. The changing demands and scenario constantly recycles the urban areas and influences their functioning, physical composition and expression. This puts forward a need for continuous up gradation of the city at multiple levels to match up to the present needs. The pace of this evolution varies from time to time depending upon the active and passive determinants acting upon it. It is the pace of transformation, and the flexibility of the city’s morphology that together determine the adaptability of the city to the changing scenario. The present scenario of Urbanisation has lead addition of various layers which has resulted into constant pressure on the Historic core and its surroundings to meet the demands of the newer city. Local and traditional urban environment is constantly replaced by modern structures and standardised images; that have an impact on the inherent local identity. These transformations have influenced the way users experience, perceive and feel about places. The context of a ‘particular locality’ has always become an important consideration in practices of urban planning and design but many areas in the city nowadays question for being homogenous and lack local distinctiveness. Hence it is a need of the time that urban design becomes more sensitive to this phenomenon. It requires design interventions based on comprehensive assessment of the values, problems, potentials and demands, which can function into the contemporary urban context while sustaining the essence of the historic urban space and its place identity. This thesis focusses on the transformation of historic transitional spaces, and how the new development impacts on the identity of the place. This above inquiry have been examined taking Nagpur city into consideration.