Reclaiming urban residual spaces negotiating urban transformations in Guwahati

Abstract

The rapid pace of unplanned urbanization trends in many cities have resulted in the degradation of the quality of public space networks which are of primary importance to the structure and quality of the urban environment. Especially cities in the north-eastern parts of India have modernized in a robust pace in the last 10 years, and during this period, the scenario of development has resulted in problems related to congestion, overcrowding, pollution and inadequate public space infrastructure which has resulted in a change in their morphology. The frequent changes in the built environment, Landuse Patterns, shifts in demographics due to migration influx, infrastructural development like construction of bridges, flyovers and shifting of important services like the railways has led to a neglect in the urban infrastructures which earlier used to behave as a public realm and has affected the livability and the socio-spatial relations between open spaces and the people. This neglect has been noticed in the creation of spaces which are leftover and residual. These spaces have no positive contribution to the surrounding or the people and are frequented by concerns arising due to missing socio spatial activities, rise of safety issues, conflicts between the actors and an overall missing connection to the city’s urban network. As a result, it is critical that urban design become more attuned to these issues and necessitate design interventions based on a holistic evaluation of values, issues, opportunities, and demands that can work within the modern urban environment while preserving the cultural essence of urban spaces and place identity. This thesis will explore the neglected residual and temporary spaces that are currently almost abandoned, and missing active social life in one of the oldest settlement of Guwahati city, which had seen a gradual transformation and decline in the quality of the network of public space structure. The aim would be to provide a design strategy for such spaces, based on the framework of place identity, by assessing the attachment of people to the memory of such spaces and the different ways in which people appropriate them. Drawing on such understandings the design outcome expected is to create a design proposal revitalizing these lost spaces as the social and public realm of the city. By utilizing features of the landscape, natural settings and the built heritage an overall framework is to be developed to incorporate these spaces into the wider network of the city