Spatial integration of urban fabric along urban streams through ecological urbanism: case of Kaliyasot river, Bhopal

Abstract

From last 200 millenniums, humans are succeeding to prove their dominance over nature and other species by adapting themselves with the changing environment. Climate change is shaping our world and mostly affects our urban centers. In this condition, to sustain and adapt with it, resilient cities are our primary goal. The new understanding of Cities as a part of natural world helps to eradicate the former approach of thinking cities as antithesis of nature. Many movements shape this viewpoint through the history and try to evaluate the importance of natural systems in urban areas and its relationship with humans (Spirn, 2011) (Beatley, 2011). Therefore the thesis tries to rethink urban nature and its socioecological relationship with respect to urban stream and surface hydrological processes. Currently, the urban structure our cities are producing is so fragmented and disassociated with the surrounding that it is socially, economically and environmentally destructive at once. Consequently, urban stream syndrome is the result of unawareness by urban communities. The thesis aims to conserve urban stream before contaminated with urban stream syndrome. To do so, it explores the stream landscape and its characteristics in order to create a seamless public realm along the stream which helps to involve communities with natural area.