Shelter, Protection and Gender

6 Stories of Female Architects Designing for Women and Children As long as the architectural profession stays largely impregnated by gender disparity and that humanitarian architecture is only a small part of the mainstream career path, we should pursue every effort to showcase what can shift this reality. As new challenges arise, with mass displacements, […]

Humanitarian Architecture

 Why is it Relevant in a Post-Covid World? Never has the demand been so urgent for architects to respond to the design and planning challenges of rebuilding post-disaster sites and cities. In 2019, more people were displaced by natural disasters than by wars and armed conflicts. And yet the number of architects equipped to deal […]

Urban Poverty in Contemporary Cities- Day 2

The Determining Role of Land Policies and Instruments Discussions on urban poverty revolve around specific sites such as squatter settlements, resettlement colonies or public spaces that poorer groups use for their livelihoods.  These discussions have focussed on the difficulties that poorer groups have to access housing and/or work to generate an income. Housing is dominantly […]

Urban Poverty in Contemporary Cities- Day 1

The Determining Role of Land Policies and Instruments Discussions on urban poverty revolve around specific sites such as squatter settlements, resettlement colonies or public spaces that poorer groups use for their livelihoods.  These discussions have focussed on the difficulties that poorer groups have to access housing and/or work to generate an income. Housing is dominantly […]

Tao of Alternative architecture

Paraphrasing Cobb from Inception the movie— “What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere.” In this […]

Sustaining villages while the Country Urbanises

Approaches and Strategies to ensuring Development and Sustenance of rural settlements in India As per the World Bank estimates, 65.56% of South Asia was rural in 2019. While attending to the complex urban challenge there is undoubtedly a need to address challenges of the still large rural sector. “Delhi Declaration” submitted to the GoI in […]

Planning Education and Profession in the Global South

In the global south, particularly in countries like India, Indonesia and a few others, we are witnessing a paradoxical situation, where, despite rapid urbanization and higher vulnerabilities due to poverty and climate change, the role of planners and planning professionals have been declining steadily. With about 8000 towns and cities and about 400 million residents, India […]

What Should Indian Students of Architecture Be Concerned About?

As of mid-December 2020, as per the Council of Architecture (CoA) there are 469 colleges of architecture sanctioned to offer B.Arch. degrees, with an allowed intake of about 24,000 students per year. Even if all colleges are not operating at full strength, that will mean about 20,000 architects will graduate every year. The current number […]

Municipal Governance: Role of the Elected and Executive- 2

After 70 years of republic and relatively slow rate of urbanization that   will  place some 840 million people  in over 7900 cities and towns by 2050, doubling of the current urban population in just 30 more years, out of the three levels of government –national,  state and local—the municipal government looks the weakest. The 74th […]

Municipal Governance: Role of the Elected and Executive- 1

After 70 years of republic and relatively slow rate of urbanization that   will  place some 840 million people  in over 7900 cities and towns by 2050, doubling of the current urban population in just 30 more years, out of the three levels of government –national,  state and local—the municipal government looks the weakest. The 74th […]