Mainstreaming women construction workers in higher skilled productive roles – Part 1
Are there women plumbers, carpenters, scaffolding experts – how often do we find them on construction sites? While the construction industry generates employment for about 15 million women, they are confined to jobs of the ‘dead-end variety’ marked by low wages, low stability, low productivity and low mobility. The construction industry in general is marked […]
Heritage Conservation in the Emerging Indian City – III – Conservation Regulations and Urban Planning: In Retrospect and Prospect
The interface of heritage conservation and an effective legislation/regulation framework to enable and support it remains a perplexing question in the context of Indian cities. This discussion seeks to examine three key related questions: How effective have conservation regulations been over the past 25 years in India? Where have the specific successes and shortcoming been […]
What would a Gandhian city look like?
While there has been lots of discussion and action on the possibilities, strengths and limitations of a Gandhian approach to rural areas, there has been very little in relation to cities. What would the concepts of swaraj, sarvodaya, satyagraha, and ahimsa mean for urban life, planning, politics, and society? Is it possible to conceive of […]
Built Beautiful – An Architecture & Neuroscience Love Story
Built Beautiful is a feature length documentary movie that examines how neuroscience defines healing environments. The movie features leading experts from around the world in the emerging field of neuro-aesthetics as well as academics, researchers, architects, and interior designers. It is the brainchild of noted architect Donald H. Ruggles. Neuroscience gives architects a new lens […]
Architecture in Transition: Toward a New Urban Agenda
In the last few years, major new international agreements have challenged environmental designers to place a greater focus on human health, ecology and well-being, particularly in urban contexts. The New Urban Agenda, adopted by acclamation by all 193 member states of the United Nations, is also closely related to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Leading researchers and authors will discuss what […]
Architecture in Transition: New Findings from the Sciences
In the last few years, surprising new developments in neuroscience, environmental psychology, biology, mathematics, and other fields have begun to challenge designers to think differently about their role, particularly as we seek to transition to a world of healthier and more resilient environments. Science reveals the essential geometrical and sensorial qualities that create spaces promoting […]
The Financialisation of Chinese Cities & the Real Estate Industry
The rapid Chinese urbanisation process has been admired, much studies but perhaps still less understood than one would like. Of particular interest in this process has been the phenomenon often described as financialisation and the nexus of land, urban finance and governance and the real estate industry, which by some estimates, may contribute as much […]
Poverty and Poverty Assessment
How urban poverty is defined, measured, and acted on. Or in many cases not acted on. Its scale is usually measured by the individuals or households whose income falls below a poverty line – but poverty lines are usually set too low, especially in regard to the cost of non-food needs in cities. Set the […]
Urban Employment Guarantee in India: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
The last few years have seen a lot of discussion and debate, as well as policy experiments on urban employment programmes in India. In Basole et al (2019) a possible design for an employment guarantee programme was presented for small towns, intended to reduce underemployment and precarity in the informal sector while investing in local […]
Climate Emergency: How safe or Vulnerable Indian coastal Cities are??
Cities are considered the engines of growth with bursting economic activities, thanks to the competitive/extractive growth models adopted in India. The nation’s wealth is concentrated in cities. The population density is steeply rising disproportionate to the available land space. Besides, the cities in India are already very heavily stressed due to huge waste generation (solid, […]
