Young Designers

Let’s talksmart cityWhat’s a Smart city, according to you?Smart city implies to a bottom-up approach in shaping the society. It’s notmerely a technology-driven approach. Smart city, in fact, doesn’t meananything or means a lot of things. For instance, a few IT industry dealswith data to manage traffic impediment and enhance safety and security;it’s a collection of data to enhance the survey. Placing CCTV in a citydoesn’t make it a smart city. As an architect, smart city coins to a muchmore micro aspect of living. It’s a place where people can have healthywell-being. And well-being starts with a primitive approach of efficientand effective water supply, waste management, proper sewage system,and adequate power supply.The Future of HumanityLies in CitiesArchitects Francois Roux and Arnaud Devillers from2/3/4/ Architecture made a week-long journey toIndian cosmopolitan cities– Delhi, Chandigarh andMumbai– to make a study of the existing urbanpattern, to witness socio-cultural background, and tounderstand economic and political scenario of theexisting cities. As a part of AFEX, a non-profitorganisation of architects, designers, surveyors andindustrialist who pool their experiences to promoteFrench savoir-faire throughout the world, the Frencharchitects observed the city chaos to untangle themand work in line with PM, Narendra Modi’s, petproject– 100 Smart Cities. In a view to design 100Smart Cities in India, the architects share theirthoughts/plans with Ar. Apoorva Nandish to thecoming years of collaboration between India andFrance in envisaging the PM’s Smart City program.How do you compare Indian cities to that of France to coin a Smart city?Both are highly distinctive countries, in terms of demography, geographyand socio-cultural precinct. However, in France, we term Smart cities toSustainable cities. Our approach is towards mankind in a builtenvironment, and we believe that sustainable city comprise of manylarge smart cities. The term ‘Technology’, as referred to Smart, construesto a broader perspective of living culture in our context. For us,‘Technology’ apprehends to sustainable development– economicpurpose, social purpose and environmental purpose, and sustainableneighbourhood– rainwater management, cultivating landscapes,innovative methods to adapt passive techniques and cultivating localvegetation. So why refrain ourselves from being just a tech advancedcity/country?What according to you should be a primitive (yet pivotal) step towardsplanning a Smart city?Since an urban development is to the society (present and futuregenerations), the approach must be people-centric. In India, as far as Ihave understood, it’s a tricky situation to handle. To begin with– citieshave thick urban fabric, chaotic networks of a transportation system,major hurdles with basic amenities and lack of regulations. Here the landvalue is at sky-high and is regarded to one’s stature. For instance, it’sstrenuous to develop an infrastructure plan for effective publictransportation as most of the land is acquired by either landowner or byprivate sectors– lacks government control over the chunks of urbanscapetowards development. Perhaps the solution is to find a way to a type ofdeclaration of public interest for an efficient and effective work progress(organisation).How do you envisage sustainable infrastructure and urban developmentin Indian dense fabric? What is your proposal?Some ‘basics’, existing worldwide and for centuries, have been forgottenin recent decades!Density, which is admittedly one of the keys for sustainabledevelopment (land and network saving, local services) can, in ourChandon-Republique Eco-neighbourhood, Gennevilliers, FranceCampus, Paris, France020 Architecture Update July 2015