Integrated Place-making is defined as an incremental form of micro-urbanism that contributes to creating a permeable & integrated city. This form of development approach maximized plot usage by strategically utilizing its location, land use and building form regulations to provide social opportunities & increase the vibrancy of the place.
Integrated Place-making
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It is a development process that includes improving a location over a long period of time through many separate small projects or activities. It can also create & implement large scale transformative projects - converting a location into one that exudes public-ness of spaces and serves as magnets for people & new development.
Permeability. Accessibility. Public Open Spaces. Social Integration
Mind Mapping of the Integrated Design Strategy
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This form of a development model was introduced to tackle the site-specific form of redevelopments in Mumbai. It is observed that the urban landscape of the city has restrictive edges. This fragmented the urban area, disrupted urban safety and increased the dependency on private vehicles.
The restrictive edge conditions are formed due to the causes stated as follows:
1. Dependence on automobiles – Automobile movements have been the basis of city planning principles.
- Built Typologies – Parking on lower floors that disconnects built form and street connection
- Fast Automobile Linkage – expressways, highways that separate the urban space sans social purpose.
2. Modern Movement in Design – Site-Specific Approach to development
- Urban Enclaves – Separate free-standing buildings separated visually and physically from the existing urban context
- Visual Monotony – Repetition of building form and type across the Urban Landscape.
3. Zoning & Urban Renewal – Piecemeal approach to Redevelopment through Master Plan
- Zoning (Development Plan) – Guides development through plot reservations. This also separates functions that had initially been integrated.
- Redevelopment – The most common form of development that applies to Mumbai.
4. Privatization of Public Spaces – Loss of publicly accessible spaces and reduced walkability. Social Segregation.
Example 1: A plot reserved for public housing is taken over by a private developer. This is usually done to maximize profits & gain capital from the plot.
Example 2: A plot designated for public recreation taken over by a housing society. This reduces the number of open spaces that is available to the users.
5. Changing Land Use – Vacant Spaces that have lost their functionality over time.
Example 1: Abandoned/ Partially used mills – These provide an opportunity to be reclaimed as mix-use spaces for the public
Example 2: Unused Slum Rehab Bldg – Many of these lie vacant, causing dull streetscapes, therefore, disrupting urban safety.
‘The usual process of urban development treats buildings as isolated objects sited in the landscape, not as part of the larger fabric of streets, squares and viable open squares’ – Roger Trancik, 1968
A compilation of 'Lost' Spaces
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The above mentioned are the spatial manifestations of the listed causes. These are called ‘Lost Spaces’. These are unstructured spaces within an urban fabric that cause physical discontinuity. These are undefined and hence unable to connect urban elements.
These provide tremendous opportunities for infill development towards urban integration. This includes:
Urban Redevelopments
Creative Infill
Enhances the Hidden Resources in the City
Enhances the Urban Character and Identity
Urban Coherence
Need for Micro Urbanism
An essential attitude in urban design, that favours spatially connected urban environment over the mere master planning of objects on the landscape. This approach makes figurative space out of the lost landscape.
‘The connectedness and permeability of urban layouts are claimed to determine the nature and extent of routes between and through spaces which in turn influences how lively and well used a space is’ – Cowan, 1997
Towards an Integrated Urban Development –
This approach to urban development through this strategy provides a way to develop and renew the city sustainably by preserving the indigenous, historical and cultural elements of urban space, enhancing its identity. Mumbai has enormous potential to develop into a coherent and socially accessible city. Possible infill sites provide the most development opportunities and satisfy the growth and development pattern and needs for at least a few decades. Hence, to achieve an improved quality of urban space, it is necessary to bridge the gap between urban design theory and practise
Urban Theories framing the Thesis Narrative
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Importance of Professional Collaboration: Architects, Urban Designers, Planners who help frame the planning regulations and landscape architects, all need to collaborate ideas and develop procedures towards redevelopment to come up with creative solutions to tackle the urban challenges.
Design Interventions: Minimal interventions are sometimes more effective. These interventions could have been driven by strong ideas. It is also very important to have foresight and a vision of development for the city to help guide these interventions. Hence, it is important to develop a fluid system for phasing, the programmed use should be flexible and the design interventions should be targeted at those places that would have the greatest effect.
Urban Spatial Elements to Create Active Streets
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Reuse & Recycle Approach: The need for reusing vacant urban land will permeate most of the planning and design in the coming years. This will require inventing alternative structures and forms to make the best use of what already exists. The preservation of historic & special landmark spaces that stimulates the urban collective memory in the urban landscape is a public desire. The urban designers will have to respond to the desire for a restored social fabric & neighbourhood identity.
The revitalization of the existing city to accommodate greater density will be achieved majorly through the adaptive reuse of existing structures and incremental infill projects on a much smaller scale than over the past two decades. The movement toward preservation, permanence, and new property ownership systems encourage those who shape and run the city to become more responsive to social concerns. Creative programs for transferring revenues from urban development to the residential neighbourhoods will make it possible to better the urban living condition. This is another form of the linkage concept, where private parties pay for the strain on public resources produced by their developments.
Way Forward:
Context – It is important that the designers, who are responsible for the transformation of the city, find an inherent relationship between the form and purpose of an urban space – which has evolved through local tradition & regional context. The new urban forms must respect the indigenous nature of the city and enhance the responsiveness to historic evolution. In the process, the common denominators of time and place will knit together the fabric of the city: time in the sense of understanding and responding to the process of change, and place through conscious respect for local values and traditions when planning something new.
Practical Design Approach inspired by Urban Design Theories
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Incrementalism - A piecemeal approach towards the reconstruction of and addition of integrated spatial elements within the fragmented urban space will become more important than a recreation of complete urban environments. The leftover lost spaces between buildings, precincts, and neighbourhoods will become desirable properties as land and resources grow scarcer. City, public, and private planning are crucial for the incremental approach and these decisions will continue to result in spaces that require remedial intervention. Urban design strategies would require strategies for tailored conservative interventions. The incentives that are provided in each increment would be crucial to providing public spaces. The presence of such spaces improves the real estate prices in the vicinity. And the response would be allocating more space and land for designing these facilities. The private sector also plays a huge role in providing public spaces in exchange for incentives.
Conclusion -
Bringing in infill development in harmony with the existing urban fabric to transform the worn-out urban spaces will create an integrated city. Integration of public spaces – from living spaces to traversing spaces to destination places creates a fully functional, connected and walkable city and encourages the use of urban transit. It creates an urban space with mixed uses and enhances its urban character and cultural elements. The lost exterior spaces transform into a renewed urban element of physical and social interactions.
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