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Day 2 Summary On Z-Axis 2018 Conference In India

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"The elite population today is involved only in the creation of a quality life and are no longer involved in the creation of quality society," remarked Rahul Mehrotra sharply. He began the deliberations on Day 2 of Z-Axis Conference titled "Designing Equitable Cities", organized by Charles Correa Foundation at Kala Academy, Panaji from 6-8 September.

Rahul Mehrotra's comments were supported by visualized data on migration, on looking at different forms of poverty and inequity at a national scale to give the audience an idea that the entire country is in a state of 'Flux', a sort of a transition state that has never been thought of and designed for. The presentation was layered, beginning with the definition of spatial equity, that lay emphasis on interrogating crossovers between social sciences and design because while one deals with critical thinking, the latter deals with a speculative form of thinking.

His proposition was that equity must be looked at diverse scales - at the planetary scale, the metropolitan scale and at the scale of a building - to provide a holistic analysis of the situation and only then could design become instrumental towards addressing the issue. And the precise data on migration or inequity of water visualized across the scale of India provided insight into a new kind of population that is entering Indian cities and gave a hint to what their aspirations might be. He called these newer populations the 'agrarian non-agrarian' - people no longer reliant on land, but socio-economic mobility - who are the new urban-rural and will come to define the future of informal settlements in Indian cities, since, they have been marginalized and overlooked due to the gaps in planning. "Indifferent forms of inequity are perpetuated by indifferent forms of poverty and policy" he exclaimed. From the scale of the material poverty and lack of amenities to the scale of cultural poverty or indignity, he addressed the audience on the issues these newer populations lacked, stating how distressful it is to realize that the urban household is no longer determined according to their family structure or needs but on their income.

To give insight into how this could be corrected, he gave examples of two of his works - Hathigaon and KMC Corporate Office. In the former, a marginalized community with a predominantly Muslim population within a predominantly Hindu state was given a landscape with a freshwater source within a geology that faces scarcity of water, thus reversing the inequity. Considering that the elephants of the Mahout community in Hathigaon have to face harsh conditions since they are not residing in their natural habitat, the focus on the generation of a landscape based around a water source creates an amicable atmosphere for the species, providing equity within the community whose social structure is dependent on the elephants itself, thereby, propagating interspecies empathy.

The presentation on stated-equality was followed by Shivani Chaudhary who opened note on the need for an equitable and human rights centered approach towards the development of the city. While the previous presentation drew focus on the role of the architect, this particular lecture drew importance on the mind of the architect and the level of sensitivity required in city-wide operations. Starting with data on migration, homelessness, she explained how there is a housing deficit of over 19 million in the country with 11million dwellings lying vacant due to market speculations in hopes of generating profit. Her presentation was filled with an angst towards witnessing housing shortage and vacant urban spaces, in light of homelessness and forced eviction on the pretext of city beautification, infrastructural projects, wildlife protection and conservation, and disaster management. "We are seeing a shift from welfare based to market-based governance, policies that create prejudice against poor, increase segregation, gentrification and gender-based violence" Shivani Chaudhary explained 'Apartheid Cities' from her own observations of notions and elements of design, neighborhood planning, and safety versus security.

Day 2 of Z-Axis 2018 at Kala Academy, Panaji on 7th September, ended with a Q&A session with the audience, and with Kaiwan Mehta and Joan Busquets discussing with the audience, the need to shun the top-down approach and putting the notion of improving urban condition above the idea of a masterplan, providing a closure to all previous presentations of the day and the event so far.

Reference: https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/epznh/day_2_summary_on_zaxis_2018_conference_in_india.html