Kushi Batra

2537

BRIEF Ahmedabad, the largest city of Gujarat, is the main commercial & business hub of Gujarat. The focus was to explore the characteristics of street vending in Ahmedabad, specifically at Khaas Bazaar. Street trading is an entry level profession due to ease of entry and exits, low initial and working capital requirement, flexible work hours, etc.
 Khaas Bazaar , is one of the largest market area , stretching from Bhadra Fort to Teen Darwaza. The essence of the plaza has a historical and religious importance. Besides this, it serves as a huge informal market place for commerce, interaction & recreation. The focus was to explore the characteristics of street vending in at Khaas Bazaar, the vulnerabilities of street vendors as evidenced in temporary nature of their stalls and living conditions throughout the day & methods adopted to address these problems. Not only the vendor experience, but also the visitors who experience that space on foot/vehicle for trade/leisure shopping also need to be addressed. 
 The objective is to address its users functionality and necessities and thus achieving an optimum usage of that space. The aim is to design for a system/prototype for the plaza addressing the requirements for seating, shade in a way that it responds to the character and context of its surroundings. Street vendors come under severe impacts of projects dealing with particular public transport and road widening. This breaks the natural markets of the street vendors who disperse in the adjoining areas and consequently lose their business turnovers. However, an intervention of such nature is required whereby we retain the original nature and charm of the natural market and the space. 
 To further narrow it down, this brief desires to address the activities of the visitors in that space. It will explore the habits, nature, postures of the people visiting the plaza to buy merchandise, or to eat food or just for recreation space. The brief aims to design street furniture in response to their requirements to enable efficient, more comfortable, a better feeling of the public plaza in general.