Jaimin Naresh Bali

UR3001

Preserving Polyculture

Green belt policy of Ahmedabad produced lands that are associated with a lot of nostalgia amongst it’s users formed over the years due to its capacity to accommodate several kinds of activities, predominantly through it’s adaptability that allowed these parcels to renew their operation continuously and facilitate multiple overlapping functions. The TP scheme on the other hand overlooked this aspect to propose formal restructuring that allowed only rigid singular uses. This contrast disregards all the existing patterns which could be the potential catalyst towards making a more connected city. This project tries to retain all those urban memories and devises strategies for public spaces that could grow intelligently   to other parts of the city through the network of open spaces over the coming decades.

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Intent: To re-imagine the site that can continue to host all existing activities while creating opportunities for new ones to co-exist with the current and projected development around by employing the power and potential of urban memory.

Power and potential of Collective Urban. Memory The greenbelt lied vacant for about 30 years due to lack of policy and ownership disputes between government and the khedut association. During this period the city grew past the greenbelt adapting around it with systems and activities emerging on these lands ranging from everyday to seasonal that cater to both neighborhood and regional scale.Everyday use of the land varies from being a playground to a karate training ground to a driving practice ground while for others it becomes a space to park their vehicles or carts for vending.. These practices,  everyday or seasonal, craft an identity for the land in the city.. The fast emerging monocultural nature of developments with fixed uses around these lands slowly lead to disintegration of the inherent polycultural characteristics of these spaces. 

Green Belt - Site

Site context shows different type of open space which can be linked through the greenbelt to create a larger network.

The dispute over greenbelt ended in 2013 which resulted in rapid development of the site being filled with monoculture. This monocultural development disrupts the existing polyculture on the site, taking away the memory of the user. TP schemes have a potential to last for years and with the current planning structure, it further supports the monocultural development.

Tp Schemes govern rural to urban land development, and because of the dispute, greenbelt land never went under development. Now this agricultural land is being converted to urban, but it is in the middle of the city. ? Resolution of dispute over Greenbelt land and further development began based on the proposed TP schemes. As per resolution in 2013, 40 percent of the greenbelt land is under government and the rest 60 percent was given back to the private owners. TP schemes are a powerful tool to intelligently direct developments incrementally over the years to achieve the final vision for the city.

The strategies are divided into 2 scales, at 1000 scale formal strategies are applied to restructure the TP scheme to enable formation of the larger r network and at 200 scale functions are added to the created space which will retain the site memories while generating opportunities for the new to emerge.

The project looks at this potential in restructuring the TP Scheme to create a network of open spaces between east and west of the site by linking it through the greenbelt.

Site Activities

Site Activities