Manek Chowk Road - A Commercial Day & Recreational Night

Samiksha Vaidyanathan

UR2023

Manek Chowk Road is a multifunctional space with informal and formal economies coexisting during the day and street food vending buzzing at night. Enhancing its multifunctionality, this project aims to create busy market spaces during the day and recreational spaces that come alive at night.
These recreational spaces are made keeping in mind the residents of pols. As parking fills up the chowks; it becomes difficult for people to gather in larger numbers. The spaces become landmarks for people to interact, celebrate and perform. Against the backdrop of heritage buildings, a people and pedestrian-friendly multifunctional street has been designed.

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Site Introduction - Creating an illustration after our first walk in old city, Making street sections at 3 different times of the day and documenting a street vendor in plan and elevation

Hand Drawings of Site Documentation

Site Analysis - Area occupied by Parking, Vendors and Spill Over; Area occupied by the three collectively during day and night; and studying the movement on the street

Analysing the Negatives - Bottleneck junctions, lack of trees and pause points, unfriendly to pedestrians and unhygienic conditions on the street.

Design Strategies - Listing down the main ambition, studying an element relevant to our context and making a collage to realise the first impression of our design

Process Sheets - Start at 2000 scale, going down to 200 scale and finally 100 scale.

Exploration and Iterations of plans and sections at 100 scale

Final Project - Master plan, Part plans, Sections and Views

Final Project - Area near Jami Mosque and the big market space

Final Project - How the idea of stairs was finally executed