Kanishk Manish Devlal

UR3596

Hand-made Urbanism: Intervening in a Social Public Space
Abstract:Humans are social creatures. Perceiving this human behaviour and Henri Lefebvre’s ideology that “social space is a social product,” It demonstrates how space and society are inseparably linked, which clarifies Lefebvre’s assertion that “every society... produces a space, its own space.” In India, a significant portion of everyday urban places are the result of “us,” the users. Such common urban spaces, from a corner tea stall that develops into a popular hotspot to the natural markets that pop up in communities, are constructed using frugal methods that frequently evolve using hand-made or “Jugaad” strategies. This research will critically study these strategies by documenting, understanding, and studying vending sites with the support of literature reviews in order to qualify and further develop them as a set of hand-made strategies that would be put to the test on the ground as a 1:1 pilot project at a selected site. Through this testing, the research will outline the features and drawbacks of such interventions through a post-occupational study. The result would be to understand the role of intervening within such environments, thereby encouraging such ideas for placemaking where professionals and ordinary people can initiate and align their vision of hand-made urbanism or other approaches that attempt to enhance the quality of life for themselves as well as for the community.