The studio’s work for this semester focused on the neighborhood of Bopal in Ahmedabad, which was understood as a specific example as a general form of development of the contemporary Indian city. Working at the edge of the new city struck us as not only relevant but necessary, as this is the city of the future being designed and built before our own eyes, the city that the students might first encounter as professionals.
We examined the condition of this new city through the lens of ‘leisure’ – a form of public activity that brings together the social and the spatial in ways that have the capacity to shape the city. During these times of lockdown, people all over the world craved for the outdoors and places for social interaction. We can work from home, but can we play from home? We believe the ‘City of Tomorrow’ must provide spaces for community building at the scale of a neighborhood and the architecture of leisure was our tool this semester.
