CPR-CSH Workshop on Incremental City: The Interconnectedness of Place, Experience and Engagement by Julia King, an architect and PhD candidate within the Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources at London Metropolitan University.
Date: Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Time: 3.45 p.m.
Venue: Conference Hall, Centre for Policy Research, Dharma Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110 021
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Recent scholarship has highlighted the need for more inclusive urban development to abate the neoliberal narrative which questions the right of the poor to participate equally in city life. This debate goes beyond the politics of occupation and challenges the processes by which the city is made. This workshop will present research with a focus on participatory methods through the lens of practice-led architectural action-based research and spatial analysis. The research uses the term ‘incrementalism’ as a way of investigating and theorizing ‘city’. ‘Incrementalism’ is seen as an alternative to high capital, centralized, hierarchical and inflexible approaches that have dominated ‘master planned’ urbanism. Furthermore, it argues that through the ‘incremental’ approach people empower themselves socially and politically – craft a civic order – by being active participants in the practice of making place; a process characterized by sharing and incremental improvements, additions, and developments. The talk will present this approach in the specific context of Delhi and the peri-urban resettlement colony of Savda Ghevra – a regulated resettlement suburb 30km west of New Delhi. Showcasing a series of live projects which address sanitation, housing, water and construction technology. This research presents actual practices – part formal part informal – on the ground aimed at the actualization of ‘rights’; defining new urban spaces and opportunities for former urban slum dwellers. The live projects represent the accumulation of almost two years of field work in Savda Ghevra, a study and practice relevant to low income and high density settlements as tactical approach of developing peri-urban and fringe neighbourhoods on the periphery of cities.
Julia King is an architect and PhD candidate within the Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources at London Metropolitan University; working on housing, infrastructure, urban planning, and participatory design processes in slum resettlement colonies in Delhi. Her work has been featured in numerous publications and recently recognized in the ‘Next Generation’ category for a Holcim Award, an international competition that recognizes innovative projects.
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This is the forty first in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and try to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society, and politics. For further information, please contact: Marie-Hélène Zerah at marie-helene.zerah@ird.fr or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org
