| | | | | | | |

Expert meetings

The most urgent question facing Chandigarh is: how to respond to the city’s future growth in a sustainable and flexible way? The ‘New New Towns’ Program initiates research to understand where and especially how to provide sufficient housing for approximately 500,000 new inhabitants.

Global Housing Studio architecture students from TU Delft explore how the original concepts and ideas behind the design of Chandigarh (as a whole, at the neighborhood scale and individual housing units) can be redeveloped to accommodate the city’s current needs while remaining true to the specific qualities of the city’s unique character. Between March 18 - 22, 10 TU Delft students and 15 students from the Chandigarh College of Architecture will begin their fieldwork with a workshop in Chandigarh.

Students investigate 5 sectors from different periods of time: sector 7 (part of the first phase, which consists of the realization of sectors 1 – 30 during the period 1951 – 1965), sector 37 (part of the second phase, which started in 1966 and consists of the realization of sectors 31 – 47), urban village Burail in Sector 45 (the third phase consists of the realization of sectors 48 – 56 which maintained four villages: Burail, Badheri, Buterla and Attawa), sector 64 and sector 99 in Mohali.



Fieldtrip in urban village Burail in Sector 45 (the third phase consists of the realization of sectors 48 – 56 which maintained four villages: Burail, Badheri, Buterla and Attawa)



Presentation on the design strategy for urban village Burail during the final review



Chief Architect of Chandigarh attended the final review of the Chandigarh Design Workshop on March 22



Presentation on the design strategy for Sector 37 during the final review



In collaboration with Dutch partners Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and local partners Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA) and the Aditya Prakash Foundation, the New New Towns program in Chandigarh kicked off with a three-day expert meeting from September 8 - 11, 2012.

In consultation with Vikramaditya Prakash of the Chandigarh Urban Lab, three substantive issues have been appointed for this research and exchange program: How and where to provide sufficient housing for 500,000 new inhabitants in the next decades? How to develop an integrated regional master plan to direct Chandigarh’s rapid growth in connection to the surrounding urban centers? How to investigate and identify the relationships and value between the formal and informal planning within the urban development of Chandigarh?

The participants were:
Vikramaditya Prakash (Professor of Architecture and Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Washington Seattle / Director, Chandigarh Urban Lab),
Sohan Saharan (Associate Professor, Chandigarh College of Architecture),
Parmeet Bhatt (Lecturer Landscape Architecture, Chandigarh College of Architecture),
Dick van Gameren (Professor of Architecture and Dwelling, Delft University of Technology),
Tom Avermaete (Associate Professor of Architecture, Delft University of Technology),
Madhu Sarin (Architect and Member of the Chandigarh Administrator’s Advisory Council),
Siddhartha Wig (Partner Architecture office The Elements, Chandigarh)
Linda Vlassenrood (Program Director, New New Towns)

The expert meeting was made possible with the support of Dutch Design Fashion Architecture (DutchDFA).





Expertmeeting in Chandigarh, 7-11 September 2012. Participants from left to right: Tom Avermaete, Sohan Saharan, Dick van Gameren, Linda Vlassenrood (INTI), Parmeet Bhatt, Vikram Prakash



Visit to Urban Village Burail in Chandigarh with Dutch and Indian participants of the expert meeting, 7-11 September 2012