The online edition of Mint business newspaper, Indian partner of the Wall Street Journal, recently featured an article on city cycling in India. Gehl Architects Henning Thomsen was one of the experts being interviewed.
Read the article below and also see the film Gehl Architects recorded during our recent visit to Chennai here:
An ordinary day on a street in Chennai.
Being a pedestrian on the streets of Chennai, India, is not the easiest of things. On the third day of the Public Life Public Space workshop, that Gehl Architects is giving to ITDP and Chennai City Connect, the topic of Public Space was on the agenda. Detailed investigations and documentations of the public life and how it unfolds were the focus and the workshop participants were on the streets studying these issues.
Lars Gemzøe, Gehl Architects, explaining how to study public space
To see for yourself how challenging it is to be a pedestrian in Chennai take a look at this little film from Sir Thyagaraya Road:
Second part of the third workshop day was the introduction to the volunteers, who are going to help carry out the Public Life Public Space survey over the next three days. Gehl Architects, ITDP and Chennai City Connect workshop participants and volunteers, who come from four different architecture schools in Chennai, met at Chennai City Connect offices for the briefing.
Architects and architecture students being briefed before they hit the streets to carry out the very first Public Life Public Space survey in India
Doing a Public Life Public Space survey requires a tremendous amount of preparations and planning
...but the whole thing is also a lot of fun - Mahesh Radhakrishnan, MOAD, and Sia Kirknæs, Gehl Architects in the middle of planning the PLPS survey activities
Mahesh Radhakrishnan briefing students on the PLPS survey
Sia Kirknæs, Gehl Architects, along with Mahesh Radhakrishnan, instructing students on the PLPS survey
And here is the plan. The PLPS survey will be carried out over the next three days - more on this to follow.
And take a look at the Public Space Survey Manual developed by Gehl Architects:
Ranganathan St, T-Nagar, Chennai, India
Part of any Public Life Public Space survey – the core city study method deviced by Jan Gehl et. alli. – is counting people. This may seem a daring endeavour in a country like India, soon to be the most populous nation in the world. But even around busy streets such as Ranganathan Street in the heart of the Chennai shopping area, T-Nagar, this is an integral part of understanding how this part of the city is working. In this case, the counting of people will make it possible to balance the counting of cars and vehicles already performed by the city in their quest to secure more road space – because maybe more road space is actually needed, but for people, not for cars.
The meeting of Ranganathan Street and South Usman Road, T-Nagar, Chennai, India
Gehl Architects are back in Chennai, India, at the request of ITDP, Institute for Transport and Development Policy, to carry out a Public Life Public Space Survey workshop. The aim is to enable the staff of ITDP and of their Chennai partner, Chennai City Connect, to carry out studies of the public spaces and the public life in Chennai, but also in other Indian cities. The workshop will continue the rest of the week and involve both workshops, on-ground excercises as well as two actual survey days.
The workshop participants from ITDP India and Chennai City Connect together with Gehl Architects staff, Henning Thomsen, Sia Kirknæs and Lars Gemzøe
...and Balchand, who took the picture of the rest of us!
Crossing the street from one workshop venue to the other can be a daring endevour in Chennai
Lars Gemzøe, Gehl Architects, sharing four decades of Public Life Public Space research in Copenhagen with the Indian workshop participants
Sia Kirknæs, Gehl Architects, explaining the results from the Public Life Public Space Survey on Sydney to illustrate the data that can be brought forward in such studies
The Times of India reporting about the weather conditions on our first workshop day - good thing the actual survey didn't take place yesterday!
Check out some more pictures from Gehl Architects trip to India.
Also here are some more press reactions to the last days of our visit to Pimpri-Chinchwad:
Street scene, Chennai
The spirit of ’Let’s do it’ emanates from all the decisionmakers, Jeff Risom and I have met and made presentations to during our 10 day long trip to India.
Beforehand I had been told by my good Indian friend, architect Sanjay Prakash, that Indian city and government officials were hard to impress. And certainly Mr. Asheesh Sharma, the municipal commissioner (IAS) of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra, seemed less than impressed during my whole presentation on 21st century housing based on the best practice case of Bo01 in Malmö. And yet, his first reaction afterwards were the words: “How can we take this forward?”
Jeff and I receiving gifts from Chennai mayor Subramanian
The same happened in Chennai (former Madras) some days earlier. Initiated with the playing of the Tamil Nadu state anthem, Jeff and I gave a presentation on Copenhagen cycling best practice to the mayor of this 8 million people city, Mr. M. Subramanian, the City Corporation Commissioner, Mr. Rajesh Lakhoni, and a host of city councillors. After our presentation the very lively and empathic mayor gave a talk (in tamil) about his reflections on cycling in Chennai and referring to his own trips to Europe, where he had had the opportunity first hand to witness the potential of cycling in cities, he boldly stated, that Chennai would have its first dedicated cycle tracks in nothing less than 20 days.
Audience at the Gehl Architects lecture at Anna University, School of Architecture and Planning, which included professor Dinesh Mohan from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi as well as professor and dean of the Department of Architecture, Anna University, Dr. Suresh Kuppuswamy.
Check out some of the news clips on Gehl Architects visit to Chennai:
ITDP India staff working in their office in Pimpri
Gehl Architects are visiting India on request of the Institute for Transport and Development Policy (ITDP). In the case of Chennai also Chennai City Connect, a Chennai based non-profit organization, have been responsible for the invitation and for the many presentations and meetings, we have been part of while in Chennai.
See below a list of the activities we have been performing since entering India on the 17th august:
17th august: Meeting with professor Dinesh Mohan and M. Muthaia on Chennai history and urban development in India
17th august: Lecture at Anna University, School of Architecture and Planning
18th august: Presentation to the Tamil Nadu Urban Development Foundation (TNUDF)
19th august: Presentation to the Chennai Metro Rail Limited
20th august: Lecture for the Mayor M. Subramanian, the City Corporation Commissioner, Mr. Rajesh Lakhoni, and city councillors
20th august: Presentation to the Chief Secretary, Tamil Nadu State, Mr. K. Sripathy
20th august: Lecture for Executive Committee members of Chennai City Connect and Marg representatives at the Sheraton, sponsored by Marg Limited
21st august: Workshop with Tamil Nadu Urban Development Foundation (TNUDF) and Jones Lang LaSalle on pedestrianisation of T. Nagar
23rd august: Presentation to the Chief Commissioner Asheesh Sharma, of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), Maharashtra and the CEO Suhas Diwase, Pimpri Chinchwad New Town Development Authority (PCNTDA) and other city officials
23rd august: Lecture to ITDP staff at local office in Pimpri
24th august: Two presentations at seminar with delegates from Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), Pimpri Chinchwad New Town Development Authority (PCNTDA), builders, architects and planners
Street in the main shopping area of Chennai, T. Nagar, after rainfall.
The reception of the thoughts and practices we have shown in all of these lectures and presentations has been very welcoming. The notion of people-friendly development and the need for the introduction of new planning principles to succeed the traditional modernistic planning principles is warmly welcomed by the Indians.
At the same time we on our side have to acknowledge that the urban context, societal circumstances and even the economic structures are indeed very different from the context, circumstances and structures, we rely on when dealing with cities in both Denmark, Europe and most anywhere else. India seems to be a case of its own.
Street scene, Chennai
The little we have seen granted, we still are left with an impression of a country and of cities where growth is staggering, be it in numbers of people, numbers of vehicles and even kind and type of vehicles, and be it in pressure on the land and on its ressources, and on the structures that try to keep this extraordinary country together.
Slum settlements in front of new housing development in Pimpri
Even understanding the importance and scale of the so-called informal economy is mindblowing to a person coming from the US, as Jeff, and from Denmark, as myself. Poverty, as we have witnessed in slum developments in both Chennai and Pimpri, is evident. The relation of the informal economy and the informal settlements to the larger urban context is, to say the least, complicated. That the lifestyles of some, cannot be maintained without the help of cheap labour supplied by the others, the slumdwellers, is openly accepted. But it is also evidently hard to deal with for planners as well as politicians and city officials when redeveloping existing cities or even planning and building new cities and towns.
Informal economy - street vendors in the main shopping area in Chennai, T. Nagar
Informal economy - hawkers to the left and shops to the right co-existing and both relying on the business that the other brings to a section of the sidewalk
During our visit we have been discussing pedestrianization, improving conditions for cyclists and implementation of better cycling infrastructure as well as raising awareness on cycling as a healthy, sustainable and effective mobility form, and also how to develop people-friendly housing developments for the 21st century.
New urban development around a BRT streetcorridor in Pimpri - these streetcorridors will be between 45 and 75 meters wide!
Recycling garbage forms an integrated part of the informal economy and of the slum settlements
And also during our visit we have been exposed to many issues that seem to be particular for the growing megacities of the developing world, issues that call for their own context-based solutions to be developed and where the example of Copenhagen as a livable city, sometimes falls short of the realities that people are dealing with in a society such as the Indian. Thus even if we think we still have a point in pushing the issue of a more people-friendly planning in a context such as India, we must also make it a point to learn more about the megacity context in order to find ways in which the principles of people-friendly planning become more applicable in for example an Indian context.
Traffic - It is all over the place!!!
That said, I must say that the visit in general and the people in particular have been an extraordinary experience. The entrepreneurial, warm-hearted and extremely humoristic Indians have been a joy to get to know.
A special thanks for organizing the whole trip and for taking such good care of us goes to Shreya Gadepalli and the staff of ITDP India, that we have met, as well as to Raj Cherubal and Balchand Parayath of Chennai City Connect.
Children in the streets of a low-income housing development in Pimpri
Not only the food was hot!
We were kept busy! Jeff adjusting slideshows in the cab between presentations
Our ride to todays presentation for the Chennai Metro Authority - four of us were on board along with the driver!
On our trip to Chennai for Gehl Architects, Jeff Risom and myself, are trying out various forms of transportation. Today we got to go both in bus as well as in auto rickshaw. Joining us on these trips were Shreya Gadepalli, senior program director for ITDP India, and Chris Kost, technical director, ITDP India.
All forms of transportation through the streets of Chennai are an adventure. The traffic of Chennai, which at first seems to be utter chaos has a deep-felt and respectful structure to it along with the fact that speeds, due to the many different modes of transportation that share the road, is not excessively high. Accidents of course occur, but the adventure of riding the waves of Chennai traffic up until now have been if not a pleasant experience then at least a learning experience of a positive kind.
Check out this film that gives you a little flavour of what driving in auto rickshaws in Chennai, India, is like.
As you could read the other day here on this blog, Gehl Architects are in India. During our first 48 hours in the city of Chennai (former Madras) we have been looking at a series of challenging locations, such as Georgetown, Anna Nagar, the IT Corridor and T. Nagar. The last one, T. Nagar, a thriving commercial area around Panagal Park, is being considered for pedestrianization. Check out what we are looking at and reflect on the challenge of making this space less of a space for cars and more of a space for people.
For the first time Gehl Architects are venturing into India, the worlds second most populated country (soon to be the worlds most populated country) with now already more than 1 billion people. Monday 16th August, Jeff Risom and myself, are travelling to Chennai (former Madras) on the east coast of southern India and later on in the week, we move on to Pune, a couple of hours inland from Mumbai.
Gehl Architects have signed up to assist ITDP (Institute for Transportation & Development Policy) in some of their work in India. This work is part of a larger collaboration between Gehl Architects and ITDP, that also involves contributions in China, Brazil and Mexico. Recently Gehl Architects also contributed to the ITDP exhibition in New York in connection with the celebration of ITDP’s 25th anniversairy. Check out more about this and the booklet, Our Cities Ourselves, that was created in collaboration between ITDP and Gehl Architects here.
Founded in 1985, ITDP has become a leading organization in the promotion of environmentally sustainable and equitable transportation policies and projects worldwide. ITDP was created by sustainable transport advocates in the U.S. to counteract the export to developing countries of costly and environmentally damaging models of dependence on the private automobile.
In its first ten years, ITDP successfully advocated for the redirection of lending activity by the World Bank and other multi-lateral institutions away from an exclusive focus on road projects and toward more multi-modal transport solutions. In more recent years, we have focused on working with municipalities and non-governmental organizations in developing countries to implement projects that show how air pollution, carbon emissions, traffic congestion and accidents can be reduced, or how the basic mobility of the poor can be improved.
Jeff and I are hoping to keep you posted on the trip and our experiences on this blog, so look forward to more blogposts on Gehl going India.
Top image by India 8, originally uploaded by ojsmadgett.
