Inclusive & equitable communities
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This paper attempts to summarize and provide a structured perspective on transforming India’s built environment, taking stock of emerging realities attributed to climate change and sustainability (planet, people, and prosperity). While... more
This paper attempts to summarize and provide a structured perspective on transforming India’s built environment, taking stock of emerging realities attributed to climate change and sustainability (planet, people, and prosperity). While the COVID-19 pandemic provided the original backdrop to review the status of the built environment and its resilience, climate change continues to manifest as an existential threat.
While the COVID-19 pandemic provided the original backdrop to review the status of the built environment and its resilience, climate change continues to manifest as an existential threat. We attempt to summarize and provide a structured perspective on transforming India’s built environment, taking stock of emerging realities attributed to climate change and sustainability (planet, people, and prosperity).
Three interdependent, concurrent drivers, Decarbonize, Democratize, and Digitalize are essential for the required transformations in the built environment. Decarbonization aims to drop the exponentially accruing carbon footprint attributed to modern society to fundamentally restore and reset planetary systems that society is attuned to.Democratization aims to overcome deprivation and marginalization, to be inclusive of diversity in culture, geography, and aspirations in providing a healthy and resilient living environment. Digitalization could provide the ubiquitous digital connectivity and Internet of Things as the unifying fabric encompassing environmental stewardship to network, facilitate, operate, and underscore transformations across all seven sectors in the built environment, viz., residential, agriculture, administration, industry & commerce, education & research, infrastructure services, and transport and communication.
Decarbonize, Democratize and Digitalize, like in a triple helix, are intricately linked, and may be achieved through five actionable levers: Research and Development, Technology, Human Capital, Policy and Economic Investment. This structure aims to support wellness and resilience in the built environment and restore planetary stability.
Wellness provides the much-needed paradigm to unify the outcomes emerging from the seven built-environment sectors. Clarity needs to emerge on the definition and assessment of wellness and sustainability, as it would apply to various activities and stakeholders, to achieve carbon neutrality. There is an imminent need for restoring ecosystem services and enhancing biodiversity. Wellness as a fundamental right permeates all aspects of the built and natural environment and the planet. The built environment (urban to be specific) also needs to be reconfigured keeping in mind human scale and socio-temporal sensitivity, e.g. open spaces, pedestrian mobility, social inclusiveness, nature and recreation. In addition to equitable and affordable access to a healthy living environment, meeting inter-generational aspirations is crucial.
This pa has taken stock of current status and challenges in the built environment while also identifying multi-sectoral recommendations at the building, community and regional/national scales. Each of the three drivers has been articulated in detail, highlighting challenges and opportunities in terms of market barriers, policy and institutional challenges, and societal saliency.
Decarbonization approaches include reduction in embodied and operational carbon and circularity of materials, products and spaces. Democratization approaches include provision of inclusive, healthier built environments and communities, resilience to unprecedented health and climate risks, and reinforcing positive sustainable behavior. Digitalization approaches include all stages of building lifecycle, community-scale systems, and unlocking region-specific transformations. This involves a national computing and networking infrastructure, archiving and revival of traditional knowledge, and adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence based analytics for the built environment.
At the UN Climate Change Conference 2021, India announced a target of net zero emissions by 2070. India will reduce its projected Carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes and the carbon intensity of its economy by 45% by 2030. In order to approach, and as we believe, surpass this target, it is absolutely critical to transform the built environment that constitutes nearly 40% of global energy-related GHG emissions. While other energy sectors such as centralized renewables may require significant infrastructure change and investment, building technologies can create quick climate wins. In India where half of the buildings and homes that will be standing in 2050 have yet to be built, but once built will last 50-100 years, this is a historic opportunity. It is also a contrast to decarbonizing sectors such as transport where the assets are short lived. The built environment thereby lends itself to democratization and faster adoption as one of the most cost effective and deep carbon abatement wedges while being the human theater for wellness and health.
Ten key considerations have been identified along the three drivers with a vision of a zero-carbon built environment promoting digitally-enabled equitable wellness and resilience for all.
While the COVID-19 pandemic provided the original backdrop to review the status of the built environment and its resilience, climate change continues to manifest as an existential threat. We attempt to summarize and provide a structured perspective on transforming India’s built environment, taking stock of emerging realities attributed to climate change and sustainability (planet, people, and prosperity).
Three interdependent, concurrent drivers, Decarbonize, Democratize, and Digitalize are essential for the required transformations in the built environment. Decarbonization aims to drop the exponentially accruing carbon footprint attributed to modern society to fundamentally restore and reset planetary systems that society is attuned to.Democratization aims to overcome deprivation and marginalization, to be inclusive of diversity in culture, geography, and aspirations in providing a healthy and resilient living environment. Digitalization could provide the ubiquitous digital connectivity and Internet of Things as the unifying fabric encompassing environmental stewardship to network, facilitate, operate, and underscore transformations across all seven sectors in the built environment, viz., residential, agriculture, administration, industry & commerce, education & research, infrastructure services, and transport and communication.
Decarbonize, Democratize and Digitalize, like in a triple helix, are intricately linked, and may be achieved through five actionable levers: Research and Development, Technology, Human Capital, Policy and Economic Investment. This structure aims to support wellness and resilience in the built environment and restore planetary stability.
Wellness provides the much-needed paradigm to unify the outcomes emerging from the seven built-environment sectors. Clarity needs to emerge on the definition and assessment of wellness and sustainability, as it would apply to various activities and stakeholders, to achieve carbon neutrality. There is an imminent need for restoring ecosystem services and enhancing biodiversity. Wellness as a fundamental right permeates all aspects of the built and natural environment and the planet. The built environment (urban to be specific) also needs to be reconfigured keeping in mind human scale and socio-temporal sensitivity, e.g. open spaces, pedestrian mobility, social inclusiveness, nature and recreation. In addition to equitable and affordable access to a healthy living environment, meeting inter-generational aspirations is crucial.
This pa has taken stock of current status and challenges in the built environment while also identifying multi-sectoral recommendations at the building, community and regional/national scales. Each of the three drivers has been articulated in detail, highlighting challenges and opportunities in terms of market barriers, policy and institutional challenges, and societal saliency.
Decarbonization approaches include reduction in embodied and operational carbon and circularity of materials, products and spaces. Democratization approaches include provision of inclusive, healthier built environments and communities, resilience to unprecedented health and climate risks, and reinforcing positive sustainable behavior. Digitalization approaches include all stages of building lifecycle, community-scale systems, and unlocking region-specific transformations. This involves a national computing and networking infrastructure, archiving and revival of traditional knowledge, and adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence based analytics for the built environment.
At the UN Climate Change Conference 2021, India announced a target of net zero emissions by 2070. India will reduce its projected Carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes and the carbon intensity of its economy by 45% by 2030. In order to approach, and as we believe, surpass this target, it is absolutely critical to transform the built environment that constitutes nearly 40% of global energy-related GHG emissions. While other energy sectors such as centralized renewables may require significant infrastructure change and investment, building technologies can create quick climate wins. In India where half of the buildings and homes that will be standing in 2050 have yet to be built, but once built will last 50-100 years, this is a historic opportunity. It is also a contrast to decarbonizing sectors such as transport where the assets are short lived. The built environment thereby lends itself to democratization and faster adoption as one of the most cost effective and deep carbon abatement wedges while being the human theater for wellness and health.
Ten key considerations have been identified along the three drivers with a vision of a zero-carbon built environment promoting digitally-enabled equitable wellness and resilience for all.
Paper presented in Conference Ce-PhD Cluj, Romania 2014 The fast and turbulent development patterns that have our countries experienced since the fall of communism regime have strongly influenced the image and functioning of our cities... more
Paper presented in Conference Ce-PhD Cluj, Romania 2014
The fast and turbulent development patterns that have our countries experienced since the fall of communism regime have strongly influenced the image and functioning of our cities and regions. The economic and social polarisation reflects in the Slovak landscapes in the form of segregated residential 'islands', of which one type are Roma concentrations.
The paper analyses different forms and processes connected to design of public space that have potential to play a significant role in bridging these gaps and thus building inclusive communities. In the first part paper deals with the concept of inclusivity in the urban design agendas and its role in understanding public spaces. In the second part, preliminary results from the case study project 'For better life in Rankovce' are drawn out in order to suggest recommendations for widening the definition of public spaces, multidisciplinary and people-based involvement in all the stages of the design processes and the necessity of flexibility and time-adaptability in design strategies.
The fast and turbulent development patterns that have our countries experienced since the fall of communism regime have strongly influenced the image and functioning of our cities and regions. The economic and social polarisation reflects in the Slovak landscapes in the form of segregated residential 'islands', of which one type are Roma concentrations.
The paper analyses different forms and processes connected to design of public space that have potential to play a significant role in bridging these gaps and thus building inclusive communities. In the first part paper deals with the concept of inclusivity in the urban design agendas and its role in understanding public spaces. In the second part, preliminary results from the case study project 'For better life in Rankovce' are drawn out in order to suggest recommendations for widening the definition of public spaces, multidisciplinary and people-based involvement in all the stages of the design processes and the necessity of flexibility and time-adaptability in design strategies.
Persistent precarity is a fundamental, yet usually hidden and often overlooked condition of urbanism, particularly for those who represent the human labor that produces and reproduces the capitalist city. The question, then, is how do... more
Persistent precarity is a fundamental, yet usually hidden and often overlooked condition of urbanism, particularly for those who represent the human labor that produces and reproduces the capitalist city. The question, then, is how do those who represent this under-represented human labor, unions, engage with and influence the underlying power structure that actually shapes the city? Labor unions simultaneously shape and are shaped by the spatial political economy of the contemporary city. This article examines this phenomenon through analysis of an illuminating case study, the powerful Culinary Union in Las Vegas. Drawing from different primary and secondary sources, this article offers several valuable insights: organized labor is significant in the spatial production of the city, urban precarity can be mitigated by advocating for the public realm, and asserting agency in the power dynamics of the city can be an effective way of influencing its urbanism.
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