URBAN PLANNING, BASE OF THE PLANNING, UNBEATABLE SURVEY & STUDY BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION

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Charles Correa (1 Sept 1930 – 16 June 2015)
Architect, Urban Planner and Activist.

2. PLANNING FOR
BOMBAY
BY CHARLES CORREA
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3.  Bombay is the financial capital of India
 a giant metropolis
 Contributing almost half the total revenue collected by the GoI.
 Like many other cities, pressure from distress migration coming
in from the rural areas in its hinterland.
 Today office space in Bombay’s CBD costs twice as much as it
does in Manhattan despite the fact that the average American
office worker earns thirty times more than his counterpart in
India!
3Intro

4.  Like many other seaports around the world, Bombay is located
on a long and narrow breakwater, protecting the harbour from
open Sea.
 The American Civil war 1867 blocked the supply of cotton. An
alternate source had to be found: Indian Cotton, to be shipped
out through the port of Bombay.
 Linear North-South Pattern
4Shape

5.  Every time the city got more
overcrowded, the municipality
just extended the city limits
further northward.
 Like a rubber band, it is ready to
snap.
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6.  Daily trigger off massive flows
of traffic
 Southern in morning,
Northward in the evening.
6Movement

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 To avoid this gruelling commuting people try to live as close as
possible to their work place.
 Hence the spiralling real estate prices in the CBD at the
southern end.
 Much of this area pre-empted by upper & middle income
groups, the poor are forced to live wherever they can.
 On city pavement, in squatter settlements, in overcrowded
slums, up to 10 people and more in a single room tenement.

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9.  In 1964, the Bombay Municipality published their Draft Plan
meant to deal with the city’s growth over the next two decades,
and invited comments and suggestions from the Public.
 We submitted a memorandum to the Municipality suggesting
that a better strategy for dealing with appalling pressures on the
southern end of the city was to re-structure this North-south
pattern. What we proposed, in essence, was to integrate the
island of Bombay with the mainland to the east, opening up new
growth centres across the harbour, so that the primacy of the
existing CBD would be challenged and Bombay’s North-south
linear structure would metamorphose into a circular polycentric
one, focusing around the harbour.
9Draft Dp

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11.  Through public ownership of the land to help finance service
infrastructure, Public Transport & Housing Poor as well as
generating a new pattern of jobs.
 Trying to use this new growth itself to re-structure the city.
 The suggestions we made in 1964 surprisingly found public
support, finally in 1970, the state Govt. accepted the basic
strategies & notified 22,000 ha of land for acquisition.
 CIDCO(The City & Industrial Development Corporation)
11CIDCO

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15.  Working as Chief Architect to CIDCO(1970 to 1974) for taking a
more comprehensive overview on many problems of which one
had seen only fragments.
 Examine two most critical aspects:
 Housing(Poorer Sections of society)
 Mass Transport(Provides access to jobs)
15Arranging the Scenery

16.  1. Courtyards & Terrace: For private activities(Cooking &
Sleeping)
 2. The Front doorstep: Children play, meet your Neighbour
 3. Community places: Water tap or Village Well
 4. The Principal urban area: Maidans used by the whole city
16System of Space

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18.  Too many attempts at low cost housing perceive it only as many
dwelling units as possible on a given site, without any concern
for the other spaces involved in the system.
 Result: The desperate effort of the poor trying to live in a
context totally unrelated to their needs.
18Low Cost Housing

19.  In short, the issue of providing housing, especially for the urban
poor, is not so much a question of inventing new materials, but
rather one of re-adjusting land-use allocations across the city, so
that more space is available for residential use.
19Providing Housing

20.  The problems of increasing city size means servicing the larger
area will increase travel time & cost of a mass transport system.
 Now a mass transport system is, a linear element. It only
becomes viable in the context of a land use plan that develops
corridors of high density demand. (Chandigarh) is difficult to
service with public transport.
20Mobility & Jobs

21.  This is how the system grows:
 Bus line generating a series of
sectors of approximately equal
importance.
 Let’s call them type A.
 Location Grows Type B.
 Interchanges Generates new
activity type C.
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24. 1. Incrementalism: Housing unit should be able to grow with the
family’s requirements & earning capacity.
2. Identity: Can be colonised by the occupants and modified to
their social/cultural/religious needs.
3. Pluralism: myriad elements that make up society itself.
4. Income Generation: low rise built form generates jobs…
5. Equity: Sq.ft of Dwelling Needed
6. Open to sky space: additional living spaces
7. Disaggregation: need to find demand & breaking them down
into many small supply
24Future House

25. Our cities are precious they produce the skills we
need for managing development. Our Government
must anticipate urban problems and not just begin
to re-act after the crises develops.
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27. 27Planner Needs to Do…
There is no shortage of housing but there is a tragic
shortage of the urban context in which these solutions
are viable.
That then is our real responsibility to help generate
that urban context.

28. ULWE:
NEW BOMBAY CITY
CENTRE1991
BY CHARLES CORREA
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30.  1580 ha.
1. Preparing the Land-use Plan
2. Planning the CBD & Formulating Urban Design Controls &
Documents for the building therein.
3. Designing 1000 housing units for different income groups.
30Ulwe

31. 1. Affordability: The Income profile to determine the budget
available for Housing
2. Options: the costs of available building materials & construction
Technologies, Usability, Different weather condition, road
specifications, water supply, sewerage, electricity, transport
3. The Site: Contours & soil Conditions etc.
31Parameters & Steps

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33. Second step involved comparing the pattern of affordability of the
various Options so as to estimate the amount of land required for
each income group at various locations.
Large Number of options available.
Third step involved finding ways to deploy the transport network
(of cycle paths, bus routes, tram lines, and commuter railway)
This three steps clear the images.
33Steps

34. To avoid straight waste of monsoon water in the sea
1. Retention Pond
2. Balancing Pond(dry Season)
34Managing rainwater

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36. Sit out in the evening
To catch the cool breezes at sunrise of morning
Today, this coherence has been destroyed by massive set backs
stipulated by municipal rules, which separate building from road.
36View

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41. 1. The size of the building floor print is maximised, so that
sufficient floor area can be generated without going into high-
rise construction.
2. Instead of Specifying a minimum front open space for each plot,
a compulsory building line is delineated.
3. Curtain walling which runs through the street level
4. Stepped sections which allows individual apartments to have
terraces with central garden over view.
41Coherent Urban Form

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46. BRITISH COUNCIL
DELHI
1987-92
BY CHARLES CORREA
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47. 1. A Library, an Auditorium, an Art gallery and the Headquarters of
their offices in India.
2. Elements arranged in a series of layers, recalling the historic
interfaces.
47Diverse Functions

48. Placed along the length of the site, connecting the entrance gate to
rear boundary at the other end.
1. Hinduism-the energy centre of the cosmos
2. The Traditional Islamic Char Bagh (Garden of Paradise)
3. European icon(in Marble & granite, Mythic values of Science
and Progress)
483 axes Mundi

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©Kenneth Frampton

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©Kenneth Frampton