What is it about?
This is a research + design project I am doing for my M.Phil in Architecture & Urban Design from The University of Cambridge. It builds upon earlier work I had done for my undergraduate degree, studying the informal socio-economics of urban villages and studying the future of smart cities in India.
In an increasingly tech-driven urbanity, where global boundaries of communication, resource sharing and movement are clashing and crumbling, indigenous boundaries of cities are being reinforced. These boundaries create an atmosphere of predictability and isolation between different categories of society. India has been at the forefront of the global south in adopting the Smart City narrative. Amidst this overarching, grandiose pledge of a “New India”, the aspirational middle class living in informal settlements have begun to resist this narrative, hacking the spatial and policy frameworks of neoliberal urbanization. A consequence of Master Planning and Smart City visions that have repeatedly ignored the interstitial spaces of cities.
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This project looks at how Delhi’s Urban Villages (with a focus on Khirki Extension in South Delhi) sit amidst transit oriented development and smart city plans. It explores the possibility of surgically opening up these informal settlements to surrounding infrastructure to generate an immersive realm of connection between the city and settlement. Within this realm would exist an ecosystem of supportive infrastructure, functions and spaces oriented towards the younger demographic of Khirki, who occupy the precarious position of having to navigate these thresholds on a daily basis. How can technology, spatial design and policy restructuring be implemented in such a realm to provide sustenance to the financial and cultural ethos of these settlements, whilst benefiting the city as a whole ? Can India’s smart cities be re-imagined as a connected urban realm where the theatre of life, commerce and equitable society thrives in resilience and spontaneity?
B.Arch Degree
Previous Work
My dissertation looked at the socio-economic networks of relationships that develop in the informal housing market of urban villages, with a focus on Khirki Village, Delhi.
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My seminar project projected scenarios 20 years into the future where technology could transform public infrastructure into more accessible spaces for the urban poor
M.Phil Architecture & Urban Design
Raghav Rayasam
I'm an architect from Hyderabad, India, currently pursuing my M.Phil at Cambridge University, UK. I did my B.Arch from the School of Planning & Architecture, Delhi, India.
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I've always been interested in looking at how urban spaces are reconciled and negotiated with their diversity, and what possibilities the future holds for rapidly growing cities across the world.