Urban Assemblies 3.0
the Vacancy Phenomenon

Studio Brief

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Indian cities are in a constant state of flux. Rapid urbanization not only produces the built environment but also the condition of vacancy - lands that are undifferentiated, loosely regulated and waiting to be remonetized. As a condition that arises from the same phenomenon that creates order in the city, these vacant lands, pending a definite plan, provide space for expression. They are often surreptitiously transformed into spaces of informal social and cultural expression, supplementing the dearth of publicly accessible commons in the city. (Cricket! Driving Practice! Festivals!)

 

As spaces in developmental limbo, they provide a necessary alternative to inequitable space distribution in a city whose public spaces are poorly understood. As places waiting to happen, the condition is temporary. When the planned purpose arrives, the activated space is replaced, and actors must move. Over time this condition repeats across varied terrains of the city - new  vacant lands emerge  from massive industry closures, changing environmental regulations, leapfrogging development and political will, while older ones disappear as the disputes surrounding them resolve.

 

When mapped across time, vacancy is a phenomenon; one which holds potential for radical re-imaginations of collective space in the city. For us as urban designers, it is an important opening to participate in the debate on the urban commons and urban public space.

 

This studio takes a long view of urban transformations, mapping the emergence, life  and disappearance of vacant land systems in Ahmedabad over the course of the city’s history. Through a design process organised on a timescale that moves from centuries to decades to years, the project’s permanence is imagined in reverse and the transformative potential of vacant land system is tested.