The Dreamweaving has begun!

The ‘Dreamweaving the Crown’ is part of a process which attempts to bring down to the ground the Galaxy and the Master Plan in the form of a Detailed Development Plan (DDP). The DDP, a framework within which Auroville can develop, will be done by the Vaastu Shilpa Foundation, Dr. Doshi’s planning office in Ahmedabad. For an office of their size and experience, doing a DDP for a city of 50,000 would normally be a fairly easy undertaking. But because Auroville is special, the Dreamweaving sessions will provide an inspirational input to the process – albeit of an architectural / planning nature.

The exercise began recently with a three day workshop in which Aurovilians and those linked with Auroville with expertise in various fields presented information relevant to designing the Crown to participating architects. Topics covered included the Auroville Master Plan, the regional context, mobility, water studies, the electrical infrastructure, economy, urban forestry, Auroville’s afforestation experience, ecological planning, land suitability analysis, development priorities, the science of Vaastu Shastra in town planning, International Zone planning, and the Green Belt land use plan. The Line of Goodwill team also outlined their concept, ATDC presented their work and the requirements of a Detailed Development Plan (DDP), and Rajeev Kathpalia from Vastu Shilpa Consultants – which have been approached to develop such a plan for Auroville – presented a few of their projects. (Some time later, there were also presentations on urban planning in relation to Auroville’s economic ideals, and on city form and bioclimatic design).

The workshop, which was attended by the Secretary, demonstrated the huge expertise and practical experience the community possesses in many areas. It was much appreciated, not only by the architects, but also by many community members and even friends overseas who followed the presentations online (see below for links).

The Dreamweaving architects then started work on their individual designs for different aspects or for the whole of the Crown, drawing from the presentations and technical resources. On 15th January they met for the first time and presented their initial explorations to each other. The next step, which happened on 21st and 22nd of January, involved them presenting their worked upon designs, and offering feedback on each other’s designs. Importantly, their feedback concentrated upon what they liked and were inspired by in each other’s designs.

The Dreamweaving architects then went away to work further on their concepts – with encouragement to ‘steal’ the best ideas of others or to work in teams. They may also consider ideas generated within the larger community. Subsequently in early February, they will present them to the other participants, to technical experts, peers, and randomly selected Aurovilians, to receive feedback before again ‘weaving’ these new ideas into their concepts.

The architects will present their final designs on 18/19th February. This will also be presented to the larger community in the birthday week for their evaluation, before being forwarded, along with all the final designs, to Vastu Shilpa Consultants as suggestions to inspire the DDP preparation.

The Citizens’ Assembly team is using the experience it has acquired in previous Citizens’ Assembly sessions to provide help with session design, facilitation, logistics, communication, budgeting, report writing, and other aspects of the overall organization.

Background

Dreamweaving emerged from a process which began in 2005. A group of architects who had been working independently on different sectors of the Residential Zone felt a need to develop common parameters for the Galaxy so that their work could be correlated. As the group expanded to include not only architects but anybody interested, they began to look at more topics. At a certain point, simply brainstorming ideas evolved into something else. David Nightingale and Mona Doctor-Pingel, who have been intimately connected with the process from the beginning, explain.

“As we were meeting once a week from 6-8 am on different rooftops in Auroville, we were creating this energetic field,” explains David. “We realised we were having these magical experiences when, after getting bored with hearing our own and other’s voices, the silences got longer. And then, at some point, the magic happened: in this aspirational silence, somebody would say something that would click and we all knew, ‘This is what needs to happen’, and we became quite excited by what we could see emerging.”

One of them named this process ‘Dreamcatching’ to distinguish it from the more usual ‘brainstorming’. For, unlike brainstorming, Dreamcatching is a slow, non-argumentative, respectful, safe process designed to let go of our differing grounds to find the highest common factor.

Over three years of regular sessions, many areas of Auroville were covered, including the International, Industrial and Residential Zones, the Crown, the Greenbelt and the entrances to Auroville, devoting about 12 weeks to each topic. “But at one point,” says David, “we realised we had all these pearls, these ideas, but now what? We could publish them, but that wouldn’t capture the energy essence of what we were doing.”

So, instead, they decided to create ‘Dream Spaces’ as an outreach to the wider community. In these spaces, all the Dreamcatching outputs on a particular topic were pinned up on panels, and people were invited to comment upon them and add their own ideas.

“But then,” says David, “we were told we are not doing anything beyond presenting ideas. So we decided to take up a particular topic, and work together to produce a design. This meant, of course, that only architects could be involved. So we gathered around a table and tried to design something together in real-time. And it was utter chaos!”

As an alternative, it was suggested that everybody take the parameters they had come up with for the task, go away for a week, and then each one would present their own design and receive feedback on it from the others. They would then go away again, with active encouragement to steal the best ideas of others, and ‘weave’ this into a revised design. This process would continue until a final design (or designs) emerged that was agreed upon.

‘Dreamweaving’ was born.

Mona points out that, over the years, Dreamcatching and Dreamweaving have seeded many new ideas and initiatives in the community.

The first time these new methods were used was as a design tool for the Integral Health Center. The Dreamweaving process was also successfully used by three Auroville architects studios to ‘weave’ their concepts into a master plan for the Sustainable Livelihood Institute. And the winning team in The Garden of the Unexpected design competition used the process to integrate outputs from other teams to arrive at a successful synthesis.

The Crownways project (see Auroville Today 375, October 2020) was an even bigger Dreamweaving project. It took the group about six weeks, involving about six attempts to come up with an agreed upon design. Like the present Dreamweaving process for the Crown, there was a very strict time limit as 60 lakh rupees had been allocated for the first stretch of the Crown road, and the work was about to begin.

David cautions that Dreamweaving is not a magic formula. “I won’t pretend it is easy. Sometimes somebody gets fixed upon a particular idea, even if the others don’t think it works. But regarding the present Dreamweaving for the Crown, Doshi’s office will help in this because they are a neutral body and they don’t have to take everything we give to them. It’s as if we take a bunch of ingredients and, after four or five iterations, ‘cook’ them into a finished meal. Then we present it to them saying, ‘we like the taste of this’. But what they do with it, to what extent they use it for the DDP of the Crown, is up to them – after all, unlike most of us they are professional planners. However, as they are very interested in making this collective process work, hopefully the ‘flow’ between us will continue.”

Other options

Dreamweaving is a design process which is not suitable for every topic for it requires a working knowledge of design. However, David points out there are alternatives. For example, Dreamcatching can be used for almost any topic, like generating new ideas about housing, the economy, education or the entry process.

‘Design café’ is another option which can involve non-specialists as well as architects. In the design café there are a number of tables. At each table, an architect or designer holds the space, making sketches of inputs from the other participants, who swap between the tables. The architects will then come together to see if a common design can be evolved.

“In other words, there is a toolbox which we can draw upon for different situations,’ says David. “Each of these tools emerged from a specific need and unfolded over three or four years in answer to the basic question, how can we collaborate in a sensible and yet inspirational way?”

Online links for the presentations: 

Day 1: https://youtu.be/RKf54NsnT4w | https://youtu.be/jRmJBA1bGeY. 

Day 2: https://youtu.be/YII3tLZNskg | https://youtu.be/yowLz0LSWFw. 

Day 3: https://youtu.be/GN8lL4CVMOY | https://youtu.be/N4DKWiPPAFs (https://youtu.be/N4DKWiPPAFs)

Additional presentations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=0M0Fq-QRvrE&authuser=0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=0M0Fq-QRvrE&authuser=0)