The relevance of urban design for Auroville

Auroville Today: Bhavya, when did you join Auroville?

Bhavya: My parents joined Auroville when my brother and I were 8 years old. We kids transitioned from an extremely strict government school in Gujarat to the freedom of Deepanam primary school. It took us a while to get from full Gujarati to full English, and there was a bit of a culture shock, but that paled into insignificance because of the joy of coming here. Bhavyo later studied at Last School, while I did my O and A levels in Future School. Bhavyo went on to become an artist. I took a gap year to figure out what I wanted to do in life.

In that year I interacted with many architects and took a lot of courses. But I found no interest in architecture. Instead, city development started to fascinate me. One of Auroville’s architects guided me to the CEPT University in Ahmadabad where she and a few other Auroville architects had studied. The university’s focus is on understanding, planning and designing human habitats. Its Faculty of Planning offered a five year Bachelor’s in Urban Design. I applied, was accepted and I received a 50% scholarship. I got a loan of Rs 350,000 from the Auroville Scholarship Fund and relied on family and friends to meet the remaining needs. My mother in particular has been fantastic. She saved every penny she could during the five years I have been studying and sacrificed her own and my brother’s comfort to help me pay for my studies. I graduated last year with a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Design.

What is the difference between urban planning and urban design?

Urban planning is very large scale and goes top down; planners are looking at the entire city in its full form, at different layers. Urban design acts like a bridge between the small scale of architecture and the large scale of urban planning and aims at providing livable habitats to the residents. Urban planning doesn’t concern itself with the design of public spaces. Urban designers do: after analyzing the urban environment and looking at how the urban space will be experienced by those who use it, they will design the space. In urban planning the human is invisible; in architecture it is all about the individual human; an urban designer builds bridges between them, working with urban planners and architects.

The exhibition showed three of your urban design projects: at Milan, at Ahmadabad and at Kuilyapalayam. Do these projects have relevance for Auroville?

They do. In the Milan project we were looking at the 15-minute city, a concept that was invented by a Parisian planner who found that urban citizens should have access to their everyday essentials within a 15-minute walk from their home. In Ahmadabad, a UNESCO World Heritage city, we looked at the heritage neighbourhood and at the wishes of the people living there versus the government’s plans to make the area a tourist attraction. The problems there are very similar to Auroville. The Kuilyapalayam study focused on its main road. For a few days I observed what was going on and I spoke to shopkeepers and clients. This resulted in a dense and multi-layered data map which any urban designer who wants to plan the development of that road will need. A similar work will need to be done for Auroville.

Your thesis focused on the experience of urban design. What are your expectations of getting this incorporated in the planning and development work of Auroville?

On my return to Auroville, I joined the new Dreamweaving team. As a part of this team, I also met the Auroville Town Development Council constituted by the Governing Board, not as a note taker but as a full participant. The discussions all focused on materializing aspects of the Auroville Universal Township Master Plan (Perspective 2025). But I am left with many questions. The perspective plan is on ‘a zoom-out’ scale, without any sense of the experiential, nor of urban design. There are no humans in it and there is hardly mention of the area in which Auroville is situated. The plan is extremely basic. In my honest opinion, it lacks creativity and it lacks uniqueness; more importantly, I find that the beautiful vision enshrined in the galaxy concept is completely lost. This defect should have been redressed in the Detailed Development Plans, as prescribed in the Master Plan, but these were never made, with the exception of the concept plan for sectors I and II of the Residential Zone made by some visiting town planners [see AVToday # 308, March 2015, eds] and also by the 2017 ATDC. But none of these attempts reached larger community discussions.

How do you think this could be rectified?

We need a new Master Plan, something that was also foreseen in this Perspective Plan, which has the year 2025 as an end date. And we have to look again at the qualifications and experience of those who are entrusted with planning and urban design. Apart from B.V. Doshi, who was Chairman of the TDC when he was a member of the Governing Board and who had his own town planning office, almost none of the TDC members have a town planning or urban design background. Most of them are architects, and they are wired differently. But planning the city is a very important job. Those who are empowered to do this particular work have the responsibility to do it well and must realize what a single line on a map can entail. For example, the perfect circle of the Crown has created a lot of communal disharmony which has not healed. More disharmony can be expected if they want to manifest the Outer Ring Road, as this affects neighbouring villages. The new Master Plan should therefore consider the needs and expectations of the residents as well as those of the surrounding villages. For it is obvious that Auroville can no longer be planned in isolation. Planners and urban designers have to focus on finding a balance between foreseeing what the city and its neighbouring villages truly need, and what that entails in terms of buildings, roads and mobility, and how the users will experience urban spaces. The new plan will need to specify the broad concepts and guidelines, its urban design and the relationship between public and private spaces.

You mention the needs of the villagers. How do you see their interests being incorporated?

First of all, the planners will have to realize that they cannot plan as if there is no existing development. There is no blank paper on which they can draw lines and map buildings. This is the challenge of all Indian cities. Added to that is a speed of development that nobody can control or predict. Auroville is the reason that the three villages that immediately surround Auroville are growing at such an exponential pace – a pace that will only increase in proportion to Auroville’s development. At present, thousands of these villagers are finding employment in Auroville. That number will only increase. So we can’t say that we don’t care about our immediate environment; that we don’t care about the fact that all the traffic for Auroville goes through these villages. That would be tantamount to a coloniser’s perspective.

Second, we need to realise that collaborative planning, which includes the villagers, is markedly different from telling them that we in Auroville have all the expertise and they should listen to us. We need to interact with them, involve them in our discussions and get their views on our plans. We need to start looking at an integrated development, at a collective development of Auroville with the immediate region. If Auroville wants to be a model for India, this will be an essential step. For this is the problem that faces planners all over India: the position of those in power versus those who do not have the same power. Auroville’s situation is not unique. We have the money, we have the government support, we have the power to do things on the ground. So how can we responsibly use that power? There is a wealth of expertise in Auroville and I am convinced that we can come up with solutions. I was part of Dreamweaving in 20-22, and could already see solutions coming up. Sure, they were in a very conceptual state, but that’s where it all begins.

You mentioned that the villagers need to participate in planning of buildings. Can you give an example?

Plans have been cooking to start building the largest Line of Force, which has a highest elevation of 18 stories near Edaiyanchavadi village and then tapers down to two or three floors near the Matrimandir Lake. The maximum building height in Edaiyanchavadi is ground floor plus two. What impression does Auroville create if it has an 18-story luxurious building coming up next to a village where many people still live in squalid circumstances, and with a barbed wire fence in between as approved by the Governing Board? For me, it doesn’t make sense, at least not at the present time.

What are your views on the Auroville road network for which forested areas have now been cleared?

In the early days there was a concept that Auroville would not have cars. Private cars would be parked outside the greenbelt area and a shuttle service would bring people into the city. I think this concept is outdated, as is shown in the building of the Crown Road and the large parking area opposite the Solar Kitchen. Auroville has become a huge magnet for people – visitors, tourists, experts, volunteers, guests, us – each of whom needs transport. Apart from the shuttle that brings people from the Visitors’ Centre to the Matrimandir viewing area, Auroville does not have public transport for its guests.

So there is a need for the Crown Road, but we should evaluate which parts of the Crown are going to serve who. I do not think that busloads of people should use the Solar Kitchen to Arka stretch; that’s Residential Zone and is meant for residents and for those who are employed in Auroville or need to service Auroville. But for the public to reach the new Sound Garden in the Industrial Zone, the Crown Road from the Visitors’ Centre to the Sound Garden would need to be used. So a lot of deep thinking on the use and width of the roads and on the design of the public urban spaces along those roads will be required.

Can you clarify this?

If you look at the Solar Kitchen – Library –Humanscapes area, you will see that the buildings have been set back from the Crown Road at different distances. The library is set back by 15 metres, Kalpana by 7 or 8 meters while the Solar Kitchen practically borders the Road. That has created a rather ugly wide area where nothing is happening.

The architects of Kalpana made a good attempt to connect the buildings to the road with a pergola and outside benches, and they also created a kind of pedestrian walkway. But this is now lost because of the way the Crown Road has been constructed with a one metre height difference between the road and the buildings, and the cutting of all the trees. The loss of shade and the use of the roadside for car parking makes the road unattractive for pedestrians. The Crown needs shaded walkways along it, where people can walk, where cyclists can ride. That’s the work of an urban designer.

Do you see an intensification of the urban context of Auroville?

Dramatically so. The envisaged physical characteristics of Auroville are super-high density, lots of buildings, many roads; and the social-cultural aspects are cosmopolitan, with many things happening all the time. Already now it’s difficult to keep track of everything that’s going on, the cultural events, the workshops etc. I guess we could easily build five more amphitheatres, and have them all well-used. The challenge is how the physical manifestation of Auroville will respond to all that. We need to build urban spaces for things to happen, in collaboration with those who will be using them.

How do you, as a 24-year old, experience the present urban and economic context of Auroville?

I would say ‘dismal’. At my age, I like to hang out with friends at a nice place in the evening and enjoy some simple food. Such a place is not available in the city area. We are forced to go to eateries that are not part of Auroville, as they remain open late at night and are for us affordable. The Auroville eateries close at 8 pm and have far too high food and drink prices. To pay 150 rupees for a cup of coffee is really a lot if you try to live on a maintenance of only Rs 20,000 a month. Why can’t Auroville have nice eateries all over the city with minimal charges, which serve our needs? Can’t we have ‘youth cards’ offering a discount or ‘in kind’ benefits? There is a general discontent; young people have many different aspirations, and Auroville doesn’t properly cater to any of them. This may result in young people leaving Auroville as they do not earn enough to cover their daily needs or if they want to travel, open their own units or activities, or start a family.

Then how do you envisage your own future? In Auroville, or elsewhere?

There is a positive as well as a negative side. On the positive side I am grateful that I can freely approach and talk with the older generation, learn from their wealth of experience and enjoy a deep and soulful conversation. On behalf of Dreamweaving I have been talking to the top architects and planners in India, something I would never have been allowed to do if I had been working in a planning office as a 24-year old fresh graduate. In the span of the past six months I have gained a tremendous amount of experience. In this context, Auroville is beyond amazing, and that makes me thankful that I am here.

But I have also seen many blockages that have developed: “The city should only be like this and not like that.” I’ve got the impression that many old-timers have walled themselves up, leaving very few holes through which new ideas can enter. It’s different for young people. I am now working with three young architects who happened to come to Auroville and who stayed because something here spoke to them deeply. Those are the people who are open to change and who have the necessary skills for what Auroville needs to become. One of them has started his own architecture office; like him, I would like to start my own urban design studio one day.

But I have to be realistic and look at my financial situation. There is no way I will be able to repay the Rs 350,000 study loan if I remain in Auroville, living on the basic maintenance of Rs 20,000 a month. I will need to go out and earn a decent income, the more so if I want to have my own house or apartment in Auroville, start a family and open my own urban design studio. Moreover, I would like to continue my education and pursue a Masters or even a Ph.D. in Urban Studies. I have given myself two years to get a deeper understanding of what I can do for Auroville and what I need to do to become self-supporting.