2013
School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi

group project with
Ammani Nair, Rohan Patankar, Vani Sood, Varun Bajaj

seminar co-ordinator
Dr. Ranjana Mital, Jaya Kumar

faculty guide
Dr. Leon Morenas


Through primary research, we documented the characteristics of three mohallas in Shahjahanabad, Delhi. These findings were presented in a seminar titled By the People: Complexity in the Commonplace.

We learnt that these micro-communities have largely emerged through self-organized, non-designed growth and exhibit cooperation, resource sharing, and respect for public spaces- characteristics that planners value but are unable to recreate.

Our seminar also raised pertinent questions about the role of the designer in such a reality: how does this knowledge of self organization -of unconscious and spontaneous non-design, by the people- affect the designer’s response? Can active design make conversation with this self-organization in a way that multiplies its positives and negates its negatives?

You can read more about the seminar here.