urban design meetings

have been in high powered planning meetings for the past two days. or at least they hope to be. the first was the mumbai transformation unit or something like that, which purports to redevelop the city sector by sector. sounds very similar to the bombay first plan and has led to much skepticism among a bunch of us. we seem to have plunged headlong into it though what with the design cell involved in the cess building project and the transit oriented development project for the dn nagar junction (where the two metro lines are to meet). and then there is crit – our friends and brothers involved with the slum study too. so here we are armed with our survey sheets and AutoCAD serving as a platform for rudimentary gis saving the city from ruin – or so we claim.

today we met priya dutt for another possible project- this time it was the juhu market project where we are working with jt. the office is in the ground floor of an old building in bandra with inspirational photos of all the gandhis and all the dutts. groups of men in white safari suits and women from a nearby slum were our company. and us- we were- paul, nikhil, tapan, anuradha and me. her office was further inside the building with a glass table and lounge seating around which we gathered to show her the report and brief her on the project. i don’t know why but i was mildly surprised by her approachability and ease. she seemed intelligent, well spoken, cultured and honest. she did not seem like any version of the politician that we are used to in the media. all the photos below from the congress offices in bandra.