Out of the shade

A panel discussion points to how we no longer build in sync with nature

Prof KT Ravindran and Pradip Krishen

What do 16,000 trees look like? As architects, since we are in the business of space-making, we calculated it could mean close to 90 acres of area, edge to edge. That’s roughly the size of Lodhi Garden, bigger in fact, which in monetary terms is about Rs 300 crore per acre,” said architect Moulshri Joshi. She was deconstructing the estimated number of trees that will be felled to make way for government housing and commercial enterprise in Delhi.

Joshi was one of the panelists at the ‘Urban Planning and Redevelopment: Political Economy of Tree Felling’ discussion on Sunday at Indian Social Institute, Delhi. Talking about the recent tree felling in residential colonies such as Sarojini Nagar, Nauroji Nagar, Netaji Nagar, the panelists — Kanchi Kohli, environmental researcher, Centre for Policy Research; Prof KT Ravindran, Founder-President, Institute of Urban Designers India (IUDI); environmentalist and author, Trees of Delhi, Pradip Krishen; Dunu Roy, director of Hazards Centre; and Joshi, presented arguments on how processes in these projects impact the city.

Joshi illustrated how Indian architecture always built with trees. “We have always lived in the shade, not too inside nor too outside, it’s the in-between space. And now we don’t know about in-between spaces. In the East Kidwai Nagar project, the spaces are precise between inside and outside. It’s the post-war Soviet idea of a building taken many floors higher and mixed with cars,” he said.

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Roy, who has been championing the idea of “peoples’ cities”, questioned why there was an acute shortage of housing. “Figures from previous Master Plans of Delhi, from 1982 to 2001, say that Delhi Development Authority was supposed to build 16.3 lakh houses, however they built only about a third. In the 2021 Master Plan, 25 lakh houses are meant to be built, though only two lakh have been built so far,” he said.

Krishen pointed to the lack of understanding of native planting among authorities, including the Forest Department and the Central Public Works Department. He called the idea of replanting trees a hoax, and said, “We have close to 2590 species of native trees in the country, but we cultivate only about 60-70 of them. An oddball might bring the figure up to about 120-130 trees, which means we are working with less than four per cent of trees.”

While Prof Ravindran shared the finer nuances of Floor Area Ratio and government policies, Kohli spoke of how these government housing projects have legalised land-grabbing of public property.

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