Keeping sustainability at the forefront, how the design community is inspiring creativity and innovation

Agreeing, Preeti Singh, brand director, India Design ID said that consciousness of sustainability is looming so large in the design community that it has touched all aspects of ID 2023. “All of our symposium talks, pretty much any kind of content platform that we presented this year involved sustainability. I’m saying so because, as I mentioned, the designers themselves are at that point where they are thinking out of the box, which also reflects in their work,” she shared.

But, it is not just sustainability

Apart from sustainability, the top designing minds are equally mindful of preserving the heritage, culture, and unique history of the place they are designing for. “It’s important to retain authentic heritage with a modern lifestyle statement as it helps us preserve our cultural identity, celebrate diversity, promote sustainability, boost local economies, and inspire creativity and innovation,” explained Brijesh Shaijal, principal architect, DAC, and one of the speakers at India Design ID 2023.

For Madhav Raman, principal and co-founder of Anagram Architects, contextual designing is all about keeping the cultural context of the place in mind. “I think here, context would mean, a cultural context. If you’re willing and are able to, kind of, be discerning and understand the nuances of how culture evolves in a place and accordingly respond to the living culture of a place as a context or referencing it in your design, then its great,” he told indianexpress.com.

But, he highlighted the importance of considering urbanisation and growth within the cultural context, and the need to include it when conceptualising a design. Adding, he said, usually, what is celebrated in urban cities is often a “monolithic design that lacks history, social realities and diversity an urban space has to offer.” “When someone says urbanisation, one imagines a city like Delhi or Mumbai and this stream of people living there. But one needs to understand that that’s not how urbanisation works, in actuality it is people moving to the nearest town around a big city,” continued Raman.

He further mentioned that all these people coming towards the city have aims and ambitions and are on the lookout for better opportunities, and add diversity to the space. “However the modern understanding of urbanisation can somewhat be exclusionary. For example, Shanghai in China is hailed as a world-class top city. But, the most celebrated parts of Shanghai are not Chinese. They’re very, very global. So it’s sort of monoculture,” he explained, further stressing that local culture and context and diversity of the city, as such, should be reflected and celebrated in its architecture and public spaces.

There is also a focus on public spaces in urban areas

Apart from sustainability and contextual designing, inclusivity in designs is another top need of the hour. Urban or metropolitan spaces are known for their diversity, cultural richness and the plethora of opportunities they offer people living in them. However, most of these spaces are not necessarily designed keeping in mind the people who make any big city what it is — the working class.

Highlighting the same, Raman said that urban plans have spaces like public parks or a clean public beach for the same reason — to provide a source of recreation and entertainment to people from all economic backgrounds and walks of life. “Whoever and whatever income group you may be from, if you have a family, it deserves a fun day out. That to me is what defines public places,” Raman added.

Public transit as a meeting spot

Raman, however, argued that apart from traditional public spaces like parks, public transit should be designed keeping in mind that they are also a big meeting point for people. “Technically, as an urban designer, a public spot is basically a place where the intensity and the chances of meeting other people are substantially higher than anywhere else. So that’s how you would measure the success of a public space technically. So what spaces do you think each city should have? I think cities, in general, should focus on making their public transport access points, imagining them as public places, it’s where people will meet,” he suggested.

Explaining his point further, he said, “You know, you tell people to let’s meet at this Metro station or that auto stand or this bus stop. Right? So it’s a place to meet. It’s also a place to wait very often as folks are transiting and they subsequently have to wait for a little bit. During this time, you watch the city go by. Right now, in most Indian cities, areas for modes of public transport are looked at just as engineering infrastructure, a problem solution. But how about making that whole transition thing a little more entertaining, a little more sociable — more people will start hanging out”.

This, in turn, will also lead to people spending more money — something that will also be good for the economy, Raman concluded.

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