Urban Agriculture as a tool to design Urban Extension

Urban Agriculture as a tool to Design Urban Extension

Urban Design Studio II – Team Project, M.Arch in Urban Design (CEPT, India)

The city of Pune in India is one of the fastest growing cities that is expected to extend its urban boundaries into many peripheral villages, turning the rural environments into urban ones. The studio exercise looked at envisioning what the ‘outer extension’ of the city could be? Considering the ecologically sensitive site and its surroundings, the vision was to keep the rural character alive within the urban growth. The idea of urban agriculture seemed to be an apt tool for guiding the overall design concept. The context sensitive design tried to minimize the impact of urbanization on the natural environment. The design addressed green concepts like retaining the natural drainage channels and its surrounding vegetation to lessen the impact on stormwater flows, preserving small ponds in the valley area, proposing agricultural land use at geographically located most fertile soil and the compact built forms to reduce the pressure on infrastructure.

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