Delhi, India
DELHI CULTURAL WATERSCAPE
Team designer: Silvia Vercher, Belén Ayarra, Marco Sosa, Zahraa Alwash
Columbia University: Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design
Location: Delhi, India
Year: 2014
Award: Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize 2014
Collaboration:Dnyaneshwar M. Mulay,Consulate General of India
Through creating ecological zones, it aims to generate more culturally public spaces that would support future growth.The first ecological zone, the Baolies will work as a recharging unit and social catalyst. The second ecological zone aims to provide a new rain and gray water collection system while activating the core of the block. The top-down approach in the third ecological zone, the Raj Path, a democratic national symbol in Lutyens’ Plan, will work as to collect, filtrate, retain, and discharge clean water to the Yamuna River.
In conclusion, by reapplying the traditions learned from India, we imagine New Delhi as part of a larger regional network. The new infrastructure will contribute to cleaning the Yamuna Rive, while recharging the ground water and providing cultural spaces for social and economic interactions. We imagine that by bringing water and culture back to the city.
The project proposes to reorient Delhi’s future growth, the India’s capital city, by addressing infrastructure issues concentrating on lack of water, seasonal flood and pollution. Furthermore, the project aims to reestablish the relationship between the city and the Yamuna River using water as a productive landscape that will generate social spaces. Through the lenses of culture and water the project imagines Luthyens Plan transformed from an imperial symbol of power and inequality, to a democratic space allowing social interaction. Finally, water is the catalyst for future growth of services and densification that will support the city at a regional scale. The project proposes a bottom-up approach by reactivating existing water nodes (Baolis and Hauz) to stimulate a network system for collection, retention, filtration and recharge of water.
