Friday, January 22, 2010
Architecture Under-graduate Design thesis
An Integrated City Centre at Ashram road, Ahmedabad
The city of Ahmedabad is one of the most rapidly developing cities of the country. The historical pattern of growth which the city has experienced reveals a beautiful process that the city has gone through to attain the same. Into the second decade of the 21st century, the city is poised with interesting challenges to tend, the city on one hand is growing outwards pushing the new business and residential settlements further away from the city. The Riverfront development on the other hand contradictorily develops along the historical boundaries of the old city and thus is a brave new attempt to push a vast new development at the very heart of the city. This new development owing to the huge sums of capital involved is coming up with highly brutalish overtones, which challenge to completely transform the image of this city. Considering the above scenario of the city, Ashram road was cited as an ideal situation for studying the impact of this new development along the riverfront.
The studies revealed that owing to the special value of connectivity with the new upcoming riverfront development certain points on the street occupy value of importance for future development as a gateway from the western part of the city into the new upcoming riverfront development. The particular stretch along the junction falling just before the Ahmedabad textile Mill-owners Association building on the Ashram road was cited as a typical case where such a development may successfully come up after the completion of the riverfront infrastructure. This particular stretch occupies majorly cinema theatres which have lost their importance with the coming up of a revolution of Malls and Multiplexes after the 90’s boom, the ultramodern facilities offered by these malls have alienated and made these cinema theatres redundant causing most of them to shut down. The one which presently operates – The Shiv Theatre is also on the verge of shutting down. The incubator to these problems has been attributed to the constant change in the user conception.
As the conception of the users has totally changed towards the activities of shopping and recreation, the present structures on the site were found to be insufficient of being retrofitted for the new uses and user groups. Also, the Karnavati Hotel here faces legal difficulties and is shut down and is up for demolition, along with the Mangal Murti Complex office building which is incoherently developed to the context. The site of these redundant, inefficient structures was found ideal for a new development to come up with the potential to transform the usage character and image of the road. Also, this new development would push a coherence of the upcoming development on the riverfront to the existing along the Ashram Road, thus sufficing its task of being a true gateway.
The city of Ahmedabad is one of the most rapidly developing cities of the country. The historical pattern of growth which the city has experienced reveals a beautiful process that the city has gone through to attain the same. Into the second decade of the 21st century, the city is poised with interesting challenges to tend, the city on one hand is growing outwards pushing the new business and residential settlements further away from the city. The Riverfront development on the other hand contradictorily develops along the historical boundaries of the old city and thus is a brave new attempt to push a vast new development at the very heart of the city. This new development owing to the huge sums of capital involved is coming up with highly brutalish overtones, which challenge to completely transform the image of this city. Considering the above scenario of the city, Ashram road was cited as an ideal situation for studying the impact of this new development along the riverfront.
The studies revealed that owing to the special value of connectivity with the new upcoming riverfront development certain points on the street occupy value of importance for future development as a gateway from the western part of the city into the new upcoming riverfront development. The particular stretch along the junction falling just before the Ahmedabad textile Mill-owners Association building on the Ashram road was cited as a typical case where such a development may successfully come up after the completion of the riverfront infrastructure. This particular stretch occupies majorly cinema theatres which have lost their importance with the coming up of a revolution of Malls and Multiplexes after the 90’s boom, the ultramodern facilities offered by these malls have alienated and made these cinema theatres redundant causing most of them to shut down. The one which presently operates – The Shiv Theatre is also on the verge of shutting down. The incubator to these problems has been attributed to the constant change in the user conception.
As the conception of the users has totally changed towards the activities of shopping and recreation, the present structures on the site were found to be insufficient of being retrofitted for the new uses and user groups. Also, the Karnavati Hotel here faces legal difficulties and is shut down and is up for demolition, along with the Mangal Murti Complex office building which is incoherently developed to the context. The site of these redundant, inefficient structures was found ideal for a new development to come up with the potential to transform the usage character and image of the road. Also, this new development would push a coherence of the upcoming development on the riverfront to the existing along the Ashram Road, thus sufficing its task of being a true gateway.
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