Everyday Urbanism, An Alternate Approach to Urban Public Space : Promoting Sustainable Lifestyles in Chennai, India

Abstract: Privatization of the public realm is rampant in modern cities. Public space accessibility and usage is often determined by inhabitants’ socio-economic background in the mega cities of the developing world as well. The case of Chennai, a city of 9 million people drawn from different regions in India, is used in this project to understand this phenomenon and evolve an alternate approach to urban public space design and use, in which citizen-led initiatives are encouraged, instead of being ignored, by mainstream urban planning and design processes. Chennai is one of the fastest growing cities in the world today. Conventional planning has failed to direct this growth towards creating sustainable urban environments for all, and has instead encouraged lopsided development that caters only to the affluent sections. This trend has affected public spaces as well, which are now centered on consumption and dependant on heavy investment in real estate and technology. This has a considerable impact on the spectrum of socio-economic groups that are able to access and use them. The project questions the prevalent situation, and focuses on three aspects that have been ignored in recent times. The first (Everyday Urbanism) is explored as a method to revitalize the second (Public Spaces), in order to achieve the third (Sustainable Lifestyles) as a long term goal. This is done using analysis and design in parallel, and results in a proposal for a new design process and through it, scale specific design solutions for Chennai’s public spaces that will create a high quality of life for inhabitants of the heavily populated, demographically diverse and socio-economically fragmented city.