 Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world. My name is Kate Orff. I'm the director of the Columbia Urban Design Program in New York City. And we have the distinct pleasure today to welcome the Office of PK Das, in particular, PK Das himself and Samarth Das. I would like to say proudly that Samarth is a graduate of the MSAUD program and a much beloved alum. And to this lecture series, this is the global lecture series titled Urban Design in Practice, with the idea of highlighting in a global context the incredible diversity and of the ways that urban design is being practiced in different contexts and with different methods, means and visions. I could not think of a better practice to spotlight in this series than the work of the Office of PK Das. PK himself is quite an inspiration to all of us in urban design. I believe his work and the work of the Office in the way that it spans buildings, interiors, urban design, and community movements is something truly to look to as a model of forms of practice. He is a figure, a towering figure in this space of community-engaged design and community-driven design, and really his work has really provided so many models for all of us. The practice is largely based in India and Mumbai, headquartered in Mumbai, but the methods methodology of the work has a sort of ricochet effect in many contexts. So we couldn't be happier to meet both of you this morning. And I just wanted to say a quick thank you and acknowledgement to David Smiley and Tal first from Columbia for their assistance with this lecture series. The process is that I will see the stage to PK and Samarth, and then David Smiley will help moderate Q&A. So during the, during the, at the end of the lecture, so you can prepare your questions and have them ready to go or David to moderate. Welcome again to everyone, every student around the world, every faculty member, wherever you are, and we're glad to be able to have this global lecture series where we can share ideas and look at alternative models. So with that, I will say welcome and take it away, Samarth and PK. Welcome again. We're so pleased to have you. Thank you, Kate. It's indeed an honor and a privilege to have been invited by you. Kate, thank you so much. I am extremely humbled to buy your presence. Kate, I very honestly respect your work and consider it to be significant. You've done some significant work that's an inspiration to all of us. And thank you so much once again to invite Samarth and I to make this presentation. Well, I don't know if this is going to be a kind of a model example of the work that we do, but we are struggling. Every day we are struggling. And I suppose there's no end to that, and there's no end to achieving what we all desire to achieve. And that struggle must continue. Thank you, Kate. Thank you, David. Thank you, Tal. I see many others participating. Thank you all of you to having made time to come here. If I have to just sort of summarize in three points that the content of my talk today, I just put it this way. The first point that I will dwell upon is sustainable ecology achievement. The second is really demonstrating change through participatory planning and design endeavors. And the third is the title that you see on the slide here which is re-envisioning cities and their democratization. So I think these are the three key points on which I will dwell upon through my talk. Coming to the first point, Samarth and I are very deeply concerned about the state of relationship between people and us collectively with nature. For us ecology includes people and nature. The two are in extricably entwined and neither are exclusive. Recognition of this relationship is critical for our understanding of the current state of ecology and its future. Any attempt that we're making to separate one from the other, which has always been the kind of tradition, historically speaking, is to undermine our struggle for the achievement of sustainable ecology. Sadly, this relationship has been severe. The developments and development agencies over the years have continued to attack nature and systematically destroy the natural habitats and the natural conditions that sustain our lives. Logically, the municipal cooperation in Mumbai has gone ahead and built these impervious concrete walls all along the edges of the water bodies, water courses and the rivers. Thereby severing the symbiotic relationship between land and water. Such concretization of rivers and water courses is sadly being hotly pursued by governments across Indian states, including by hordes of mindless architects and planners. The rampant destruction of the natural conditions has led to frequent experiences of climate catastrophe, as I call it, that is threatening our health. Indeed, our very survival. We just learned now, yesterday and today from the news, and not surprisingly, that the temperatures in USA and Canada have reached a record high of 40 degrees. I just listened to the television and was informed that the temperature in Canada has gone up to 49.5 degrees in the north of Canada. Now, this is, this worries us and we have to be extremely careful in dealing with these issues in all our work and engagements. While we have and governments and development agencies have continuously neglected our natural habitats and natural conditions and the environment. Governments have been no different in their response to people. Polarization of people on the basis of class, caste, religion, faith, gender, continues to be reinforced each day. Not only as, as people we stand sharply divided, also more and more people have been denied access to resources and their rights. As a matter of fact, a state of alienation and violence defines our way of life. What we're deeply concerned about therefore is the constant division of our cities into disparate fragments, both in social and special terms. The focus for their unification has come to become an important objective. It is with this objective that we consider building relationships between people and collectively with nature as an important mission. This is the essence of our talk focused on an understanding of these relationships and the networks of interactions. Those that develop in the process of collective interventions by citizens on demands pertaining to social and environmental justice, and how they could contribute to the larger interest of sustainability of cities, indeed of the world. Sustainable ecology is possible, when we can successfully combine environmental and social economic dimensions equally in the plans and actions that we pursue. As a matter of fact, it is the extent of their integration and inclusion that truly form a criteria by which we evaluate or value our work and engagements. If there is one thing that I have to state as being the most important learning from our living and working in Mumbai, both for Samarth and me and many many others, friends and colleagues with whom we've been collaborating and working. It is the need for collective intervention in the current trend of exclusionary urban development with an objective of achieving social and environmental equity and justice for all. As the various conflicts begin to dominate the city landscape, both in terms of the polarization of people and the, and the, and the near destruction of the natural areas. It is compelled to intervene, particularly, and this is very important in the excluded, discriminated and much abused backyards of people and places that are in most instances, situated in the borders, edges, peripheries and margins of our cities and towns. For example, picking up an example from Mumbai, it is the over 300 kilometers of water courses that we refer to as Nallaz or drains of Mumbai, and that immediate precincts to which we have turned our backs to. So have we, have we recognized and considered this vast extent of 150 square kilometers of the natural areas being one third of the city area been given due recognition, or even considered in the planning and development programs of the city. And as a necessary condition I consider. And this is very, very important from my learnings here is that each individual intervention would have to be linked to other democratic rights struggles, thereby building networks of interventions towards evolving an alternate vision of the city. Really, one of the key objectives that come about through our struggle. And for an understanding of this collective interventions and ecological scrutiny. We will get on to discuss one significant citizen struggle, which we refer to as the idler Nalla movement. As an example, while this example is specific to Mumbai. And it's one of its neighborhoods in Mumbai the issues it raises will hopefully resonate in the experiences that you have in your respective places of familiarity or work and engagement. The overarching ideas, however, and the principle should hopefully be the same, thus invoking a dialogue and solidarity amongst us. Moving on to the example, I would like to present a network of movements, which has been continuing for over 2223 or 24 years that provide a historical perspective to the movement, and its position in the larger context of the city. Earlier relating these individual experiences to the larger context, both nationally and globally is critical. This example of the Iran movement also illustrates its replicability and scalability potential, both of which are very, very important in all the individual efforts that we are pursuing with. This is a slide that you see on your screen, which sort of very briefly lists the various public interest works that my office, including both Samarth and I have been engaged in. And this has moved from many individual projects to larger neighborhood ideas, and then to the city. These various projects that I'm talking about a referring to a born out of citizens movements in which we have participated actively being limited to public housing open spaces and the environment in particular. What is this constant and deliberate erosion of the public spaces, the denial of access to housing by the vast numbers of people, and the rampant destruction of the natural areas, all of these three things that I'm talking about the, the denial of access to housing to the vast numbers of people, the rampant destruction of the natural areas and the environment, and the erosion of public spaces have compelled us to engage with these issues. Here's a slide where you see how this kind of progression or relationship of the projects. I mean, I, I, I hesitated to call them as projects I refer to them as movements truly, and how local movements are small area movements have led to neighborhood movements, where you have the projects leading to a vision plan for the neighborhood of Juhu, in which the Iran allies located, and then how we move to re envisioning Mumbai through a open Mumbai plan as we call it that was put up. And that was prepared several years back, which was true, which was really a kind of a culmination of various individual works that we pursued over the years. The Iran-Alari Invigoration Project is what Samarth will now dwell upon and explain its details, including some of the key objectives and achievements of this project, Samarth, over to you. Yeah, thank you. Very quickly, very excited to be here. I'll jump right in. You know, the slide that we discussed just before this where we kind of highlighted the overall timeline of and the evolution that this movement has taken over the last two decades, and sort of my in, you know, meeting that movement at certain point of time was in my architecture school in my undergraduate program here in Mumbai, where the vision Juhu plan was in fact, kind of developed jointly with the design cell of the school where I was studying. And that was when I first kind of, you know, interacted with this larger idea, which has since driven me really in a very, very strong way to looking at these issues, sort of critically, and of course, learning from my father, kind of taking a lot of inspiration from him to continue engaging in a very, very active way towards contributing towards some of these issues that we're grappling with. So sort of moving, you know, taking this idea of the movement and how do we break it down into these kind of tangible, I would say, smaller elements that then contribute towards the overall understanding of the larger city plan. So for a minute, I'm going to jump into the vision Juhu plan, which is really re envisioning public spaces as was explained, Juhu is a suburb in the northern part of Mumbai. And, you know, vision Juhu expanding public spaces was a kind of document that was put together jointly by our office and the design cell of my school Kamla Raheja Institute of architecture in Mumbai. And, you know, the document overarching vision, the vision of the document I would say is that it aims to protect the natural environment and the best features of the built environment, increase commercial viability encouraged tourists and leisure facilities, and support communities, create social inclusion, provide people with a voice in landscapes of rapid change and design urban spaces and spaces for people, not necessarily just open spaces. You know, the idea that, you know, planning should most definitely be from the bottom up the vision Juhu plan was conceived with the hope of connecting natural assets with institutions as well as residential areas to a rich network of open spaces that then facilitate pedestrian movement through these neighborhoods. As you can see here, you know, the Iranala kind of just traverses all the way from the north through a total length of almost about eight kilometers and it sort of winds its way through several neighborhoods of our city. This is the neighborhood of Juhu and very intensely and very closely interacts with a lot of cultural, social educational institutes that have been set up within the area. And a lot of other natural assets also of parks, gardens, and we have one of the most famous beaches of Mumbai, which is the Juhu beach on the western edge. And you know this plan in its inception itself was based on the ideas of collaboration and participation by virtue of it being a collaboration with the school as well as the citizens in the area, and takes those ideas forward in implementation with active support of the citizens of the neighborhood. So you know this is one of the campaign posters that was developed in the propagation of the idea of the vision plan, and you know meetings were held in public spaces with this poster. Juhu Giri is sort of taken from a colloquial slang here in India, which is Dada Giri, which means, you know, by coercive force, you have wounds and, you know, people who force certain things on other people. But here it's reinterpreted as the collective power of the people of Juhu. We are say of course in Hindi means with love. So, you know, it's kind of like a good play on those words there but really illustrating in very, very simple terms to people, what the larger issue is, and how we can achieve some of these larger goals and overall objectives of the plan was to free open spaces, you know, create three lined avenues and walkways along these water bodies interconnect these open spaces to the existing cultural and education institutions, improve access, promote access, and by virtue of promoting access you also improve the overall vigilance of these kinds of natural areas and open spaces, which then are a kind of defense mechanism against sort of encroachments and other activities that are probably not in the interest of, you know, the community. And of course, citizens we've mentioned several times play a very vital role in building places. Us as designers, architects, planners, you know, we are in many ways facilitators to enable the success of a plan. A plan is not just a drawing, but a plan is something that a vision, you know, that that people can relate to and then put their own energies behind making that vision of reality. And so, really, the idea of citizens interaction and community really contributing in a positive way cannot be understated at all. So vision through movement has been rooted in this public participation and democratic planning ideals. You know the group of citizens in this neighborhood of Joe who have been very, very active in taking you know very critical and strong stands against encroachments against corruptions against grabbing of open spaces and natural assets fighting cases in court. Devoting enormous amount of time from their own lives, you know, towards these causes, and really the success of this project is rooted in this kind of energy and participation. And really the people have, you know, grown to feel so strongly about this project that we're sure the kind of ownership of this project will go on for many, many years to come. And so with that as a segue, we'll just kind of go into the idea of the Iranala project itself, which is the Iranala reinvigration movement. As we mentioned earlier, it is a part of the larger vision to who plan, and really as a tangible example of seeing how we can turn some of these neglected backyards into proud cultural focus. So in, you know, just to give a large macro context to this project, we're really looking at the Mumbai metropolitan region and Mumbai city in many ways is an estuary of sorts it's surrounded by water on three sites. It has a rich plethora of natural assets, rivers, creeks, nullas, which are these water courses, mangroves, wetlands, salt-fanned lands, lakes, hills, and even forests. And owing to the natural geography of the city, and also the fact that it has been developed over many, many years, essentially through landfilling movement because originally Mumbai used to be, you know, seven sets of islands. There are many of these inlets of water or outlets of water that intrinsically interact with the geography of the city. And you know, these really take the form of the reverse creeks and nullas. You know, the coastline is dotted with several inlets and outlets of these water bodies, and the Iranala is one of those inlets of several water courses that we see in the city. Unfortunately, over the years as you know the same fate that many, many, many natural assets have met with in our city. These water courses have been abused, they've become waste and sewage carrying open sewage carrying drains, which take out effluence to the sea, which they were never meant to do. The city government, as mentioned earlier, has channelized these water channels with concrete retaining walls on both sides. And that's had sort of further severe ecological environmental attributes of this water course and therefore also physically has separated them from the people. Now, the larger idea of this project is when we look at the water courses map of Mumbai here on the right. Now, can we imagine a scenario where Mumbai, you know, we have 300 kilometers of water courses throughout the city. And can we imagine a scenario where Mumbai cars have easy access to almost 600 kilometers of landscaped walking and cycling tracks and open spaces along these water courses on either side that intermingle and interweave through various parts of the city's fabric. And this is really the overarching vision that has manifested itself in the tangible project that is the Idlanala project. You know, Idlanala runs through the western suburb of Jew we've been through this and this map kind of just shows the various natural assets and institutions that are in the same precinct as this incredible water body. And the proposal looks to interconnect these amenities and spaces. So that's just a sort of aerial overview of the water body, the water course running through the neighborhood, and this is a sort of very highly unutilized airport, a small little airport you might call it like, you know, it's a secondary sort of flying school vast natural water body and sort of lake, which we look to integrate into this project. And then really our focus always has been to try and implement a so called pilot project for any of these various, you know, issues that we have discussed in the first opening minutes of the talk. So it's always sort of prudent to demonstrate success at a sort of smaller scale and really demonstrate the ability of that project to be scaled up and multiplied and applied to various other parts of the city. And so the phase one of this project dealt with only about one and a half kilometers of the seven and a half kilometers of the of the water body. So as we can see this is the number of institutions that are along that water course, and then a sort of linear chain of parks also along that water body. That's an aerial overview of this water course, you know, right through running through the neighborhood of Juhu. And the proposal really looks at as we said developing this water body as a as a linear open space with access to walking cycling and landscaping for the community. We have here a kind of video that just very quickly explains the process of cleaning the water. Of course, these are highly neglected and abused water bodies. So there was a big process to in fact clean this water body and bring it to the current state that it is in. The walls of course were inherited, unfortunately by built by the city officials, but we've really worked with experts in India with the Indian Institute of Technology, which is one of the foremost institutions of the country to device ways of actually filtering the water and cleaning the water over time. Of course, collecting solid waste floating material, in order to get that sort of physical filter out of the way, getting a lot of silt and sediment that has been trapped, or rather has been layered over many, many decades on the beds of these water forces, getting that out and then treating the flowing water through various natural processes of combined treatment units, you know, integrating sort of algae weeds and plants that help clean the water. And then, of course, develop the adjacent spaces into these walking cycling areas, integrate community activity by way of incorporating wall art that students can come in and do, promote pedestrianization cycling within these areas, and really look at, you know, these overall ideas and how we can look at then scaling this up across longer stretches of this water body is something that we're really interested in doing. And as you can see I spoke about the idea of scalability and how it can be phased up to the entire seven kilometers of that water body. So, you can see very quickly some of the images of how the condition was before we really started this project, and the images below really tell the story of how, how these spaces have really transformed over many years, almost about eight or 10 years now that we've been working on this project. And these kind of visuals really stress on that excitement and really that sort of success story of citizens, you know, charting the way and leading the way for these kinds of initiatives within their own neighborhoods, really transforming these backyards in tremendous ways. Another great sort of result of this project has been the fact that we've been able to develop a chain of public parks along the NALA, which, you know, as seen in this image start forming a sort of immaculate city forest, within a very dense urban and sort of built setting. You know, these are very, very important in today's time with rising air pollution, deteriorating air quality. How do we ensure that we create livable spaces for people within our cities. And so, almost three or four parks have been developed. We've worked closely with citizens to develop these plans. We've computed to the overall plan itself, even in terms of design, you know, everyone from older people to really young kids coming in and demanding what they want in parks and how we can do that. We've developed one of the largest open air amphitheaters anywhere in the city. We've been host to some tremendous cultural events and really seamlessly integrates itself with this park system as well. And you know, populate and depopulate as and when required. And really so, you know, what we wanted to kind of end this particular bit is by saying that initiatives such as the NALA project amongst many others address these larger issues of city planning and people's active participation in key decisions concerning their daily quality of life, along with the protection restoration and improvement of the natural assets that keep the important ecological balance of our cities intact. So we can move forward in a more responsible and sustainable mode of development. Such movements are not to be seen merely as a beautification program, but as a part of a larger democratic struggle for reclaiming public space and to create spaces where people meet share experiences and begin to care about each other and create social relationships collectively between them and nature. It is such relationships that cannot be separated from one another, and considered exclusive, rather together, they form the urban ecosystem. The two together inextricably both human and biophysical. With the NALA and the public spaces being the main planning criteria, we hope to bring about over a period of time, social change, promoting collective culture and rooting out alienation and false sense of individual gratification that are popularly and generally promoted by the market these days. Unjust social systems are inherently unsustainable. The linear parks created along these NALA's will create more livable neighborhoods for more people in an equitable way. This equitable expression of nature based solutions is indeed sustainable. The argument is that we don't get into our cars or into our trains or public transport to travel hours to get to the idea of a central park of the city. What can we create decentralized linear open spaces that very well integrate themselves within the urban fabric so that people within a five or 10 minute walk have access to these spaces that can positively impact their quality of life on a daily basis. Such an approach facilitates people's local people's active participation. And as I said they know what's best for them in many ways, and their contributions influence the planning and thereby development decisions. You know with this I'll just hand it back to that for the next aspect that we'd be looking at as part of this talk. Thank you Samarth. I think the next point that we already touched upon is larger idea of the city and how we can evolve the plan for transformative city wide change. As I call it, what's very important is to demonstrate change through architectural and planning endeavors. I think it's confidence in the place amongst the people. It helps social networking. It helps people coming together to influence their governments and decisions that are going to be ultimately affecting their lives. As I mentioned earlier we put together an exhibition after close to 2025 years of working on issues of public spaces and the environment, which was then called the open Mumbai plan. It was an open Mumbai exhibition. This exhibition was kept open for nearly about two months in a significant gallery in the center of Mumbai. And that was visited by not just people, it was open to all. It was very interestingly, you know, visited by the head of the state, all the elected representatives from even different areas and districts. And it sort of opened up. It sort of allowed people for the first time to see Mumbai through a different lens. I mean, we see Mumbai as we experience it every day, traveling in our cars or in our buses or in trains to the, you know, reaching our workplace from home and getting back. At the most on weekends we interact in our neighborhood markets and bazaars or we go to shopping malls etc. But here was an experience very, very different. It's sort of exposed to the people the kind of assets that we have the rich and the vast extent of the natural assets that the city has. And as I mentioned earlier, nearly one third over one third area of the city has this vast extent of natural areas compromising of compromising, including the canals, the water courses, the lakes, the rivers, the coastline, the forests, the mangroves, the creeks, the wetlands, and so and so forth. So with all of that we put together this idea of re-envisioning Mumbai through the idea of open spaces. And in order to expand the idea of open spaces, we said that the open spaces do include the natural areas and that people begin to then perceive experience and participate in their daily lives in the city. The kind of contribution that these natural areas make to the quality of living in the city. So what we did was we really mapped for the first time the open spaces and the natural areas of the city, which was referred to as the open spaces map. And that really became a point of reference even during the preparation of the development plan for the city by the municipal corporation and the government. And that's the first time that we really brought out formally that the city's natural areas in the open spaces is constitutionally over one third of the city area. And all the policies of development plans etc is all focused to that other one third and it just sort of excludes this, you know, this one third important area. The plan basically proposed a city wide network of connected public spaces that included the natural areas and the bio systems. And the overarching vision to reenvision the city that has manifested itself in the tangible pilot project that some are talked about the Iranala re invigoration project. Another objective of such movements ought to be the conservation of the vital natural assets of and their integration with the neighborhoods and the city. Public spaces, both in physical and democratic terms, expanding tree cover popularizing and demystifying. And this is very important popularizing and demystifying the planning process for effective participation and promoting the idea of neighborhood based planning. This is something that we clearly experienced through our movements that we don't bring in these big, you know, master plans as they are referred to by drawn up by some master, who's very clearly far out and distanced from the people and the places and and the conditions that are based and are demanded by the people who live. And those plans have been trusted upon the people by the government and the municipal corporation. But here we talked of this idea that these micro plans, born out of people's movements, could then add up to the idea of the city. And that really was one of the big things that we sort of learned and pursued. And that struggle as I mentioned right at the outset continues and shall continue and will continue forever, because it really deals with equity and quality of life of all the citizens. One of the natural areas in unification of people and nature is a lot is of utmost priority. But what's interesting here is that through these movements and the projects, we realized it's not just a physical exercise of mapping and interconnecting these various assets of the city. It's not just mapping up a public domain, but really it sort of encourages social networking in the process. People begin to intermingle with each other through these spaces that they that the experience. And some of the, of course, detail out some of these neighborhood based city planning ideas that have manifested in many other projects of waterfronts restoration. Very important about this idea of neighborhood based development approach is the possibility of decentralizing and localizing projects. Thus breaking away from the monolithic planning and design ideas that are disconnected from most people as I explained with localized projects, the planning of cities will hopefully become a bottom up process with participation of all the people. Importantly, neighborhood scale work is more a collaborative approach to the city and place making for citizen such projects allow the immediate reclamation redesign and reprogramming of public spaces within their localities. Now what's been very interesting, which I will mention in a line really we don't have time to dwell upon that is that all these projects that we are showing you that we participated in and have engaged ourselves with these local area struggles have been funded through eminent members of parliament through their MP lad fund a fund provision that the government gives to these elected members of parliament to spend in their constituency. For the Illinois, for example, we had an eminence, very eminent writer lyricist, a Java doctor and bandra and other neighborhoods whose projects somewhat very quickly show you were funded by under the MP lad scheme by another eminent Bollywood star writer and social activist Shabana Azmi, and that was followed then by many other members of parliament who came out to support. And interestingly, all these projects that have been funded by public funding, to which we have our rights and access to were also implemented by the government agencies and the accounts and the transparency was such that everybody in the area would access to know the accounts and the funding and the expenditures and all of that so that was that that was really some of these lessons that came through the neighborhoods based city planning. What could you quickly sort of go through some of these other area movements that sort of really spring this our ideas that we're talking about. Right. So yeah it just brings us back to the idea of questioning our natural resources and the unutilized potential that they have in terms of contributing to daily life with over 150 kilometers of coastline Mumbai is definitely a city on the sea. Yet how much of this coastline is respected, preserved and used as planned public space. We have the entire eastern edge of the city primarily for sort of dock related and navy related activities. It is highly regulated and very little access to the eastern waterfront of the city, but the western waterfront is almost about, you know, 60 kilometers and Len, and is completely adjacent to a lot of residential neighborhoods of the city. Unfortunately, only about I would say even put together only about 10 to 15 kilometers of this coastline is currently been thought of and has been opened and made accessible to people. So our struggle continues but maybe through some of these examples of neighborhood projects that I will show you now. There is a way there is a hope there is a future for how we can make some of this change happen. So the prominent the bandra bandstand, which is again a Western suburb in the city of Mumbai and Carter Road demonstrate how neighborhood initiatives, inclusive, non elitist planning and government and private support can transform our sea fronts, meaningfully. So in the foreground here is in fact, very early image of once the bandra bandstand promenade was, you know, designed and executed. Very quick overview of the project, the, you know, the promenade emerged out of a long battle and struggle that the local citizens waged on ground. You see the before image these waterfronts were completely abused open to discriminate, you know, indiscriminate dumping illegal activities and complete neglect from the authorities. And in fact the citizens fought to reclaim this open space fought against the authorities and police who tried to, you know, put a stop to that kind of activity where people were trying to reclaim that open space. Very strong movement. As that mentioned also we've had the fortune of, you know, working with very closely with very very in, you know, incredible people, such as, you know, these members of parliament who have come forth and pledged their MP lab funds to the project, but their interaction and, you know, involvement did not end, just that sort of pledging those funds and making those funds available for the people. They were there on the ground, they were fighting, you know, on behalf of the people with authorities, ensuring work was happening so as he had mentioned in the case of it. We had Mr. Javed Akhtar, who's a prominent writer, who even six years after his so so called term or four years after his term of being a member of parliament has elapsed, continues to be as you know intensely involved with the project. Mr. Javed Akhtar, who's a prominent writer, who even in Bandra Bandstand, famous actor Shabana Azmi was involved with the citizens groups. You can see her in one of those images in the, in the sort of foreign sorry, and sort of really making some of these projects possible. And you know, these plans were also drawn up in complete synchronization and discussion with the people. So come on, the slides have come. Yes, yes. So, yes. And, you know, very important, I just wanted to stress on the fact that if you see the top right image, even in terms of design and architecture, really the promenade the formal promenade takes a backseat and really celebrates the impact that we have with this city. As designers, we tend to Interrupt you for a second some yes, yes, I can see the screen that you're sharing. Is everyone else able to see the screen. Yeah, we can see the screen. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So I'm on the Bandra Bandstand promenade page. Yes. So, similarly, another promenade, which is slightly further north from Bandra Bandstand was the Carter Road promenade both these promenades sort of came into being around about the same time in the early 2000s. So it's almost been 20 years now since these promenades have been developed and continue to be maintained by the citizens of this area. You know what also was born out of the citizens struggle was the active vigilance and, you know, sort of protection group of sorts of citizens where even the authorities in today, whether it's the local authorities of the city have to get permission from the citizens if they need to carry out any activities on these promenades. So it really sort of changed the way public spaces are maintained in the city. And just another quick video showing the context of these projects. You know, pre development conditions, a lot of this sort of neglect and abuse. And you know these, this movement also gave rise to a new governance model that emerged out of this process you know typically the administration and private companies were hand in hand and they would kind of force their decisions or impose their decisions regarding public spaces on the citizens. But here developed a new model of governance, a participatory model, where the citizens were on the top of the pyramid, and then sort of diverse responsibilities to the government and the private companies, and really reclaiming these waterfront projects started back in 99. And you know, restoration and enhancement of the natural mangrove edge with a very, very important aspect of this project from our experiences, a world over we know about storm surges and effects of flooding, but how can we through subtle moves through the promenades and, you know, projects, ensure that mangroves, you know, are brought back, they thrive, and they also give right to another layer of kind of protection and mitigation against these storm surge events. So just kind of very quickly showing what the elements of the project work. This is just a stop motion graphic that we've developed that shows how the promenade has in fact helped the regeneration of the mangroves and the restoration of the natural coastline that used to exist along the along the city's edge. You know, interestingly in Bandra Bandstand, and this is a little bit kind of dealing from taking from my experience in New York post standee when I had the, of course, the pleasure of working with Kate in her studio, and really looking at the idea of ensuring a connect with the waters, you know the people need to have that connection with the water and how can we look at the idea of stepped retaining walls rather than these big walls that governments put up to ensure a new relationship with water that then emerges. And this is a kind of the latest renovation if you were to call it in sort of 2016 that the promenades edge was sort of redesigned and re-envisioned as a stepped edge towards the water that allows that kind of interaction. Another project very quickly in Bandra, this is the Landzend Amphitheater, if you can see the images on top, kind of a beautiful hillside with an iconic Bandra fort right at the water's edge which was being encroached upon by the neighboring hotel and being captured and used for real estate development. Citizens fought back, reclaimed this space and what emerged was a beautiful cultural center, the only amphitheater or cultural performance space by the water in a city on the water, which is kind of ironic. But also this project was a kind of dual project which obviously created this beautiful institution and cultural setup, but also ensure the restoration and protection of the hill slope along with the fort that exists over there. A major project was the iconic Juhu beach which I mentioned, one of the most largely visited public spaces in the city. And you know, this image that you can see in before the entire central beach was in fact occupied by these stalls and food vendors. And after a long battle in court over many many years, as you can see the central beach was kind of cleared of these encroachments, but these stalls and food owners were not evicted they were not thrown out in fact they were replanned towards one side of the beach. As you can see in a formal food court. So there's a kind of symbiotic relationship that developed here where the city benefited the people did not lose their livelihoods their means of kind of making money. And also what has emerged is this incredible public space that was always there just kind of somehow over the years managed to had managed to kind of disappear from people's side. And our master plan also addressed the access points to the beach across four kilometers of length of the beach. We looked at integration of this natural asset with the with the community also covered a spectrum of activities, both on and off the beach in its immediate surroundings. Also, some of the salient features included proposals to reduce traffic congestion, generate new parking spaces pedestrian crossing and clearing the central beach of encroachments. This is the gate of India precinct which is a very iconic iconic monument, the gateway of India, you know, it's located in South Mumbai, sadly this plaza was a clutter of disparate structures and unplanned activities, with no cohesive design holding them together so at the bottom where sort of, yeah, so this large garden which was just sort of unutilized, and how this project really opened up the entire space for the for the moment. And several other projects that we've engaged with across across the city dealing with these natural assets of wetland and mudflats and how we can very sensitively intervene in the space. So the movement of course there have been several publications that we have developed and published that support this movement, and these are all available. Also, anyone needs to access them on our website. But yeah, these are always byproducts of movement. Yeah, so back to you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. What's interesting for us in this journey of struggles is the learning that urban planning and design provides incredible power for the achievement of the objective of unification of people and nature. It is for this reason that we've been arguing that participation in urban planning and design need to be considered a right. Its popularization and democratization of the same is indeed important. Planning and architecture are an effective democratic tool of social change and instrument for mobilizing collective movements. Cities are not spaces for competition, nor for individual and disparate efforts. To us they are a fantastic opportunity for forging collective and cooperative effort. The participation and engagement of people's organizations in the development of development process truly help develop a city and planning and architecture should integrate with it for enabling social changes and achieving development justice. In conclusion, I would like to sort of very quickly though we've exceeded our time, but I'll just take five more minutes. It is necessary to re envision cities in order to elevate the quality of life and environment that we are subject to networking of people in places that includes the natural areas is an effective democratic means for the achievement of this objective. But for long, our discourses on cities have relied on the understanding of social relationships and how the modes of production have influenced this formation. And what the statement I would like to refer to David Harvey, when he quotes from Karl Marx in his book social justice in the city, the totality of these relationship of these relationship of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which arises a legal and political superstructure, and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The production of material life conditions the general process of social political and intellectual life. I continue with the court in terms of Marxist terminology, the urban and the process of urbanization are simple superstructures of the mode of production. In his main book, Harvey has analyzed social relations, built form and environment, and how each influences the other, but his reference to environment is restricted to built environment and does not include the natural ecosystems. And I quote from Harvey, urbanism may be regarded as a particular form of patterning of social process. It may be regarded as unfolds in a specially structured environment created by man, the city can therefore be regarded as a tangible built environment and environment, which is a social product. On the other hand, picket Kandesso and McGrath in their book, resilience and ecology and urban design, and I'm quoting from them present a wider understanding of the environment, and this is what really we are interested in. In short, a great deal of urban sustainability literature tends to promote the so called Brown agenda of environmentalism, which emphasizes the need to solve immediate needs of the billions of people who live in degraded unsanitary conditions and gruelling poverty. Brown agenda, on the other hand, emphasizes protection and enhancement of ecosystems to support future generations and other species, reconcealing, reconciling green with the brown agenda issues. These are the heart of more encompassing viewpoints on sustainability, recognizing that poverty and environment conservation are inextricably entwined. Through initiatives like the Irlanala project and the reclaiming of the waterfronts and public spaces movements, we aim to bring these natural areas in Mumbai to the forefront to protect them, facilitate the right of way of these streams to function efficiently, including ensuring space for their swell will allow citizens to understand the role they play in the larger ecological system of the city. These nature based solutions in the form of a restored ecosystems are inherently sustainable, much than the gray solutions currently in place, like the concretization that I talked about. The struggle for unification of the broken pieces of urban ecology is a political battle, ultimately, that must be pursued through democratic rights struggle. I believe, and I quote from Amartya Sen and dress public action can play a central role in economic development in bringing social opportunities within the reach of people. What the government ends up doing can be deeply influenced by the pressures that are put up on the governments by the public. At this point I would also like to quote another very favorite author and writer, Henry LeFerber, an urban, and really an urban thinker, a radical urban thinker. In his book, Urban Revolution, and I quote, separation and segregation, break the relationship between people and nature. A constituted totalitarian order, whose strategic goal is to break down concrete totality to break the urban segregation complicates and destroys complexity, which is a necessary sustainable criteria. I end with his quote, but this is very interesting that LeFerber does he for the first time really discusses urban and what is urban. I mean, I'll not now get into the details of that, but that's a point that I leave it for you all to dwell upon and read on the subject, because we very sort of loosely talk about urbanization and urban, where most of our cities are actually experiencing an opposite process of, of segregation, deprivation and underdevelopment through the idea of city building. At a critical level, and I conclude with this few lines, our struggles over the years against the rapidly expanding phenomena of segregation. As I said in the beginning of people and places, and of natural areas, segregation, exclusivity and discrimination against the abuse, misuse and colonization of public resources, and exclusionary city planning. This is for networking and integration for equality, environmental justice, and the democratization of ecology, indeed, of our cities. Thank you. I'll end with these words. Thank you, Kate. Thank you, David. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. What I'm really happy with is to see both very specific kinds of intervention and also to kind of frame it with respect to your larger social political concerns. And that's a, that's really important for us in in our teaching to keep the students in critical political terms as well as thinking in detail and material terms. And that is what we see here. I am going to go. So we have a bunch of questions that are coming in like wildfire right now. Hold on just one sec. And organize my thoughts. We're going to start actually with a question from Ria, who I think we introduced you to earlier who you don't really need introducing to. So, Ria, can you show us yourself and unmute yourself and everyone can turn on their, their cameras if they'd like. And we can have a kind of zoom person relationship for a few minutes. So, Ria is a new student in the urban design program at Columbia, and also worked with PK Das and associates, and think she'd be a good start to asking some questions and then we'll see what happens. Take it away Ria. Hi, sir. Hi, Samad. It's, it's great to meet you here again. It's been, it was great to see all the work that you guys showed again. Thank you for such an insightful presentation. I think my question stems from, you know, about participation, you know, having worked on projects, and I understand the importance. So I think, you know, large scale projects, like citywide network like you mentioned about public spaces that are a supportive, a lot of stakeholders like government. So I think my question is, what were the challenges of the hurdles that came along in this participation and for the successful implementation of the vision. And you know what should be as designers, you know, focus on when we, when we engage. I'll be taking one question at a time, or would you be summarizing some of these questions. I will be summarizing some questions later on but as a bunch or yes I will but you can take Ria's now, please. Samad, would you like to deal with this question. Yeah, sure. Hi Ria. No, I think, like I said, the movements that I have personally been forced to by way of the firm's work, of course, goes back many years even before I formally started engaging with the city as a designer or an architect but I think the one of the most stand out, you know, elements or I would say stand out aspects of this continuous struggle is the fact that you yourself cannot allow yourself to be broken, cannot allow yourself to be let down by every single system in place which is specifically designed to break you. You know these systems are very carefully orchestrated and, you know, planned by those in power, be it city officials, be it, you know, people, politicians who are in power who have been elected into power, and then so called start sort of using their power in many, many different ways. But I think the main idea here is to, you know, ensure that your resolve sort of supersedes that struggle. It's very important. I think we've said it many times in this talk, we cannot understate the importance of dialogue and reaching out to people. I mentioned very briefly that architects and designers and planners are more facilitators than really, you know, holding that sort of big pen over the city and drawing lines on the city. And I think as young designers, it's very important to pay attention to that. There are of course many, many things that tempt you in different ways. There are many streams of design and architecture obviously that are available. It's almost like a market out there, right, every firm, every organization, every individual is marketing themselves, and their approach to the way things are done. But I think it's very important to take a step back and really understand what the people have to say and what ideas they have. You know, very, to just sum it up very shortly, I think that had said a few years back, even in the inception of the Sanstan and the Carter Road projects, even though he was on the ground every day with the people, with the member of parliament, with the police, with the city officials. I don't think there was ever a time when, you know, there was a plan, a physical master plan drawn in the office and taken out to the people, because the act of drawing a plan itself is alienating to most people. We as designers and planners take time to comprehend and understand what a plan is, even though we've been at it for so many years, so can you imagine what that does to kind of ordinary person of the neighborhood. How do you communicate your ideas is a big, big challenge and I think you learn that as you grow, you know, through participation and through your dialogue and interaction. So I think keep active is the only word I can say with my kind of limited experience of dealing with these projects. Well, just to add a line to what Summit said, it's something like a storytelling session. You know you go to communities, you sit with them and you don't really talk about your ideas and plans. You sort of discuss an area and bring up issues, join, you know, then there's a dialogue that is a kind of an interaction, and then the ownership is collective. So at no point we could say that this plan was by P. K. Dawson associates. It was the residents association who took the ownership. But you know, but just in a line to sum up this thing about participation is a very complex political phenomena, and the word has is much cliched. All of us use it, most often very loosely. And I'll give you one example and leave it with that. You know we have many, many instances where upper class communities have moved to law courts, and the courts have considered their voice and opinion as public opinion. And there certainly have been exclusive opinions, and those law courts have been favored those opinions and past judgments. There is often a discrimination, often a screening, often a exclusion of many other voices of people of different classes, casts gender, who somehow are not able to get into participate by the fact of the kind of walls that we build around in these dialogues and in these participatory processes. It's a very complex phenomena I can, I mean it can form a subject of another long discussion. So I'll not get into that but leave it with this point of view to think how truly participation can be all inclusive and democratic. It requires a lot of patience, a lot of perseverance and tenacity. And for a professional who's trained in physical planning and design, we often very seldom find these qualities. There's a huge deficit of these three qualities that I talked about. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, I'm going to ask a question and then we'll come back to you for another question. Several of the participants in today's lecture are asking about conflicts of ownership and land rights and wealth with respect to, let's say, along the waterways, the new laws. And so when you talk about the neglected backyards along and then there's these proposals we see to renovate them and to make them more public. How is that process actually managed because it seems like there's a drastic change in the way in which the so-called neglected backyards are made into sort of public backyards in some way. So some of the students and other listeners are seeing a kind of tension there. I wonder if you can clarify that. Well, that's a tough question in terms of the time that we have and the scope of our discussion. But yes, these are very important questions, though, that we have to deal with. Well, you know, I'll give you just another example of movements that I'm also involved with is the housing rights movements of the slum dwellers and the working class communities in the city of Mumbai. Often these people in most many parts of the world are evicted from city centers or from prominent areas into the fringes. And, and these people are then gradually excluded from the so-called development programs, just by the fact of their physical displacement. And these displacements are very important for us to understand. For instance, what we talked about is not just displacement of people, but displacement also of the natural areas and natural conditions, both of which are important to be addressed. Incredible coastlines as we talked about the natural areas and assets that we talked about like mangroves consider often as bushes and destroyed by land sharks and our governments equally to create more land for real estate. So one of the things really we are talking about is inclusiveness is a plan that accommodates all existing realities. It's not a master plan that clinically separates work and living and industry and housing and commercial establishments and so on so forth. But looking at it from a different lens that we are talking about brownfield projects we're talking about existing cities. Can we recognize and accept that the beginning of a plan is the existing realities and how do we accommodate them in the plan. How do we regenerate, how do we renovate, how do we conserve, then displace, then launching mega schemes and mega projects that essentially displaces. I think these are some of these larger questions I'm raising to answer your question and leave them as questions for further discussion subsequently. I'm at any time hesitant to give a finite, conclusive answer. For the reason that I experienced that through our physical projects of public spaces renovation or reclamation is that when you do a project very finely detailed, very finely finished, as we architects love to do to the last detail, then we leave no scope for change and innovation through participation by the people that a space must keep evolving that a place must keep moving and evolving. And this dynamic process must be recognized by physical planners and architects and consciously dealt with by not dealing with all details. But leaving them for future and further detailing through dialogues and discourses. So often, a lot of my these projects that we talked about will seldom be photographed for architectural details or design details. For we have also learned, parallely through our experiences that when such efforts have been made by physical planners that the place has alienated people from being involved and engaged. It's either wow so good or so terrible. I mean, even a terrible thing is accepted when it's evolved out of a collective process is my experience. I think I'll leave this whole question of the neglected much abused fringe backyards of the city as I keep referring to them, which could also be places right in the heart of the city. I mean, just physically fringes. I mean the act of exclusion of people and places is does constitute a significant political thinking and commitment. So we must work in these fringes to begin with, and not work towards beautification of already well done places. Okay, interesting. Okay, Ria, did you want to ask a second question. Ria, we didn't plant you there. No, no, I did. Columbia University. Sorry, go ahead. Maybe I did plan it, maybe I did plan it. Yeah, so in terms of land use transportation, and you know hard and soft infrastructure you know all these elements play an important complex role in urban design so in recent years, what we call existing conditions. They kind of include global climate emergency and you know massive public health trauma so I think my question is, how does that, how does your recent work in introduce these conditions while engaging with public or private clients who may have different goals in mind. So how is the existing and the conditions vary. So one part of the question and maybe someone can deal with the other part of the question. Yes, to my mind. One of the biggest enemies, if I may call it, or issues that we have to deal with is colonization of public assets for private benefit, or the word privatization through neoliberal globalization. So that is really daunting us. It's kind of taking away from under our feet our ground. It's kind of proper rising the state, the people and places of these rich assets that we have as in the public domain. So we have to work. We have to address these issues through our work. We do not fall prey to big monies coming in to do. If I may use the word really, you know, what shall I say, turned on public spaces with glamour and extra for Genza. You know, we're, like, send, finish. You're breaking up a little bit for us. Yeah, right. I think these things are built into the plans ideas about redevelopment and automation. That's the political question that I wanted to just sort of deal with an answer as part of your question and the other part, maybe someone can take on. Quickly. I mean, I think most of the points are covered with that response. But you know, I did read some of the questions that have come in. Also, there's this idea, which is sort of piggybacking to your question, which is, even in a very so called participative and democratic public meeting. You generally do tend to have, you know, well known figures or celebrities or personalities who kind of come there and some somehow you start seeing that, you know, they start leading those discussions and diverting them into into places that they need them to go. But I think that's he's already answered it. I think it's important to take a step back. It's important to not always have that definitive answer to every question that anyone throws. And I think it's, it's as as designers or planners or architects I think it's important for us to also navigate through some of that and take time to process it and then maybe choose to respond or not respond at all to some of those things. So definitely there are multiple agendas, so to speak, that are being driven by various various different, you know, people and agencies and sort of actors out there. But I think it's important for us to keep the overall vision in mind and really pick very selectively and drive the project in a direction that you that you envision. Certainly roadblocks, but I think also navigating and sort of dealing with them is a part of that dialogue process and how we learn to do that is something that we have to develop and consciously keep evolving in dealing with those situations. This is the last part of the answer to you and which is to everybody is, which I talked about in the, in the presentation is that, you know, every individual effort must be linked to larger democratic struggles and intersectoral struggles. And that's how we then sort of survive and succeed to the next level of the democratization of our ecology and the cities. Okay. I have another question put together from a few that may be slightly more technical but also kind of methodological and material. There's some interest in the idea of who owns some of the properties, whether there's their own publicly where their own privately or some other arrangement. And secondly, in this idea of created interconnected waterways and interconnected system that you said was quite long for the for the for the large scale stream. Mila. So, how do you deal with things upstream versus downstream, since you're not in charge of all of it. And, and how can you plan around the, the kind of the full scale of the idea of interconnected waterways, when in fact you are dealing with just pieces of it. Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a very, very valid question. Important question. No, we've not succeeded. Let me confess, we've not succeeded from those points of view through our journey. Hopefully it would be an achievement at some point of time, when many groups upstream downstream midstream all come together and simultaneously address and join hands. But there are therefore these interim problems that we have to deal with, you may call them as compromises you may call them as weaknesses of the project, but I have always believed that somewhere we need to intervene and demonstrate change. What is important is to be the ability in us as physical planners and designers is to translate a lot of these political and social and environmental ideas into tangible projects on the ground, and to be able to demonstrate change in these tangible projects are very, very significant and important to the movement for it further strengthens the movement. And, and it's been true with many of our projects and movements in Mumbai. When governments wouldn't look at these works when we started in fact the opposed them, they won't give us sanctions, but by the sheer determination of the local area people that these were implemented and then approved, and then recognized by the government. So it's been the opposite process. So if you wait forever for permission you may not get it, but it's just the strength of the movement that sort of ensures that we implemented. The form of implementation may not be a complete one. And I talked about the difference between completing a project and not completing not being able to complete a project and how dynamic that process, it reflects the dynamics of it. So any any individual project reflects the dynamics of the larger issue, and the larger process. I think these kinds of questions and issues that we keep confronting enriches the struggles. And those are the important lessons David, I will not be able to give you a very specific answer. What of course was hinted as an answer was through the open Mumbai exhibition. Another which is just about four to five kilometers long is not what we are just talking about as a finished product that can be packaged and marketed in the city. And we brought to notice that Ilanala four kilometers is a part of the 300 kilometers of the water courses, which were originally the water courses of this jewelry, and they have to be the invigorated. If we have to prevent floods. If we have to check climate change effects catastrophic impacts, which is no more abstract which are no more ideas of professionals and scientists and forecasts. There are experiences that people are bitterly experiencing in every city of the world today. Manhattan did that Mumbai face that flood cyclone an increasing cycle of floods and cyclones, and that's is inevitable. So, I think those parts are important, as long as the parts can relate to the larger idea. And just to just to quickly answer to the ownership aspect of, you know, these spaces, most often than not. Most of these spaces are under the jurisdiction of the city. And most often they've been ignored and neglected and most often they've been encroached upon and colonized by those who are in power. I think it's also very important to understand that the city needs to take ownership of its spaces and through movements like this and through certain tangible projects that we have showcased. I think it keeps the city in check in many ways it shows and holds them accountable for some of these spaces and ensures that sort of accountability. I think the product of the very real product of our success emerging from the open Mumbai exhibition which was mentioned in the talk is the fact that the new development plan of the city which was being drafted, you know, over the last six or seven years, the open Mumbai exhibition has in a very direct way impacted that development plan into say that all the natural areas and not just the natural areas there recognized buffer areas are now formally incorporated within the development plan of the city which happened for the first time in the history of the city. So till today there was no line on a map that anyone could use to fight for or argue about its ownership or its land use or its use. But today, because it's on that plan, at least it gives you one, you know, one foot through the door in saying that here is that right that we need to fight for. And it certainly holds those in power responsible so I think those are the two points I want to mention. And just some of your question by an answer is that the governments can be abdicating their responsibility. We firmly believe that democratically elected governments have a responsibility, and they must take that responsibility. Participants must put adequate pressures on our governments to take that responsibility through such struggles and movements and not hand it over to a private agency. I think that is also a part, a significant aspect of the struggle and the projects that we talked about. That makes me think one more kind of it's quasi technical but it's also political as you as you're describing it, which is that in the in the in the situation where water and greenery and streets kind of come together. Where you draw a line a political line an ownership line or jurisdiction, just jurisdiction align becomes extremely important because it requires different participants, different kinds of inputs. And so, one thing we talk about in our studios is is actually how to blur certain lines between different types of water between different types of of inhabitation between different types of movement of water, or movement of people so I'm wondering how at the scale you're working on I cannot possibly imagine how many kind of lines you come across, but I think we're interested these days in in how urban designers can kind of actually blur the given boundaries. As well as recognize as you put it PK that that governments act in certain ways and and we depend upon them to act in certain ways, but the boundaries themselves. I'm kind of chart their their actions as well. Absolutely. I completely agree with you. We have to make an effort to blurring these lines. Absolutely. We can also influence our governments to bring about legislative changes. That's again very important that the laws are amended to support some of these ideas that are evolving on the ground. Hi Geeta, seeing you after a long time. I have one more question we have time for one maybe two more. Rio, would you like to ask one or are you done. I think it's been, I think it's been answered mostly so yeah. Okay. Geeta, I'm all in favor of picking on people and and Samarth NPK have called you out. You're muted. You are muted. First of all, I want to thank you for the wonderful wonderful lecture. So very proud of Samarth, particularly. Thank you, Geeta. Thank you. So my big question is that I know PK that you have worked in the Ravi you worked with the slum dwellers with the you know people in informal settlements. My big question was that in all the pictures you showed people look very well dressed and rather wealthy, if I may say so. So what happened to the slum dwellers and sidewalk dwellers in all these areas that were displaced. What was the plan for that. Maybe the pictures were not rightly selected. Geeta the experience in Bandra Bandstand and Carter road in particular has been very very interesting from the point of view of the question that you're raising. You know, these are all unbarricaded public spaces. There is no big compound wall with gates and security that restricts or screens people entering these places. You have these incredible, you know, opportunity and space in these promenades where the neighboring fishing villages, villagers, men women children, get to the promenade and use it as their, their open space, as their neighborhood open space, because they all live in very very congested villages and neighborhoods. You have street children up there in these promenades. There are some wonderful pictures we have because someone really didn't go through some of those projects in detail. But was touching upon some few ideas that we wanted to dwell upon. You have a very important question that you read the first question that citizens in most areas, most citizens in most areas are raised and are concerned about is how to regulate access. There is constantly a fight by me and our groups to overcome that to be able to successfully not have those barricades, but to leave them open. And we've experienced in Bandra Bandstand Carter road that having left them open. It has not led to any big misuse and degeneration. In fact, it's the other way that it's, it's helped evolve a better relationship. But that's a big struggle, Geetha, this struggle to be able to successfully integrate is a tall order. Not all struggles, including the ones that we illustrated and talked about have been successful, let me admit, successful entirely, if I may say so. Certainly we have succeeded a step forward. And I think what we need to judge is that step that we've taken forward and how we can move further from there. There are serious questions of obstacles and hurdles and restrictions that not just city authorities, even classes of people who want to impose on the city. There is constant barriers and barricades that do come up, dividing our cities forever. Our cities stand divided as I said in my talk. How do we dismantle these barriers that's on the banner slide of our talk dismantling these barriers and networking and integrating people and places is a challenge for all of us. We're going to find an answer at this point of time and that's precisely the political struggle that I talked about or the democratic struggle that I talked about. And but for me as a physical planner and designer. These projects through the regeneration and reclamation have been incredible means for that build up to strengthen the democratic process to reopen questions that have otherwise been shot to reopen doors that has been shot on our faces that there is no dialogue that there is no storytelling. We will give you what you require a finished product by appointment of a professional architect planner through a formal tendering process. And what they design with us as governments and decision makers is the final product. They challenge those ideas. I was dwelling upon largely on some of those lessons and processes. Thank you so much PK I would just like the listeners to also just know that the areas you're working in johu and bandra are amongst the most elite areas in Mumbai. We have that 6% you know the 60% of Mumbai's population lives in 6% of the land. Right. So those are the slum dwellers and pavement dwellers so my, you know, the idea is that when such a great project like you showed, can they be a parallel project that people who were living there. They have space to go and housing is then their right to housing you quoted Lefavre, you know, the right to the city. Where is their right to housing, for example, point. Because I'm afraid that you've taken us to a different subject and I don't think. Let me let me let me let me just complete my answer to your question. You are partly wrong in your assumption, Mumbai is a very interesting city probably the only city. I can think of in the world where very rich and the very poor share compound walls and intermingle physically across the length and the breadth of the city. It's like Delhi, for example, where the poor have been evicted to Transemona areas. So that's a factual correction, even though Bandra and johu refer to you as upper class areas have an equal number or more numbers of poor people living in these areas. Actually, it's wrong. Mumbai is an incredible city from that point of view, and this has happened not because of some enlightened governments here. It's happened because of the long history of the struggles of the poor and the working class and the slum dwellers for their rights, through which a law has been possible that they cannot be evicted unless rehabilitated. In fact, in situ rehabilitation has come to being the reality in a city like Mumbai. So that's just a factual correction of what you talked about. On the other hand, yes, I have experienced we have worked on rehabilitation projects, we've addressed questions of shared spaces. I'm not calling them public spaces within redevelopment areas of the settlements of the poor and the working class, maybe one of the largest rehabilitation projects in Asia. At a single site has been executed by Nivara Huck, a slum dwellers housing rights movement, of which I'm a member, active member, and as an architect I've contributed to the movement in the resettlement of that area. And there's been very interesting experiences of what we call are the shared spaces of that and not housing merely as a product of units of houses, as it's doled out to the poor everywhere in the world. I'm not diverting. I would like to stop answering your question at this point of time, because that's another debate, and we can talk about it. Yeah, no, no, thank you very much. And, you know, I think it's really important that you're working towards somehow an alternative to the city, yes, it's very mixed but it is increasingly becoming segregated so we all have to push against that. I think urban designers have a big role which you have highlighted today so thank you very much. And you and I can continue our discussion. Yeah, sure. I just have to say that we do feel pity for the poor. We fight for the rights of the poor. Yeah, yeah. I think that that discussion, the kind of effects of urbanization is a global question, and absolutely the made worse or made actually catastrophic by climate change and COVID. So in fact, these are old arguments but given incredibly sad new life in our current situation. As some I think you mentioned it's or somebody mentioned it's like 112 in Portland, Oregon today so it's now it's a problem because it's happening to the United States. I didn't mean to say that. Sorry. We talked about the quote from McRib from their book, which really talked about this duality of the it's not poor versus the environment. It's the poor with and the environment that have to be addressed together. Yes, yes, and it's, it's because climate change is not affecting just the rich or the poor. I think that is, you know, sort of established through the impact of climate change or the global warming or the sea level rise. So even I think our struggles for the rights of the poor must address issues of ecology and environment. I think that we have to give the students a break before they start their discussions. I think it's been a real insightful lecture covering both the details and the kind of umbrellas, if you will that that take up what we do and what we want students to see they're headed into. So, on behalf of the program, thank you so much. And the questions that have been asked will be circulated to our student discussion groups which are taking place the rest of today. And I think it's been a terrific exploration of so many of the key issues, urban design and sort of technical material terms about political and social terms as well. So I just want to thank you, Samarth and PK, and hope to see you very much zoom with you sooner or later. Thank you all. Thank you all. All the best to you, Ria. David, David, you mentioned you mentioned students need to take a break. Did we ever get a break? I don't remember. The break is a myth. It's a new accommodation. No, I'm just, I'm just kidding. All right, don't worry, we torture them otherwise. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.