UF's first venture in India focuses on sustainable architecture

March 13, 2007

When Matt Demers stepped off the plane in India, he immediately knew he was in a place unlike anywhere he had ever seen.

“The first five minutes you are there, you know that this is a completely different place,” said Demers, a University of Florida graduate student in architecture. “It is an intense and multifaceted existence that carries through all aspects of life in India, even architecture.”

Last fall, Demers and seven other students took part in “The Vertical Studio, India,” UF’s first international program offered in India. The semesterlong studio focused on creating sustainable architecture and urban design in Pune. The program was so successful it is being continued this semester in the city of Mumbai.

The program is overseen by Shivjit Sidhu, an assistant professor of architecture in the College of Design, Construction and Planning.

“We are happy and excited the first studio was such a success,” Sidhu said. “We are looking forward to working with other cities in India during future semesters and helping them transition into more socially and environmentally sensitive patterns of development as they cope with the unprecedented growth in their cities.”

Incorporating the historical, cultural, physical and conceptual contexts of the Indian subcontinent, the studio gave undergraduate and graduate students a chance to study and practice contemporary architecture with a global perspective. Pune, like many other Indian cities, is experiencing the pressures of extreme growth from economic expansion and is in need of sustainable urban design guidelines. Students worked closely with professional Indian development and architecture firms to help design master plans for the cities’ future growth.

“The entire project has been designed to take advantage of the latest sustainable technology while incorporating the social patterns of traditional Indian families,” said Matthew Hill, a participant of both the fall and spring studios.

A major issue Demers noticed in Pune was the desire to move from dense and traditional Indian marketplaces to a more Western approach, such as shopping malls. According to Demers, these major convention centers and shopping malls currently are popular in India but are not blending with the more traditional and cultural Indian cityscape.

“Giant shopping malls are placed right in the middle of what was a very dense, private neighborhood. The scale of the new development works in a completely different way and destroys the social fabric of the city,” Demers said.

According to Sidhu, without proper urban planning and design, the cities will evolve rapidly with short-term considerations that may lead to catastrophic effects on human, social and economic development.

“The work of our students and professional partners culminates in the design of a new satellite district for Mumbai that will create a technology hub for 100,000 people with housing, institutional and recreation facilities,” Sidhu said.