The Urban Design Program at Columbia GSAPP is investigating climate response at multiple scales and collaborating with partners in institutions around the world and within the University from science & engineering, journalism, conflict resolution, economics and social justice. We aim to marshal the observations of the world’s best scientists and the agency of design toward action and defined, replicable climate adaptation projects in the world’s most vulnerable regions. We bring synthetic design thinking to this process and a stance of activism and engagement and believe that by building physical, resilient places we engage and educate communities about the risks they face. Kolkata, India is a coastal global megacity experiencing the effects of climate change with millions of lives and livelihoods at risk from inundation, increased rainfall, groundwater extraction, water quality, and rising temperatures. How we live with - and design for- water will be a central, defining element of the next century relative to climate change and urbanism.

Water is constantly in motion, changing states, crossing borders, nourishing (and destroying) life. How can water and urbanism be considered together as a generative frame for urban design practice, social life, and ecological regeneration? The spring semester 2017 design studio investigated urbanization challenges in two regions with robust ecological contexts, intense migration, resource conflicts, and urban growth trajectories: Amman and the Lower Jordan River Valley, and Kolkata, India and the Sundarbans tidal mangrove forest. In both cases, the studio explored the dynamics of climate adaptation relative to migration and climate change, alongside the generation of new social infrastructure, public space and urban design in an expanded rural-urban context. The seven projects represented in this volume operate at multiple scales, linking territorial independencies, to operational landscapes, to pilot sites of detailed investigation for design exploration and on-the ground change.

Columbia UD Faculty: Kate Orff (studio coordinator), Nora Akawi, Dilip DaCunha, Ziad Jamaleddine, Petra Kempf, Laura Kurgan, Geeta Mehta, Julia Watson

Special thanks to Prof. Joy Sen Professor and Head, Ranbir and Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure Design and Management and team, IIT Kharagpur.

Water and Social Equity in Kolkata

Geeta Mehta

Kolkata is a water rich city. However, the scarcity of potable water for its poor, and life threatening seawater rise and storm surges for those who live along the waterways and coastal areas, make water the best lens for understanding and addressing the social inequities of this region.

While life expectancy in India rose from 41 to 68 years between the years 1960 - 2015, it has actually fallen for people below the poverty line ($1.90/day) who account for 21% of India’s population.¹ While the rich in India are beginning to enjoy the fruits of rapid economic development and first world luxuries, the falling life expectancy for the poor is due to inadequate health care and basic infrastructure such as clean drinking water and sanitation. Even as the income inequity in India is growing and a cause for alarm, inequity in access to clean drinking water and clean air is absolutely unacceptable, and correcting that should be among the highest priorities for the government, academia, industry and community stake holders.

Water inequity affects the poor in Kolkata in two ways. While piped water of reasonable quality reaches the wealthier neighborhoods, poorer neighborhoods often get just a few hours of water on public taps, and rely on water tankers that charge heavily for providing additional water. Secondly, most poor neighborhoods are situated in flood prone areas in the city. This geographical inequity in Kolkata has been increasing due to lack of understanding and respect for the historic network of creeks and “pukur” tanks that drained neighborhoods while also holding water for use in urban agriculture and fishing. Development pressures have resulted in filling up of these water bodies, while the social system that helped maintain these community assets has disintegrated in the face of the government claiming ownership of this task and subsequent disenfranchising of the poor people who lived around these water bodies. Water spaces were also the social spaces for these neighborhoods. The loss of these is resulting in the depletion of social capital that held communities together. However, since there is no system at present to measure and value social capital, the government does not take this into account in its decisions. ²

Poor people living along the Hooghly River or the coast face increasing threats from seawater rise and storm surges, but do not have an option to move elsewhere as most new developments built or subsidized by the government are for the middle and high-income people, even as the unfulfilled demand for ultra low income rental housing hovers around 90%. With alarming vacancy rates since its building, Kolkata New Town, built as a dream city for the middle income people, is a good example of such misallocation for public funds which are driven to generate large profits for the builders and governments, rather than to address social needs and build social capital. New migrants into Kolkata have no social support except from what they can get from friends and family. Those that arrive without such support with the intention of earning a living for themselves as well as their families they leave behind in rural areas often end up sleeping on the sidewalks or railway stations. In the words of development economists Amartya Sen and Jean Drez such social inequity “keeps a majority of Indians shackled to their deprived lives in a way quite rarely seen in other self-respecting countries that are trying to move ahead in the world.” ³ What difference does it make, the authors ask, to lift millions above some notional poverty line if they still lack the basics of a decent life?

The fact that East Kolkata Wetlands have been shrinking despite being declared a RAMSAR site is evidence that the government has become a monetizer of land instead of protector of the social and ecological justice. Shrinking of the wetlands will also result in intergenerational inequity. While the government in Kolkata has promised to build new sewage treatment plants to deal with the growing population, future generations will not have the Wetlands as the green lungs of the city while also treating sewage, producing 80% of the city’s vegetables and 50% of its fish. Long-term detriment to the sustainability of the Wetlands will far outweigh the short-term profit to the developers and builders who are being allowed development rights over this precious asset of the city.

Nothing speaks louder for the extreme social inequity than bottled water use in Kolkata. Heavy advertising touts the purity of bottled water compared to contaminated tap water, resulting in skyrocketing increase in its use.⁴ However, the use of bottled water by wealthier people takes that influential group away from demanding that tap water be uncontaminated and healthy for every one. In addition, the clogging of waterways and dumpsites, and burning of used water bottles at recycling villages by scavengers to retrieve plastic damages the health of the poor, reducing their chances of climbing out of poverty.

According to Charles Fishman, diarrhea caused by tainted water shaves off 2% of India’s GDP, about $20 billion every year,⁵ while the need to constantly fetch water from tankers or from sometimes putrid wells assures that a good portion of the population, particularly India’s women, will remain uneducated and often illiterate. Water poverty is, quite literally, de-civilizing.

So what is the solution? It is to demand from, and enable the government to look at development through the lens of water. All stake holders, and the academia has a role to play in this. Tap water for all must be adequate and healthy. Money is not a problem in India, political priorities are. Clean water should be added to the Swatch Bharat (clean India) campaign being promoted by Prime Minister Modi. Building developers in India make 200 - 400% profit on the housing they build for middle and high-income people. This is in multiples of such profit in any other country because the Indian government does not demand any infrastructure of social good in return for giving away development rights over public land or rezoning farmland. Every new for-profit development could be coupled with an informal or coastal settlement of poor people, to be improved before work begins on the for-profit development. Such improvements should include water supply and sanitation infrastructure, affordable housing and public spaces. Affordable micro housing should also be mandated in new housing developments, so the city does not get fragmented among the rich and the poor, who in fact depend upon each other. The social capital this will help save, and generate, can in fact be measured in lives saved in coastal areas every monsoon season, decrease in disease, and well being of the citizens the current political system does not adequately serve, and on whose back the current economic boom is riding.

Map Action

Laura Kurgan, Grga Basic

A series of mapping workshops was interspersed and linked to the studio pedagogy throughout the semester. Maps are not neutral objects, they hold political and social data and formulate arguments by layering diverse types of information onto one image. Maps can visualize the invisible by helping a user to navigate toward unexplored landscapes and places; but maps can also normalize a speculative project because in the end most people think that maps are true. There are many shades of grey between these two positions – invisibility and speculation.

Deeply aware of how mapping builds arguments and makes claims, the work we asked students to do, actively experimented with these extremes with specific relevance to Water Urbanism.

mon·u·ment: /ˈmänyəmənt/ (noun): A statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a famous or notable person or event.

The project’s vision is to redefine and reappropriate the notion of monumentality in post-colonial Kolkata. It seeks to establish a reciprocity between the past and the future, across the central highlands and the peripheral lowlands, activating cultural capital against current hegemonic injustices. Re[de]fining Monumentality establishes a levelling within traditional architectural/urban understandings, to allow for empowerment that syngerzies historic preservation and ecological conservation.

What is the paradigm of monumentality in Kolkata?

Within the floodsafe highlands of the city, monuments commemorate a singular history: the British colonial rule. Dispersed around the central core, their pristine neoclassical aesthetics stand out amongst the contextual urban grit and hyperdensity of Kolkata. These occupy privileged grounds and remain as manicured areas that are contextually unadaptable and consistently underutilized.

In contrast, the designation of the peripheral low grounds, East Kolkata Wetlands as a RAMSAR site of international importance, presents a monumental landscape of infrastructural productivity. Its generative ecology treats excess sewage from the city and simultaneously acts as flood defense, world-renowned as a pioneering system. Yet, its conservation faces serious threats from urban encroachment.

Together, the dialectic between the high/low lands and the urban center/edge dynamic produces an uneven post-colonial cultural landscape rooted in physical topography.

Problem Statement

Kolkata 2050 faces acute challenges of sea level rise and erratic rainfall. If unprotected, the continually shrinking East Kolkata Wetlands will be compounded by a population boom causing severe flood hazards.

mon·u·ment /ˈmänyəmənt/ (noun): A performative marker within a resilient landscape.

Our two-pronged design intervention seeks to establish reciprocity within the colonial center monuments whilst monumentalizing the edge wetlands for the future resiliency of Kolkata 2050. By redefining the notion of monumentality through a system of strategic co-location, the monument now represents both a productive and valued form of resiliency.

Techniques of cut and fill are implemented at a site scale to enhance resiliency and flood drainage, whilst hard edges such as boundary fences have been replaced with porous, soft landscape strategies. Together, they allow the colonial monument highlands to be optimally accessed during various temporalities:

1. DAILY: recreational maidan + transport hub
With an expanded 10 m street access and a retrofitted bus depot for central Kolkata that accomodates up to 140 buses, traffic circulation has been engineered for optimal efficiency to prioritize access.

2. FESTIVITY: community gatherings + informal economies
Elevated platform with dedicated space for pop-up street stalls, interspersed with micro-event stages and social gathering seating areas.

3. EMERGENCY: place of refuge during floods
Provision of temporary shelter with single-family relief tents, accompanied with a full range of facilities that include sanitation, food distribution, communication tower, meeting point, medical aid services.

Despite being designated as a RAMSAR site of international importance, the East Kolkata Wetlands have consistently and increasingly faced serious threats from real estate pressures. To resist this, the project draws upon the cultural capital and valued traditions associated with Monumentality, in order to diametrically oppose the capitalistic quantification of land.

The Durga Puja is an annual ten-day Hindu festival celebrating the victory of Good over Evil, a harvest festival worshipping goddess Durga as the motherly power behind all of life and creation. It is observed in the Hindu calendar of Ashvin, typically September or October of the Gregorian calendar. Integral to the West Bengalese identity, the multi-day festival showcases elaborate handcrafted temporary temple and stage decor pandals, along with street parties, performance arts, revelry and processions. On the last day, Vijaya Dasami, Durga Puja idols are ceremoniously marched to the sacred river Hooghly of the Ganges for a holy immersion ritual.

Zooming in, each site features a permeable edge strategy that allows for water to infiltrate and expand beyond each demarcated pond. The new peripheries act as fissures that function as flood remediatory systems through drainage and inundation.

1. DAILY: agricultural cropspace
Each site has a specific crop space corresponding to one of the 9 Durga Puja plant species, complemented by irrigation channels that total up to an area of 11,054 m2. Community spaces act as programamtic anchor, in the form of a 1,500-capacity amphitheatre for social gatherings.

2. FESTIVITY: community gatherings + informal economies
Post-harvest seasonality leaves behind empty agricultural land that can be temporarily converted to accomodate pedestrian, crowd, economic, and vehicular spillover and capacity expansion.

3. EMERGENCY: inundation and flood defense for Kolkata
Detention ponds with a total capacity of 8,102 m2 minimize damages to surrounding living areas as well as the city, holding overflow water.

Teesta dam

In the Teesta Dam area we are proposing a diffuse infrastructure of bamboo platforms aggregated according to a terraced scheme on the Himalayan mountains in order to give people new space for irrigation, rain-water harvesting and also to stop landslides.

Farakka Barrage

In the Farakka Barrage our design creates a rhizome of urban aggregation on the edge of the long barrage between India and Bangladesh with new fishing opportunities. Our system of possibilities hacks the infrastructure to envision future scenarios for free-flowing rivers. Education and health need are guaranteed thanks to a system of floating services. Concerning the ecology our intervention hacks the barrage to propose a wetland on the edge of the river to let the hilsa fish continue its migrating route up North on the Gangetic plain.

Howrah Bridge

In Kolkata Flower Market, the population density and the continuous movement of coolies and flower sellers inspired us to create a floating extension of the flower market on the Hooghly. This is connected with resting/selling units and pedestrian pathways to the Howrah Bridge. The design vision for this site is to create an epicenter of social infrastructure, to support and enhance the peculiarities of the flower market.

Sundarban Bund

In Sundarban we are proposing a new village paradigm that can face sea level rise and keep the local products on site thanks to floating farms. Services, such as education and health, become floating infrastructure that can serve multiple villages. Locals can use bricks and bamboo to build a bio-unit which can trap siltation and become emerging land where biodiversity can find suitable

Consumption of plastic bottles in Kolkata continues to increase rapidly with an estimated growth rate of 10.9% from 2010 to 2015, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Reliance on plastic bottles has increased due to fear of water contamination and health impacts.

After consumption, all of Kolkata’s municipal solid waste is collected in trucks and hauled to the Dhapa dump site in the East Kolkata Wetlands, around 4,000 megatons per day. There is no source separation of waste. However, 10% of Kolkata’s waste is still recycled thanks to the presence of “trash diggers” who separate out the recyclables by hand and transport them to recycling villages on the outskirts of the city. Spending their days scavenging through the Dhapa in bare feet alongside bulldozers and wild dogs inhaling particulates and toxic fumes of burning refuse, it is not surprising that most trash diggers die before the age of fifty. At the recycling villages, no masks are to be found, but the stench of burning plastic permeates the atmosphere while young children run around playing. Plastic is separated out into its constituent types, melted down, cut into chunks, and then resold to plastic manufacturing companies to be made into things like toys and electrical wire coating.

Much waste never even makes it to the Dhapa. Instead, it ends up in the waterways. The open canals of the city transmit 750 Million Liters of sewage waste from underground sewers all the way to the waste-fed fish ponds in the wetlands where an amazing process of natural bioremediation both treats the water and provides fish and vegetables for the city. Beyond the wetlands, both solid waste and sewage water make their way into the Kulti River, through the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest, and finally into the Bay of Bengal where a giant plastic gyre awaits. A recent study conservatively estimated that 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing a total of 268,940 tons are currently floating in the world’s oceans impacting local economies and ecosystems (worldwatch.org).

Needless to say, there are an incredible number of hidden social and environmental costs not accounted for by the petroleum and plastic industries, and that needs to change. We have calculated that the lifecycle cost of a plastic bottle now selling for Rs. 20 is Rs. 90. This extra Rs.70 should be absorbed by the refineries and manufacturing companies and should be put towards a new waste system for Kolkata.

1. Rising waters causing land loss

A World Bank report has expressed alarm over rising sea level in the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. Part of the world’s largest delta formed by the rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna, the Sundarbans is also the world’s largest estuarine forest. Seas are rising more than twice as fast as the global average here in the Sundarbans(an estimated 3 to 8 mm rise per year). Comprising of about 200 islands in the Bay of Bengal and home to millions, it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Recent satellite analysis by the Indian Space Research Organisation shows that 3.71% of the mangrove and other forests in the area have disappeared along with significant amount of landmass to erosion in the past decade. The mangrove forest in West Bengal, which is contiguous with the Bangladesh Sundarbans, is an immensely fragile ecosystem and climate-change is one of the biggest threats to its existence.

2. Rising Population causing congestion

India has a population of 1.3 billion people and is projected to surpass China by 2030 by the UN. Larger cities like Kolkata are experiencing increasing urbanisation with climbing population densities. Besides the strain on urban living and infrastructure, cities in particular are becoming places of frequent and large mass gatherings. Local events generate massive congestion in walled temple complexes in the event of a festival. Extreme crowding is a major factor that makes the spiritual experience of approaching and participating in the related ceremonies, particularly during festivals an entirely unpleasant one. Some environments are so congested that the risk of a disaster is ever present.

3. The Ganges Paradox

River Ganga, ‘the holiest of India’s rivers is also its most polluted’. Presently, the river is filled with garbage; dead bodies, both animal and human; hazardous chemicals like DDT and PCBs; and fecal coliforms in concentrations much higher than the safe level. The pollution is the cause of numerous health problems, including skin rashes, infections, parasitic diseases, birth defects, and cancer, for the millions of people who participate in rituals involving river water, rituals that are central to their religion. It is believed that the sacredness of the river makes it immune to the threats of overuse, contamination, and environmental degradation. This – the Ganges paradox as it is known – is one of the major obstacles to development.

1. Pilgrims as active infrastructure

As the pilgrim route from Kolkata is considered holy by millions, we propose introducing an agenda to enhance vetiver & miscanthus cultivation along the River Hooghly(in the city) and mangrove cultivation around Sagar Island by hacking rituals using pilgrims as infrastructure. We believe that this initiative will lay the ground for a resilient ‘Gangasagar Mela City of the future’, one that is adaptable to the ever ­increasing pilgrim population.

2. Plug-ins: Engineering water and reclaiming public space

At Dakshineshwar and Belur Math, we are proposing to redesign the riverfront edge and the existing ghats to allow for public spaces and amenities engineered to treat the polluted water. The water is filtered along the edge by plugging in elements like floating pools, plazas and solid waste collecting systems to the existing physical infrastructures such as the Ghats and boardwalks. These plug-in elements are temporary by nature and deployed in accordance with seasons and festivals that attract large populations.

3. Multi-layering flood protection strategy at Sagar Island

We propose a multi layered defense strategy along the island’s edge that would not only aid to protect both the tourist and local population but also essentially becomes a carrier of infrastructure itself. For this, we utilize a combination of nature based solutions such as mangroves afforestation, breakwater systems doubling as energy generators, backwaters and man-made solutions such as elevated walkways (also called ‘bunds’). These defenses are tailored to anchor a floating infrastructure of amenities for pilgrims coming to Sagar Island by house-boats.

Kolkata is located in the delta of the river Ganga. Two systems of water appear to be at work here: a system of flows that comprise rivers and creeks, but also pipes, canals and drains; and a system of holding that comprise wetlands, lakes and pukurs, which are pond-like structures, many of them dug for harvesting rain and clay for construction. Five thousand pukurs have been counted in Kolkata and its twin city Howrah, many of them lying dry, underutilized and under increasing threat of encroachment. Their overflows during rains have proved to be a cause for floods as their link to one another and to the rivers that carry their excess water to the sea has been cut off by unplanned urbanization.

Flowing Rains / Holding Rivers seeks to re-integrate the two systems and in the process, remediate their waters and rejuvenate their adjacencies. It links pukurs with one another in a system of overflows that culminate in the River Hooghly, which runs between Kolkata and Howrah; and it holds back the waters of this river, which are heavily polluted, momentarily to contribute to cleaning it. The aim is to improve the lives of local residents and pilgrims.

Seasonal Fluctuation of the Hooghly and Monsoon Storm Water

Among city’s flowing rivers, creeks, drains and canals of Kolkata, one sees a large number of wetlands, lakes, and pukurs. Seeing this landscape through the lenses of flowing and holding, disconnects and tensions between the two systems start to reveal themselves.

Hindus traditionally consider the excavation of water bodies a pious duty. The community can be engaged in the reintegration of the derelict pukurs.

Every pukur is separated into two sections. A larger area is elevated above the other and serves as an employment generator through pisciculture. Smaller portions of the ponds are dedicated for household water use.

As the Rain Flows into the Hooghly, it exits at the sites affixed to ghats. Ghats are connections between urban fabric and river.

The river serves as a site of holy bathing or immersions for thousands of Hindus. During Durga Pooja and Makar Sankranti festivals, it accepts the flow of millions of pilgrims. The pilgrims purchase and bring flower baskets as offerings to the river.

Making room for water, making water as social space

Water shapes religious, economic, and social identity in Bengal, and India at large. As the region faces threats from climate change, and undergoes rapid urbanization perhaps it is wise to reintegrate the fragments of the ancient local water infrastructure and employ regional traditions in order to deal with the urban issues of the twenty first century. Perhaps these thousands of units fragmented throughout the city, and the region, are capable of not only holding rain but also relieving the stress on rivers.

Floriculture and Pisciculture in Kolkata

Pisciculture and floriculture play vital roles in Kolkata. The former fulfills the average resident’s need for food; the latter supplies flowers for social and religious practices.

Floriculture Current Condition

Currently, the floriculture industry supplies Kolkata with up to 1,500 tons of fresh-cut flowers comes from areas that are 12 travel-hours away. By the time they reach Malik Ghat Market from where they are distributed to retailers and temples, a large portion of flowers are withered and thus wasted.

Currently there are two parallel sewage channels with underutilized space in between them. By altering the micro topography and designing a trench to connect the parallel channels, a ‘delta’ area is created in between.

This space is then used to form a “blackwater ice co-operative” with ice workshops interlacing with air-conditioned social spaces and rooftops equipped with solar panels or designed as elevated recreation parks.

As solar energy is inaccessible at this time of the year, the power supply comes from methane generated from fish waste. Ice factories hence sit adjacent to fish ponds and anaerobic ponds, with the former providing ‘grey water’ for ice and the latter offering biogas as power supply.

This “grey water ice” allows fresh fish to be transported longer distances, to last longer at market sales. It promises to trigger the development of the frozen fish industry.

At this site, the ice workshops are strategically located at low points along excavated water ditches in a gravity-fed system that allows water to be further purified and frozen for human consumption.

The “edible ice cooperative” projects an economic boom from iced beverages, scented water, tie-dye crafts, fish oil medication and other industries.

Creek Strategy

1. Water Drainage System: Because of the natural topography and poor drainage system, low-lying areas are faced with a flooding problem during the summer. Heavy rains overwhelm the railway and affect over two lakh (two hundred thousand) residents. The revived creeks will link these flood-prone areas to the Hooghly River once again, restoring the natural pattern that enables the excess monsoon rains an exit route.

2. Industrial Heritage: The underused industrial facilities can be regenerated to provide site’s for the introduction of various new programs of the proposed creek economy.

2a. Railway Museum: As one of the few public infrastructures, the railway museum can play a vital role as a public parkland.

2b. Wheel Factory: A trade market and related craft workshops are proposed to utilize the interior space of the abandoned factory. It serves as a critical node along a transportation line that extends from the inland abandoned rail lines to a proposed river ferry and incorporates the reuse of the existing gantries.

2c. Abandoned Factory: A temporary public school is introduced offering primary education for the children of street sleepers.

3. Flexible Creek-bed: As water levels change dramatically between the dry and rainy seasons, the creek bed becomes a place for extending people’s activity from adjoining buildings. In the dry season, the creek bed can be seen and used for material processing and an outdoor market place while in the wet season, it can serve as a place for religious activities.

Four-Creek Strategy

We’re proposing the revival of four creeks in the Howrah Station area:

1. The Howrah Creek gathers underused industrial structures, which can be repurposed into a new market linking the rail and water transportation networks.

2. The Idol Creek enlarges this craft industry, making it an educational site for tourism.

3. The Cultural Creek organizes the Railway Museum as a cultural landscape and public amenity while also providing temporary housing for migrants in refurbished railroad cars.

4. The Port Creek is an armature for development in the second phase when the creeks will be extended into lower lying area towards the Mumbai-Kolkata Highway

One of the greatest scientific minds of the twentieth century, Werner Heisenberg, once said:

“It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet.”

Two different lines of thought coalesced in an academic exchange between urban design faculty and students at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) in New York City and a similar group from the Indian Institute of Technology’s Ranbir and Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure Design and Management in Kharagpur. The results of this productive dialogue, centered around issues of water, are documented in this book—they have been inspiring and useful in both local and international contexts.

During the fall of 2016, a core GSAPP team arrived in the historic “City of Joy,” otherwise known as Kolkata, with the intent to select a few significant spots or armatures in the city with the potential to inspire new opportunities and urban design innovations. These sites signaled transformative possibilities for the city’s urban ecology and greater regional estuarine-scape. ¹

The full team from both universities converged again in early January 2017—this time for a longer stay marked by a series of site visits to the six chosen sites. Alongside this scheduled exploration, rigorous and iterative design discussions were carried out over the course of the first week. The work was showcased in a formal event in New Town Kolkata on January 11, 2017, entitled “Future Cities”. These exchanges were presented to a diverse crowd made up of people from governance, men and women from grounded action and grassroots, and those with local knowledge and expertise. The objective was to harness the spirit of young and promising urban designers and infrastructure students from New York and Kharagpur. It was a highly successful and engaging dialogue, and during the event, appreciation for such rigorous work and constructive criticism of the project poured in.

Under the guidance of professor Bharath Aithal of IIT Kharagpur, the group continued to explore the Sundarbans. The goal was to understand Kolkata relative to its vast ecological and estuarine foundations. A core group from IIT Kharagpur joined Columbia students to present and deliberate over a more developed version of the project at GSAPP in mid-March. Finally, in May 2017, the students from GSAPP presented their final project proposals to a jury of international experts. A small group of students from India joined for an exhibition on the final work in the concluding days of the semester.

Kolkata is both a city and a hub of a sprawling regional metropolis. The final project revealed the way in which design interventions, small and localized armatures, are embedded with transformative capacities that reach out to impact other sites beyond it—thereby facilitating a chain of integrated development. Many solutions emerged, for instance, the designation of armatures for the smooth transition from dense core to metropolitan periphery or a recovery of the river as a memory lifeline of navigation, ecology, and also new livelihoods that foster the local creative economic clusters from point to point.

Kolkata emerged from estuarine backwaters, from a onetime salty wetlands. The complexities and richness of the city’s embedded water base has yet to be tapped—its marshland underbelly is a story not yet fully told. Together, its sprawl, exuding up to and merging with the estuary, the larger bay of the river, and the Sundarbans mangroves form a greater ecology of design that has no natural boundaries. The six student projects in Kolkata proposed by Columbia and IIT elucidate that the city is still in a stage of development, along a gradient of formation, one that is neither very backward nor very advanced. Kolkata holds deep promise for life, growth, and lively potential of a unique economic and ecological land-waterscape—all of which promise that some form of resurrection will spring forth, moving the city beyond where it is now. This stage is best evident in the following words of Brian J. L. Berry:

“Calcutta is also characterized by a broadly concentric pattern of familism, an axial (or a large armature) arrangement of areas according to degree of literacy and both substantial and increasing specialization of areas in business and residential land uses, gradually replacing the former mixture of business and residences that were separated rather into occupational quarters. The mixture of pre-industrial and industrial ecologies lends support to the idea that the city is in some transitional development stage.”

It is with this understanding of the city that the six teams from Columbia GSAPP and IIT Kharagpur initiated their work to imagine and foresee the ecological, social and spatial pattern of urban transition.