City, Mumbai architects work on plan to revive Buckingham Canal

The people chosen from a pool of entries in October include city residents and others from Mumbai who came up with good ideas. Three of the groups with 13 members in total were chosen from the pool.

Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit India (GIZ), in coordination with Greater Chennai Corporation and in partnership with Urban Design Collective (UDC) had promoted the initiative ‘Eyes on the Canal’. This is an initiative in participatory planning to make the Buckingham Canal a liveable place for the residents of Chennai. It is centred on a 3.5-kilometre stretch between South of Adyar River (Kotturpuram MRTS Station to Tiruvanmiyur MRTS Station to carry out an intervention.

Talking to DT Next, Vidhya Mohankumar, founder of UDC, who is playing an advisory role in the initiative, said that while the shortlisted ideas were individual proposals, the idea is to present an integrated project.

“They have been asked to focus on the ecology, community engagement, placemaking —- a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. among other aspects to make it a wholistic proposal. The whole modus operandi is participatory and therefore we have been looking at ways in involving all stakeholders. These include residents, corporates, etc. with action plans for each of them. We had done a survey to look at ways in which it can be made a public place. The thrust was on the communities living along the canal and making it socially meaningful for all of them,” she said. She added that the interesting aspect about the people involved are that the mix of age groups and nativity. She said, “That would provide a fresh perspective.”

The winning participants will receive financial support for three months to develop the ideas further in consultation with government and other stakeholders. The detailed ideas would then be presented to the authorities to take it up for possible implementation. The project is funded by GIZ GmbH, on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) for their initiative ‘Cities fit for Climate Change’across the world.