Aditya Hajare | Urban Designer | Architect
Our cities represent the society through its cultural, economic and behavioural character. Our behaviour is largely dependent on the physical, natural surrounding or context. Water defines our spaces. We build according to the topographical surrounding and in this process, certain values get associated with nature. Hence our cities reflect the homogeneous relation of our value systems and perceptions with the natural ecological surroundings. This study understands the changing relationship between human and nature through the lenses of ecology and values, under the purview of urbanization. It will also try to re-establish the lost ecological value towards urban water bodies in lake city of Thane, Maharashtra by deriving an ecologically sensitive planning approach towards water bodies and its catchments.
The thesis-water sensitive urbanism, intends to establish the relationship between the city and the water bodies. It has been observed that the issue of degradation of the water system is a mammoth one. The piecemeal approaches towards restoration are found to be insufficient to solve the issues at larger levels. The city needs a whole new comprehensive approach towards looking at these issues of water systems. It can create an impact on the ecological level ultimately. Thus, the ecological revival of the Central Jail lake in Thane has been proposed. the more emphasis has been given on the revival of natural edge followed by native submergent, emergent and riparian buffer plantation. The care has been taken for minimum direct human intervention with the water body. However, the visual connections are uninterrupted. The whole lake precinct is expected to behave as lungs to the city by generation of an urban forest in the admits of the concrete city.
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