The World through my ‘Visuals’

                                                 by Neha Soni

‘What do you do for living?’ – every time when my new hair-dresser enthusiastically begins a conversation as a social norm and sometimes for a good tip, I reply, ‘I am an Architect’. Most often with a nice wow, I get a follow up question, ‘So, do you design houses?’ Well, that’s when the interesting and the challenging part of my answer begin, ‘No, I design cities..! My work includes designing physical spaces like buildings (including houses), open spaces, streets and just about everything in the built environment.’ Not being a very conventional answer, I generally receive a little confusing reaction with some amusement. So, I continue the conversation further with the hope to explain my job with more clarity and details. Though not sure, how many times I have been successful in my efforts, but the process of defining ‘what I do’ has been a great self learning and a reflecting experience.

This reminds me my first day at Urban Design studio, when our professor showed us a map without any street names, direction and scale. In technical term, it was a figure ground map – a map with street lines, solid black color indicating buildings (built form) and white color indicating open spaces. We were asked to identify the city and sketch few places on it. How do we do that? What are the clues? Surprising, we all guessed the city (though not correct) and also made few hand rendered perspective sketches of places on that map! How did we even come up with that? Well, that is when we realised that we have acquired the skills to ‘Read, Feel and Think of 2 dimensional map in to a 3 dimensional real world’. The studio was aptly called ‘Reading an Urban Fabric’ – an introduction to Urban Design. This is what I think defines a major part of ‘what I do’ – viewing and understanding the world through 3 dimensional medium of perspective sketches and drawings.

1.  Sample Figure Ground Map   

2. Courtesy: Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission

  3. Sample cross section of Street

Working as an urban design planner with Planning Commission (local County govt.), I realise the importance of comprehensive visualisation of urban development to bring transformation in the society. Many times, the visual communication of design in terms of 3 dimensions is done at small scale in private architecture firms where as the large scale planning, mostly with 2 dimensional GIS mapping is done at the government regulatory bodies. There exists a gap, not only of understanding the scale of development but also the co-relation between different aspects of design and planning. One of the tools to bridge this gap can be the holistic visualization that communicates the ideas and concepts between various scales and complexities. It can facilitate broader understanding of issues rather than a piece meal approach.

Moreover, there also exist gap between different types of planning within the government like transportation, land use, comprehensive planning, zoning, etc. Each of these planning functions is looked at individually and many times there is lack of comprehensive view. Design can be defined as ‘a process of synthesis’, which is opposed to analysis, Urban Design looks at coordinating between various planning activities through the visual medium. As in the real world, things do not exist in isolation, but in co-relation with each other, a holistic visualization is a powerful medium to understand urban development.

4. Courtesy: Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, Urban Design Project – Sketch up View

Urban Design involves many different tools and techniques of visualization like AutoCAD drawings, Model making, Google Sketch-up modelling, Photoshop simulations, GIS mapping, Google Street views, hand rendered sketches and animated walk through for the real life experience of the proposed development.

5. Sample Architecture Plan- AutoCAD drawing      

6. Sample Architecture Project Model             

7. Site Analysis through Photo simulations and models 

The visual medium of looking at holistic development can improve the coordination and understanding between government agencies at different levels; and between government and the private sectors involved with large scale development projects. This can help achieve more efficient and effective process of development. The visual communication of urban development is also a powerful tool to improve civic engagement in to the urban development process. When the communities look at the urban design drawings and visual simulations of proposed development in their neighbourhood that gives a real picture of what development they could expect in the future. Many times the planning reports with textual information and quantitative statistical data fail to convey the proposed 3 dimensional built environment to communities. The visuals and drawings provide an effective medium of communication and have the potential to improve community participation in the process of urban development. 

8. Courtesy: Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, Proposed Intersection Project

        9. Courtesy: Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, Proposed Bike Routes

10. Courtesy: Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, an Envisioned Comprehensive Plan

With the increasing use of advance technology in developed as well as developing countries, mapping tools and apps are being used for better public participation in to the planning process. Recently, mobile apps like ‘Bike hazards’ was created by local county government in Springfield (Illinois State, USA) that could help bikers on the street to locate hazardous points on the bike routes. This not only helps increase safety standards but also helps create a means of communication between city officials and communities to share the information and users’ concerns for road safety improvements. Comprehensive planning has started to incorporate interactive mapping tools as part of community surveys. This gives communities a user friendly interface to voice their issues and concerns based on location in to a digital map. 

In developing countries like India, community-led slum surveys involving GPS mapping tools are being initiated. One recent example is the Chandrashekhar Nagar slum in Raipur, facilitated by PRIA (Society for Participatory Research in Asia) for a self-survey task through GPS mapping. This was an effort to achieve meaningful community participation necessary for successful implementation of urban policies like Rajiv Awas Yojna (Source, Terra Urban blog). Thus, visual media has the potential to better facilitate community participation in to the institutional process of urban planning. This can help to achieve just distributional pattern in terms of provision of basic services and resources that can ultimately lead to creating socially just development. 

Whilst visual media can facilitate the participatory approach and communication of ideas and concepts in the urban development planning process, careful consideration needs to be given in representing appropriate information through pictures and drawings. For example, most urban development projects require understanding the existing site conditions to analyse the issues and problems, it is imperative to document as many aspects as possible to capture the true image. Documenting incomplete and sometimes selective information through photographs and sketches has the danger to misrepresent the site conditions and misleading the entire project. Many times, picturesque views of the cities with new beautified development are showcased to create world-class city image that can attract business investment in to the city without ever looking at the ‘backyard’ – the marginalized areas of the city. It is important to show different parts of the city through visual media to create inclusive and socially just development.

11. Global Image created through shiny pictures, Surat   

12. Slums 

Many times photographs of people using the public space and facilities are taken to understand and demonstrate the user behaviour and interface of the built environment. This has started to create privacy issues for people whose pictures were taken without their knowledge and published without their permission. In the United States, laws are becoming strict for using photographs of people in to official reports. Sometimes, written permission of people is taken to use their pictures. With the increased sensitivity to the privacy issues, it is being preferred to take pictures showing the back side or blurring the face that do not reveal the identity. It is important to respect and wisely use the pictures without intruding the privacy rights of common people to represent the data in urban projects.

As the saying goes, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ – a picture is a very powerful medium to see and understand the world. A single picture can tell a story. Hence, it is very crucial to observe the world with lot of sensitivity. Many times, there exist two different worlds for people at the same place. These two worlds could be coexisting together, either contesting with each other or sharing inter-dependent co-relationship. It is the keen observation that can capture the holistic view of the place.

Few years back, I clicked a picture at C.G.Road in Ahmedabad, India – a very busy commercial street, famous for shopping and street side eateries like panipuri. 

13. A family having dinner on footpath, next to the space of their daily living through selling belts on a busy commercial street – C.G. Road, Ahmadabad, India.

I looked at this family having their regular dinner on the footpath, next to the little space they used for selling leather belts to earn their daily living. Such informal sectors that exist on streets are many times not even considered while large scale infrastructure projects are proposed. The streets are treated as a channel for vehicles to flow and the life that goes on the street edges which plays a dynamic role in the society is sometimes totally missed. Visual documentation of activities helps in understanding the integrity and finer elements of streetscape design. Visualisation has the power to convey message. A picture tells the story here. Such careful observation documented through visual media can be very effective in understanding the site and guiding inclusive development proposals. 

Looking at the world through the camera lens and pencil renderings on my sketchbook is something I say defines the ‘what I do’ part of my life. It is a fascinating medium to see and understand the subtleties of life. Professionally, the 3 dimensional medium helps me see the qualitative data on otherwise 2 dimensional GIS maps representing quantitative data. As an architect – urban design planner, I feel my contribution to the society can be through understanding the life that exists on the plan view of the maps. Visual medium is a very powerful tool to shape our built environment. A holistic and appropriate visualisation is what is needed to guide the development of our physical world and bring the transformation in the society.

Author's Bio- Note:

Neha Soni is an Architect, Urban Designer and Urban Development Planner with global exposure of studying and working in India, UAE, Qatar, UK and USA. She is a licensed architect in India and has Masters of Architecture in Urban Design from CEPT University, India and Masters in Urban Development Planning from Development Planning Unit (DPU) at University College London (UCL), UK. She is awarded with full Commonwealth Scholarship for study at UCL. Her past experiences include working for GHD consultants in Doha (Qatar), participating in Global Studio and UN-HABITAT World Urban Forum III, Vancouver (Canada) and Asia Link studio at Karachi (Pakistan). Presently, she is working as an Associate Planner (Urban Design and Transportation Planning) in Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, Illinois, USA. She performs variety of Urban Design tasks from designing Transit Oriented Development to streetscapes, Place-making ideas for disadvantaged communities and establishing place imagibility in comprehensive plans. She is also a LEED Green Associate and is looking at creating sustainable development. As a designer, she wishes to contribute towards making our cities ‘socially just’ with a strong emphasis for gender equality and women empowerment in the overall development.