National Student Design competition on Universal Design

NATIONAL STUDENT DESIGN COMPETITION 2012

ON

‘UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR EXPLORING THE WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN INDIA"

ORGANIZED BY

SPA Bhopal, ASI and DHONAH

Find Details at http://www.nsdc.spabhopal.ac.in/HOME.aspx

FOURTH/ SPRING ISSUE-2012 of SPANDREL on ‘Social Sustenance’RELEASED on 18th April'12 

Issue Editor- Rachna Khare

Sustainability is the long-term maintenance of ‘well being’ that has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, which should all be coordinated and addressed together to ensure the long term viability of our community and the planet. In continuance with the previous issues of SPANDREL on ‘Environmental Sustenance’ and ‘Cultural Sustenance’ the current issue addresses ‘Social’ dimension of the Sustainability. A development can be socially sustainable only if it respects human diversity and brings equitably distributed level of ‘well being’ to everyone. The spring issue-2012 of SPANDREL focuses on ‘Social Sustenance by Social Equity’ with an aim to build a body of knowledge that responds to the needs of diverse human population with special emphasis to those otherwise marginalized and undocumented in the past. The issue has published papers which pursue people centric or societal approach in architecture, planning and design education, research, practice or policy, to address needs of the vulnerable groups.

The journal has eight sections enquiring into the theme of ‘Social Sustenance’ with national and international authors. Involving community is a means for translating social equity into practice, and thus ensures social sustenance.The first section ‘Social Equity through Users Participation’ presents articles where people are involved at different level to contribute to the decisions taken for them. The articles in this section present the concept of participation and the tools for practice. ‘Human considerations in Design’ is not new to the architecture, design and planning disciplines but the professionals are stuck with the idea of ‘standard user’. The articles in this section present a holistic design approach for ‘real life diverse users’ including children, elderly, socio-cultural differences and persons with functional impairments. To bring innovation, it is necessary to build on research, hence a section on ‘Human Centric Research’ in this journal includes articles which draw from social science research methods and help develop an insight with people as an environmental focus. In India there is a tremendous need to have a wholesome design education that addresses diversity and inclusiveness across the disciplines of Industrial Design, Architecture, Urban Design, and Rural and Urban Planning. In ‘Social equity by Design Pedagogy’, academicians share their classroom experiences and pedagogical tools that they used in teaching the people centric issues in design. Social sustenance and social equity has always been a major challenge for planners and policy makers, there are many related issues that still remain unresolved and debatable. ‘Social Equity through Policy planning’ attempts to bring out these issues with a focus on vulnerable populations. Seemingly simple, people are the most complex dimension in design, ‘Featured Case-studies’ covered in the journal show-case different national and international projects which have taken-up this challenge in practice. In a country like India, the architects and designers need to get over from the ‘life style’ issues and use the power of design to change the way of living. ‘Photo-Feature’ covers one such grass root innovation for construction labors. To review the work of international experts for Indian needs, and the journal has included a book review on ‘Inclusive Housing’ to develop contextual understanding of best international practices. Enclosed is the Table of Contents with a hope that this issue would be successful in achieving its objectives and would interest its readers.

ARTICLE INVITATION - SPANDREL ON ‘SOCIAL SUSTENANCE'

School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal is a premier institute of Planning and Architecture set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India located in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. The school publishes an Internationally Refereed Bi-annual Journal titled ‘SPANDREL’- Journal of SPA: New Dimensions in Research of Environments for Living (ISSN 2231-4601). Other than the regular issues, the journal also publishes issues dedicated to themes related to recent practices in architecture and planning education and research. The first issue of SPANDREL ‘Many Worlds, One Future: Pluralism in Architectural Education’ was published in August 2010, followed by the second issue ‘Environmental Sustenance’ in March 2011. The upcoming issue is dedicated to ‘The Sacred’ and will be released in October 2011.


Articles are invited for the spring issue-2012 of SPANDREL focusing on ‘Social Sustenance’ with an aim to build a body of knowledge that responds to the needs of diverse human population with special emphasis to those otherwise marginalized and undocumented in the past. These people were excluded in environmental design and planning practices and overlooked in collective socio-economic-cultural development. The special issue will encourage papers that pursue people centric or societal approach in architecture, planning and design education, research, practice or policy, to address needs of the following vulnerable groups (inclusive but are not limited to):

• Diverse Age Groups: Children and Elderly

• Diverse Socio-Economic Conditions: Urban and Rural Poor

• Diverse Functional Limitations: Persons with Disabilities

• Diverse Culturally Marginalized Groups: Isolated Ethnic Groups

• Research and Design Practices that address Social Equity: Inclusive Design / Design for All / Universal Design

THE DATE FOR SENDING CONSENT- 31ST SEPTEMBER 2011

LAST DATE FOR RECEIPT OF THE RESEARCH PAPER - 1ST DECEMBER

Suggestions Invited for NCUDBE

Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, has invited suggestions on National Center for Universal Design and Barrier-Free Environment at this link http://socialjustice.nic.in/appeal08911.php by 22/09/2011

Center for Human Centric Research (CHCR) at SPA-Bhopal

Center for Human Centric Research (CHCR) is a multidisciplinary research center at School of Planning and Architecture-Bhopal that aims to

•  Bring awareness amongst budding architects and planners to respond to the needs of diverse human population otherwise marginalized in the past design practices, for collective socio-economic-cultural development in the country.
• Build a research based body of knowledge with all realms of the ethnographic, qualitative and quantitative experimental paradigms, to support human centered design process. 

To attain its objectives, the center functions in four major areas, ‘identification of research priority areas and networking’, ‘education & training’, ‘research & design development’ and ‘dissemination’.

I. Identify the Areas of Research Priority and Network all stakeholders (SPA-faculty and students, other Institutes of higher learning, NGOs, government agencies, consumers, users and service providers like engineers, planners, designers, architects and builders) to address these priority areas. This has begun with the formation of a resource group that builds awareness with special lectures, workshops and conferences on the subject. The center recently organized a major three day Universal Design Workshop and a National Student Design Competition on a theme of Inclusive Design/Design for All/Universal Design in March’2011.

II. Establish a National level resource center for Education and Training at School of Architecture and Planning, Bhopal, to facilitate researches addressing people centric studies in the built environment at local, regional and national level. The center offers an elective on ‘Enabling Environment’, and has plans to offer short-term online certificate courses and specialized academic courses in the subject.

III. Initiate and support faculty and student Research and Design Development projects, in the identified priority areas at School of Architecture and Planning, Bhopal. The center supports UG and PG projects/studios on the theme and plans to sponsor faculty projects.

IV. Dissemination through Publications on the subject for information sharing and developing a body of knowledge that would help those architects, engineers, planners, designers and all stakeholders, who would like to work in this area. The upcoming publication of CHCR ‘Uniting Differences’ is based on winning entries of a Design Competition on Inclusive Design.