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Aarey Bhaskar Park
Observations + Analysis:
Context and Physical Features:
Aarey Bhaskar park is built within the complexity of Mumbai’s existing urban grid, wherein the park overcomes the limitations of the relative scale and compact geometry, showing how the built environment has performed as a public space. (Map. 1: Context Map, Park + Urban Fabric) As smaller spaces bring people closer to each other and closer to things, the park encompasses flexibility for multiple activities within a limited area, giving a greater sense of security as people have a comfortable overview of the place as a whole. William H. Whyte claims that most communication takes place on the street level. The access to this park displays a disconnect from its surrounding context as it’s fenced boundaries act as visual barriers and the space is sunken below, lacking interaction with the street. Map 2 highlights the physical features and the small spaces within the park that successfully frame a public space (Map. 2: Map of Study Zone). High amounts of vegetation around the pathways provide shade from the beating sun and the presence of a water feature together creates a pleasant microclimate along with a rich sensory experience for its users. Strong interaction between the users and the natural environment creates a sense of homeliness, pleasantness and specialness, helping them to be connected and mindful to the place as outlined by the Well-being frameworks. Although the water feature in this park provides a positive impact towards well-being, it doesn’t allow people to go into the water and feel it, hence remaining as a visual feature and lacking the sense of touch. (Figure 1: On-site Water Features) William H Whyte describes the best thing about water is the look and feel of it, iterating the interactive nature of the water feature at the Seagram Building. (Map 3&4) The park receives adequate sunlight and wind without being overshadowed by the surrounding buildings as well as has views to the surrounding context like a beautiful sunrise in the distance.
Map. 1: Context Map, Park + Urban Fabric
Fig. 1: On-site Water Features
Map. 2: Map of Study Zone
2 David Sim and Jan Gehl, Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life (Washington: Island Press, 2019),351.
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3 The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, directed by William H. Whyte (1980; New York: William H. Whyte Video, 1980), Online streaming.
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4 Christopher Reeves, “Twelve Quality Criteria,” Gehl, accessed November 5, 2020, https://gehlpeople.com/tools/twelve-quality-criteria/.
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5 Émilie Pinard, “Happiness & Well-being” (Online presentation, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, October 02, 2020).
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6 William Hollingsworth. Whyte, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (New York: Project for Public Spaces, 2018),47.
Activities and Interactions:
Fig. 2: Frequency of activities performed
Fig. 2: Frequency of activities performed
Fig. 2: Frequency of activities performed
Figure 2 shows a range of activities performed, like walking, sitting, exercising and jogging. one of the most prominent activities that take place in this park is ‘walking’ individually as well as in groups. The design provides a long stretch of an obstacle-free path for people to circulate around in a continuous loop. The circulation patterns traced through the pathways elaborate how the space supports a the activity of walking as an exercise during the morning hours following a rigorous path while accommodating users who walked casually during the evening as their movement became more random (Map 3&4). When outdoor areas are of high quality, optional activities occur giving rise to social activities, by observation many people who entered the space individually, eventually interacted and formed groups, walking and talking simultaneously.
The cultural context plays an important role in encouraging the social nature observed within the park. The park has a central space where many pathways intersected, creating a small plaza where many users would halt, rest, gather, exercise and socialize. The space has a sculptural object in the center with seating, water feature and vegetation at the peripheral. In accordance with the affordance theory, the users were observed frequently drifting through this area performing additional activities. Pointed out in Figure 3, the user’s exercised using diverse spaces and objects, the sculpture piece as a ledge to stretch and the benches, railings and stairs to gain support from. The space dedicated to the element of play for children containing the play structures were appropriated as tools and supports for exercising by the adults. Observations noted that while performing
necessary activities like exercise, users unknown to one another would converse amongst themselves and socialize, creating triangulation due to the activity of exercising. The surface textures of the park play a vital role in determining these flexibilities within spaces and the user behaviour around it. (Map 5) The entire pathway is covered with ceramic tiles, which respond to the local climatic conditions as well as cultural context. The users were observed moving on the tiled surfaces barefoot in preference to their comfort levels. The small play area is covered with a soft rubber mat for providing a safe play surface for children but it was observed that it developed into a favourable surface for adults to exercise and perform yoga barefoot. Compassionate City mentions that a place is nurturing when it offers children and adults the opportunity to have fun, just as this park does.
7 Jan Gehl, Life between Buildings: Using Public Space (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2011),11.
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8Jenny Donovan, Designing the Compassionate City: Creating Places Where People Thrive (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018),86.
Fig. 3: Single Vs. Multiple Activities
Performed
Map. 5: Park Surface Textures
Seating and Surface Materiality:
The benches and seating structures complement the pathways providing spaces to sit and relax. The different locations and designs of the seating structures make certain seatings friendlier than the others (Map 6). The seating arrangement that is most favourable follows the prospect-refuge theory and design that supports culturally influenced use of the space. The most used benches have a vegetative cover or a solid wall behind it, giving a sense of security and projecting a wide view of the rest of the park in the front. The most repeatedly used bench in the park is designed without a backrest, where users would mostly sit on a low square island with their legs folded up in a yoga posture doing breathing exercises. The design of these benches also prompted users to sit in close proximity comfortably, in reference to the specific cultural context, within the range of personal space being 0.5m-1.2m (Figure 4). The configurations of the benches with shading fabric structures constructed a pleasant atmosphere for groups to gather and socialize. The groups would often adopt the stairs as seating space during the evening to freely converse and be flexible around the space. The use of certain materials to build additional seating and shading structures has led to weathering and has had adverse effects on their use (Figure 5).
Map. 6: Seating Locations
During the observation, one of the major group seating areas in the park was not functional because of the broken shading structure that covered up the seats, making it a dead space. This resulted due to the corrosion of the metal structure that eventually broke down highlighting the lack of maintenance, quality and security of the structure. Figures 4,5 & 6. Capture moments of interactions and results of material weathering on user behaviour (source Muskan Goel).
Likewise figure 6 captures a long ledge located in the back end of the park, which has a soothing atmospheric quality, the sound of the gushing river and the large vegetative cover behind the bench create opportunities for users to relax and contemplate. But this ledge transformed into a dead structure as it was built with concrete, weathering over time with fungus and mold growing on top it deactivated the seating as an activity in the space.
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Fig. 4, 5 & 6: Capture moments of interactions and results of material weathering and user behaviour
Conclusion:
The key findings portray this park to be a successful public space where the design creates an experience of the environment at the eye level. The park formulated a powerful relationship between the users and the built public space with direct connection to nature and a variety of activities that can be performed within. The park however establishes elements like the accessibility to water features, access to the street level and the surrounding communities, structure and materiality that need improvement to further push its potential.
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