For Sky Walks

Sky walks have become spaces to wait, loiter and transit into various places around stations. In a city where we struggle for spaces to meet, interact and spend time to do nothing, sky walks seem interesting places to be at. These spaces not only elevate you from the otherwise busy ground, but allow new perspectives of the city as a distant observer. The passivity of this observation prolongs our gaze deeper into the fabric and functioning of the place we live in. The activity of peeping into everyday activities from a distant perspective / view point makes us conscious of things that we otherwise ignored while moving through them. This phenomena makes us aware of the hidden patterns that the city works in. One can observe how traffic moves, where densities travel, the mosaic of types commodities, the closed and open spaces, the commercial-residential-market activity relationships and how they make the city space.

At many other sky walks, people have started to meet their lovers, partners or friends. The sky walk remains reasonably peaceful, offering a tranquil, shaded, breezy space right above a thriving, messy, congested market place or a busy road, aligning to the transport hubs of the city. It being covered and elevated, one is not bothered by externalities of weather (sun or rain). In addition, these are absolutely "free of cost" spaces right outside station premises. Such a model becomes an extremely successful public intervention in the city space where one is able to achieve a public space at the nodes of transport and market activities. Its open architecture poses no security problems keeping all activities transparent. Thus, it is self vigilant. It conveniently allows to sway away from busy hubs, yet being near / contained within them!

It has been noticed in some places where the footfall is too low, that the sky walks have become jogging tracks during the morning, 'kabutar khanas' for bird feeders, etc. Thus sky walks become an interesting space for the birds and scavengers hovering in the sky, who often take refuge in people's homes and building corners (often undesired) in the city.Sky walks could save a lot of birds who lose their lives getting entangled in wires, or experiencing electric shocks.

The architecture of sky walks, if taken seriously (apart from its aesthetic & structure) by studying various activity patterns they are creating can become an extremely useful and vital intervention for the city. After being built, sky walks may occupy minimal space (if well designed) on the ground, and their design can facilitate activities below them. In making a space of themselves, they also create a space underneath them where people prefer to walk in strong sun or heavy rains. They become massive overhead shades for hawkers, people who have forgotten their umbrellas during rains or sudden downpours.

Sky walks can be extended into smaller viewing decks (without seatings, thus maintaining their transitory nature, not accumulating crowds), to expose or introduce people to interesting or attention-seeking areas of the city. Could they become viewing galleries and mini-display spaces without extending into museums or galleries? Their surfaces could harvest a lot of solar energy for lighting urban infrastructure or collecting great amount of water for maintaining city spaces (or something that could be supplied to the poor?).

One important aspect of the city that the sky walk opens up is a large number of people who meet only for a small amount of time to exchange smaller personal activities of their day while going to work or returning home. This exchange of momentary time forms an important nature of public space. The public spaces that we design never address such issues of quick meetings, talks, chats or instantaneous give and take that often happens on the streets. Sky walks thus are an interesting model which may address such issues of public spaces.

Most of the times, we reject sky walks due to their non-pleasing visual appeal or over-designed structure. However, it is high time we acknowledged their presence in the city and channelized their programmatic possibilities and use them opportunistically to revive the lost sense of public space in the city.

My proposal "Platform no. 0" - an early conception of skywalk for Dadar Renewal project as a part of Urban Design Studio in 4th year B Arch (2006-7):

Excerpts from my concept sheet:

The area under study is a very dense activity area. There is some activity going on in the area at any time of the day. These activity patterns have formed over years, and my activity pattern thus becomes temporary.
Hence I see myself as someone who is disturbing the existing activity pattern.
And then, there are many people, who come to Dadar, contributing to the Temporary Activity Pattern. These people might not have anything to contribute to the existing plane of activities, but they use this plane to commute to the Dadar station.

Thus, conflicting planes of activities create a lot of conflicting movement at a single plane. It is hereby, imporatnt to SEGREGATE the various activity planes such that the area comes under order, and becomes a pleasent space for all activities, and allows easy movement.


Layers:

Every layer of activity existing in the area is contributing to the richness of the area. Hence, each of the layer has a right to exist there, it can not be completely eradicated. Natural Markets, the Wholesale markets, Vegetable Markets, Shopping lines, Flower Market - all diverse activities converging at a single patch of land makes it extremely resourceful and important.

Objectives of the programme:

1. De-congestion: The design aims at decongestion - NOT of the area, but of the existing singular plane, by creation of multiple planes. Thus, the traffic is segregated and each plane fucntions smoothly.

2. To Look Into Activities: The precinct has a lot of activities which are hidden due to the very layout of the same. Hence the redesigned scheme would try to bring visual attention to all the activities in the area.
3. Allowing Free Movement through segregated layers: Due to a lot of activities happening on a same plane, the pace of the commuting user having no interaction with the plane reduces considerably. The area of walking reduces due to its occupation by hawkers, extension of shops, etc. Thus the elevated plane helps in taking commuting users through the same space, quickly,  giving them opportunity to divulge/look into activities happening underneath and over.

Each plane attempts to have its own character, trying to accomodate the activity in a better way, 
The created plane constantly tries to have a connection with the existing lower plane such that activities flow into each other, still remain separate.