Giving up on his own engineers, GHMC Commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu invited student teams from colleges of architecture to develop and implement innovative solutions for the pedestrians’ problems on the city roads, for which GHMC will provide funding.
Speaking at a function to award the student participants of the architectural design competition ‘Talk the Walk’, Mr. Krishna Babu said the corporation is ready to give road stretches of 1 km or 2 km each to the willing student teams to develop pedestrian infrastructure on a pilot basis. Taking a dig at his engineers, he said the latter immediately take up projects worth crores of rupees on road stretches of over 5 km, while ignoring smaller stretches which do not yield much “percentages”. He also hoped designing real-time pedestrian pathways will improve the students’ knowledge and exposure.
The competition asked the participating student teams to plan and design the stretch between Lakdikapul and Mahaveer Hospital junction in Masab Tank so that pedestrian movement becomes possible and safe.
While K. Meena from the MEASI Academy of Architecture, Chennai, who suggested practical solutions to the pedestrian problems received a pat on the back from the GHMC commissioner, it was a team of young women from Sri Venkateshwara College of Architecture which walked away with the first prize in the competition.
The team comprising Anusha Dasari, G. Sai Chandrika, and K. Usha, all sophomores, visualised a skywalk or ‘elevated ramp way’ which provides space only for pedestrians and cyclists. The team from the JBR College of Architecture stood runner-up by advocating division of road space across its users, and bus-stops located in the centre of the road. Separate spaces for vendor kiosks and trees, and a two-level parking lot were some other ideas put forth by them.
Another team from the Deccan School of Planning and Architecture batted for reduction in private vehicles on roads. The competition was conducted by the Centre for Pedestrian Infrastructure and Planning (CPIP), established jointly by the School of Planning and Architecture, Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Studies and Walkable Hyderabad Consortium.
Vice-Chancellor of JNAFAU P. Padmavathi said architectural standards should be followed in designing cities.
