The School of Planning and Architecture-Vijayawada (SPAV) here secured a place among UBM Future Cities’ Top 10 urban planning schools worldwide.
Only institution from the country It is the only architecture school in India that has found a place on the list and is one of the two urban planning schools in Asia, the other being Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, to get the recognition.
Mary Jander, managing director of UBM Future, a global online community of 150 leading experts in urbanisation, wrote on its website that the options for students of urban planning were growing, and that SPAV and nine other institutions have distinguished themselves on the world stage through their graduate and undergraduate (UG) programmes.
She stated that the Future Cities’ own experts felt it was important to explore these choices.
The top 10 urban planning schools are Universite de Montreal, Architectural Institute in Prague, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, SPA-Vijayawada, Politecnico di Milano International Programme, Delft University of Technology Track in Urbanism, Oxford Brookes University City and Regional Planning Course, University of Cambridge Land Economy Course, Arizona State University School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
SPA-Vijayawada Director N. Sridharan said the courses were futuristic and relevant to sustainable future of Indian cities.
Technology use High use of technology, especially Geographical Information System and Spatial Data Infrastructure in the courses and in all studio works, has put SPA-V above the other schools.
Besides, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that SPA-V signed with National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad helped in using high resolution BHUVAN and other satellite imageries for urban and regional planning a good part of which went into Andhra Pradesh Capital development plans being worked out by its students.
Established in the year 2008 as a Centrally-funded technical institution of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, SPAV is offering a five-year UG programme Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) and four-year UG programme Bachelor of Planning (B.Plng).
Various post-graduate and short-term certificate programmes aree proposed to be introduced.
