The School of Planning & Architecture (SPA) at Nidamanur is set to be recognized as a Centre for Excellence in Spatial Governance (CoEiSG) by the Ministry of Urban Development for its expertise in land and space use planning.
It is one such Spatial Governance Strategy (SGS) on the basis of which SPA is working on a research project titled Urban Vision-2050 of Andhra Pradesh. A few states like Gujarat and Kerala have come up with their own strategies of spatial governance.
SPA has already been identified as a key player in the field of urban and regional planning in A.P. It is evident from the awarding of a study on ‘Future Urbanisation of East Coast Economic Corridor’ by the Asian Development Bank recently. SPA Director N. Sridharan told The Hindu that the CoEiSG helps students immensely in taking up live projects.
Besides, it gives A.P. a prestigious national institution at a time when the need for such establishments of repute is felt post bifurcation for the sake of branding and knowledge dissemination to local stakeholders.
In addition, 600 students of planning and architecture, urban and regional planning, environmental planning and sustainable architecture have taken up Vijayawada - Guntur - Tenali region for their case studies. Findings of these studies will be published in December 2014.
Other significant projects taken up by SPA include preparation of a regional plan for Kolhapur upon the request of Maharashtra government and documentation of rural and urban housing typology for Andhra and parts of Orissa on the basis of local architecture and local building materials as per the mandate of Ministry of Urban Development.
SPA will soon set up a Design Centre which will focus on making designs unique to this area marketable through capacity-building. This centre is coming up with an initial investment of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh in association with IIT-Mumbai and IIT-Delhi and National Institute of Design. The objective of it is to impart and improve skills that go into arts such as block printing and toy-making in the formative years and expand its portfolio later.
