Earlier this year in July, Montreal-headquartered World Design Organisation (WDO) launched the World Design Protopolis (WDP), an initiative where the organisation would work with selected cities to come up with prototypes that would offer design-based solutions for developmental problems plaguing them. Bengaluru became the first city to be selected for the project.
Under the initiative, the WDO will work with various stakeholders including Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Srishti School of Design and the Association of Designers of India among others over a period of five years from 2023 to 2028.
Bertrand Derome and Jacob Mathew | Photo Credit: HANDOUT E MAIL
The first World Design Protopolis Conclave was held in the city last week as part of the Unboxing Bengaluru Habba. Bertrand Derome, Managing Director at WDO and Jacob Mathew of Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology spoke to The Hindu on the sidelines of the event about the expected outcomes of the project and what the city stands to benefit from it.
What are your observations on the design community of Bengaluru?
Bertrand Derome: It is a very inspiring community and this is part of the reason why Bengaluru got the designation of the first World Design Protopolis (WDP). The design community here understood that design is a human-centered process that has the power to drive impact in the community and to transform the quality of life within the city of Bengaluru. They want to address some of the pressing issues such as water management, waste management, mobility and so on within the city.
They also had the support of the government. The BBMP and the Government of Karnataka have been backing the World Design Protopolis initiative in Bengaluru. They understand that the programme doesn’t demand more budget; It just asks to see some of the infrastructure investments are going to happen anyway through a design lens.
That way the Design Protopolis Project will help to build a business case that shows how, with the same resources, if you use design process, you can have more impact and improve the quality of the resources.
Can you give an example of the difference between approaching infrastructure projects through a design lens and otherwise?
BD: We see a lot of engineering-led solutions that technically do the work, but citizens don’t adopt them. But if you adopt a design process things improve.
In Cape Town for example, they have adopted a design-led user-centered project for implementation of new public transit lines. When they do that, they get much less resistance from the businesses on the line. Earlier they would complain that there would be less place for cars to come and shop in their shops. But now they are involved in the process and they can suggest ideal locations for stops that would cause less negative impact on their business. The users are involved to see what lines they need. This was the lines see better adoption, better retention of the community, and therefore more impact for the same investment.
All departments of the city - whether it’s the infrastructure, the housing department or the culture department - can use design process. They all benefit using this approach. Once a city develops a design culture, their implemented projects have more impact, drive more users around what they do, and have infrastructure that lasts for a longer time.
Which are the areas where Bengaluru could use a bit of design?
BD: Currently the WDP wants to target existing wards as well as explore what would be the blueprint and the guidelines for developing new districts. Many people living in the city are facing challenges. Empowering them and improving that region is as important as providing better orientation for future districts.
For the existing districts, it will be a collaborative work. If it’s just a top-down approach, it will not change behaviour of citizens. But if the citizens are involved in cleaning up neighbourhoods and identifying where the right infrastructures should be, then they become the guardians and the enablers of change.
And for the new regions, the learning from WDO’s network of cities will be valuable. There’s a lot of learning to do from the Chinese. They have built some new cities from scratch with a greater master plan. So is the case with some cities in Latin America and Africa.
One of the biggest challenges in Bengaluru is traffic and mobility. How would you be addressing that?
BD: Mobility, especially last mile mobility, is a very key part of WDP. Last year’s design week enabled multiple stakeholders to identify over 300 potential projects that could have value in different communities. From that in consultation with the local government, some of them have been prioritised, and mobility is one of them.
Jacob Mathew: The BBMP and BMTC have arranged now a set of buses that do a certain route around. The idea is to cover every Metro station, so that the coverage of one Metro touches the coverage of the next. Right now, they are looking at a star shape. We are going to assess that and see if that’s the best method. That’s one of the projects that has come up.
We are in discussions with multiple stakeholders such as DULT, BMRCL, BMTC, and private players such as Uber, Ola and Namma Yatri to try and bring them together to create transition transport hubs using the Metro as a staging point.
We have also been in talks with BBMP and they’d like to utilise the shadow spaces under the flyovers in the city. One of the ideas that have come up is to use those spaces for recharge stations.
Will WDP project also ensure the execution of these ideas?
JM: Execution is going to be done by government entities, private sector, civil society organizations, design professionals and professional bodies. A lot of these projects can be also taken into education institutions as part of their pedagogy. Srishti is one of the partners of WDP and our job is to build the prototypes, evaluate them and handover ‘how to’ manuals to the government so that they can replicate or implement it.
I believe BBMP spend somewhere between ₹4500 to 8000 Crore a year in infrastructure building in Bengaluru. We are trying to see how we could help shape that spending.
Under WDP are there specific projects or prototypes that you have started identifying in Bengaluru?
BD: Out of the list of more than 300 potential projects that were identified in the Bengaluru Design Week last year, a short list of close to 30 projects have been selected for the first year of the initiative.
The whole WDP is a five-year program, but we want to be able to measure the impact after each year. So a set of initial projects have been identified for year-1 across different project categories. These include crafts making, heritage, technology, startups, circular economy, safety and health, infrastructure, last mile mobility, environment, climate, water, waste, energy, youth pedagogy and so on.
Part of the objective here is to build a business case through those prototypes and projects so that they inspire implementation of larger scale within the city. But our objective as the WDO is to inspire the world. So, by giving Bengaluru the first designation of world design protopolis, we believe that the city has the potential to show the rest of the world the transformative power and the impact of design.
We’re here to collect all those case studies and show the rest of the world how we can transform each of those fields which makes up a city. A city is not just concrete houses and asphalt roads. We want to see how we can influence all those different elements to dream of a better city.
The community with the support of the government has the potential do those transformations and become a sustainable city economically, environmentally, socially and culturally.
