Towards water plus Vista

Eco Warriors 2022

Store | Soak | Splash | Experience
by Jugal Patel

Gandhinagar is known for its green cover, yet there seems to be a continuous drop in the groundwater level. 2011 report says that Gandhinagar’s water table is over-exploited and depleting rapidly.

To cater the issue of depleting water was to convert large, low-lying, vacant public land into a water catchment zone to recharge the groundwater table and create an eco-system for waterfowls all over the city.

The project redesigns the central vista to a performative water landscape with three core strategies: storing, soaking, and building shared experiences around water systems.

Design Development

All the different strategies will make it a water-plus vista. It will bring comfort as well as recharge groundwater aquifers. It will also attract a range of species and create a place where people will want to come for different activities, and experience seasonally changing spaces throughout the year.

All the different sections of zones show different experiences at various intervals and how the place is activated differently in various seasons. The social activities near the splash zone, the scrubby zone with different experiences in seasons and how pollinators are attracted to various kinds of species found in the smell zone of the vista.

View from the commercial building looking over the ‘soak’ zone of vista showing architectural inserts and grain of landscape.

Detailed plan for ‘soak’ and ‘store’ to unfold architectural level details and planting strategy.

View from the commercial building looking over the ‘soak’ zone of vista showing architectural inserts and grain of landscape.

Dwellers: Continuous Urban Biodiverse System

Bio-Corridors: Linking Habitats For Productive And Ecological Connectivity