Urban Conservation As Sustainable Development: The Work Of B.V. Doshi At Ahmedabad

Urban Conservation As Sustainable Development: The Work Of B.V. Doshi At Ahmedabad

Urban conservation and sustainable development have been researched in isolation so far despite the mutual interdependence of both. This often leads to extreme arguments of whether a historic city should be frizzed as a memory or be allowed to adapt to the modern developments. Some contemporary interventions in historic cities done by architects without a specialization in conservation fail to understand and incorporate city's setting in their designs, however there are cases in which the background, sensitivity and skills of the architect allow to produce exemplar interventions to reflect on. This paper explores one case and tries to extract the key aspects that could guide other architects working in similar contexts. The work of B.V. Doshi in Ahmedabad is researched. The approach and methodology of the architect is analyzed and discussed on the basis of his educational background, the approach to the intervention and understanding the walled city of Ahmedabad in India.

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