Urban Design Collective (UDC) is a collaborative platform for architects, urban designers and planners to create livable cities through participatory planning.
UDC was founded in 2011 as a platform to mobilize those who want to change the way our cities are built. By providing an open platform for young design professionals, who otherwise as individuals are excluded in the city building process, to create and disseminate content, we give them a chance to voice themselves as change-makers for better cities. As a result, UDC has come to be a global community of architects, designers, engineers, artists, writers, photographers and many others who are passionate about cities.
Within the broader agenda of creating livable cities, specific issues that we focus on include-
Our methodology
UDC’s approach is best defined as a mix of storytelling, advocacy and demonstration through practice. That apart, our approach is people-centric and aims to bring all the many stakeholders involved in the city building process as equal partners to concur on what makes livable cities. The methods that we employ towards the realization of our goals include-
– Urban Design, Mapping and Research
– Education and Capacity Building
– Community Engagement and Participatory Planning
– Art in the City
– Public events programming
– Publications and Social Media Outreach
WHAT WE DO
Cities are complex and require a multi-disciplinary approach to decode and work with them. As a team of passionate urbanists, we come with a collective experience that spans across all aspects and scales of development and also from conceptualization to implementation. Our work at UDC usually involves but is not limited to-
- Creating permanent & temporary urban interventions ranging from regional plans, master plans, station area plans, TOD plans and strategic development plans to urban art installations.
- Documenting the evolution & growth of cities and maintain repositories of information on various aspects of city planning and design for open-source dissemination.
- Conducting/hosting seminars, participatory workshops, field trips, exhibitions and training / educational programmes for various stakeholder groups to raise awareness of what makes livable cities.
- Collaborating on projects/initiatives with diverse partners including ULBs, education and research-based institutions, NGOs and public/ private organisations from areas including arts, culture, natural and built heritage- as long as there is a mutually agreeable agenda for creating livable cities.
- Improving the understanding of what makes better cities through published material on best practices in urban design, planning and sustainable development.
If you are looking for a committed team to work on any of the above, do write to us at
info@urbandesigncollective.org
or
urbandesigncollective@gmail.com
Our clients, collaborators and patrons so far include-
ORGANIZATIONS WORKING ON CITIES
CITIIS Program
Greater Chennai Corporation
Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
GFA Consulting Group, Germany
DVDH, France
The Center for the Living City, USA
Pitchandikulam Forest Consultants
Disability Rights Alliance
URBED, UK
SCAD (Social Change and Development), Tirunelveli
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, Chennai, India
Indo-German Centre for Sustainability, Chennai
MOD Institute, Bangalore, India
Vettiver Collective, Chennai
Rebuild Global, USA
Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group, Chennai
ORGANIZATIONS WORKING ON ARTS & CULTURE
Kochi Biennale Foundation, Kochi
Uru Art Harbour, Kochi
ST+ART India Foundation
Goethe Institut- Chennai
Chennai Photo Biennale
TSOTE | Cha Company
Synergy International, Qatar| UAE| India| UK| Cyprus
INTACH Pondicherry
INTACH Tamil Nadu
INTACH Chennai
Snuff Puppets, Australia
Dakshinachitra, Chennai
People for Pondicherry Heritage
ACADEMIA
The University of Sheffield, UK
RV College of Architecture, Bangalore
Global Studio, CSUD Columbia University, USA
School of Architecture and Planning, Chennai, India
Hindustan University, Chennai, India
School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada
National Association for Students of Architecture – India
Archasm, India
ARCHITECTURE FIRMS
MOAD- The Madras Office for Architects and Designers
architectureRED
Studio Tyto
Triple O Studio
Webe Design Lab
ARTISTS
Meredith Degyansky, USA
Studio Chitrakoothu, India
EVENTS
Jane Jacobs Walk, Utah, USA
Jane’s Walk, Toronto, Canada
Pondicherry Heritage Festival
The Goa Project
The Alternative.in
The Neighborhood Postcard Project, USA
OTHERS
Bambaram Toy Library, Chennai, India
The Startup Centre