Mega Projects – Civil Engineering Projects

Regeneration of Central Business District, Abids | Urban Design

February 18, 2014 by Designer

Redesigning Abids, Hyderabad | Urban Design Project

Urban design is complex but fascinating. At least I find it to be exciting and challenging since urban designers get to shape the lifestyles of the people. I would like to discuss one of the urban design projects I did in Architecture college in a group. We were a group of 12 students, all of us skilled in different areas. When we began, we felt the project work was intimidating and that it was too early for us to be working on one. I am going to be writing a series of articles of how we dealt with this project, the design process that we followed and all the survey methods that we used. It was a great experience.

Aim of the Project:

Conservation of the original market character by restricting to various patterns, colours, to create a scenario that invites tourists without disturbing the old and traditional built forms to relate to the original concepts. We are aiming at Sustainability…Sustaining and improving the living standards and reviving the importance of the commercial hub in terms of commercial activity.

We listed out the target issues in terms of Sustainable Development. Listing aims of the project is the first and most important thing to do before beginning any kind of project. This gave us a clear understanding of the direction in which we should be progressing.

This is the design process we followed for redesigning the commercial hub. We had a brainstorming session with our group and came up with all the possible approaches we could take to design the project.

Stage One: Case study of 1,000,000 sq m of area in the centre of commercial hub (studied land use pattern)

Stage Two: Detailed Study and Analysis of the Critical Zone for Redesign

Selection Criteria

Abids is one of the oldest commercial hub in the Hyderabad city. Abids constitutes the dwellings of Upper middle class families. People from all over the city came to shop jewellery and textiles at Abids. With the decentralisation of the commercial markets, the crowd coming to Abids has lessened as compared to what it was earlier. The good thing about Abids is that it still has a unique shopping market which other places don’t have. This is what we identified as the unique selling point for the regeneration of Abids. To regenerate, it is essential to identify issues and come up with solutions that could enhance the functioning of the commercial hub and help restoring it to its original character.

Here are the issues that we identified:

Traffic issue
Lack of convenient Parking
Scope of redesign of facades
Organizing and redesigning streetscape
Informal activity
No recreational area

Stage Three: Major focused area selected for redesign

Casestudy of Toyota, Japan | Ecological Sustainability

March 22, 2013 by Designer

Sustainable City in Japan – Toyota

Toyota, a city in Japan has been working to achieve ecological sustainability and has been taking effective measures to strive towards it. Toyota is called the eco-ful town. It has earned its renown for building a life sized model of sustainable living and demonstrating it successfully. Use of renewable energy and achieving energy efficiency has been its prime goal.

Design of Roads in Toyota

The roads laid in the city of Toyota have been paid special attention to. The roads are coated with water retaining and thermal insulation substances to minimize heat emission.

The transportation system has been very well developed in Toyota. It is called as “Demand responsive transportation“.

Fifa World Cup 2010 Soccer City Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa

October 29, 2011 by Designer

Soccer City Stadium is the largest soccer stadium in South Africa. It is situated near Nasrec in Johannesburg, in South Africa. The stadium is the main venue for the Fifa World Cup 2010 kick-off match. This stadium would also host the finals of Fifa World Cup 2010 and the semi-finals are going to be in other two Soccer stadiums of South Africa namely; Cape Town Soccer Stadium and Moses Mabhida Soccer Stadium. There is one other smaller stadium known as Ellis Park Stadium, but it is mainly used during Rugby matches.

Soccer City stadium has a capacity of 94,700 people, which makes it the largest stadium in the whole African Continent. It also has a 2 meter moat to keep fans away from players.

Ohio Stadium | Largest Football Stadium in Ohio, United States

October 28, 2011 by Designer

Ohio Stadium is the centre for the Buckeyes football team at The Ohio State University. It is popularly known as The Shoe, The Horseshoe or The House that Harley Built. The Ohio stadium is located in Columbus, Ohio, United States.

This stadium has gained quite a lot of historical importance. Its name was added to the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service on March 22, 1974.

It has a capacity of accommodating 102,329, people. It is the third largest stadium in the NCAA and the sixth largest non-racing stadium in the world.

It is also the largest stadium in Ohio, Columbus, United States.

Ohio Stadium is also used for organizing concerts. Famous plays that of U2, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd & Metallica have also been played at Ohio Stadium.

Hyderabad International Airport Overview

October 27, 2011 by Designer

Rajiv Gandhi International Airport is India’s first Greenfield Airport under international competitive bidding, has been developed through a Public Private Partnership initiative (PPP).

It is spread over an area of 5,495 acres of Shamshabad. The airport is 25km from the city of Hyderabd. The terminal building spans 105,300 sq.m. designed to handle 12 million passengers per annum and the cargo section has a capacity of 100,000 metric tonnes per annum. In the final phase the airport will reach its full capacity with an additional floor area of 430,000 sqm to be developed, bringing the total built-up area to 900,000sq.m. The master plan has been designed to cater to 50 million passengers a year. To achieve this, the present master plan allows freedom of expansion to both airside and landside facilities within the airport site.

The Plan of the airport is T-shaped. It ensures beautifully landscaped view from all the sides after the person is inside the airport complex.

The design of the passenger terminal building is simple so that the sequences of spaces facilitate easy and comfortable movement and orientation. The passenger terminal will cover 105,300m² of floor space and has systems in place to ensure rapid transit between the domestic and international concourses.

Shanghai Pudong International Airport, China

December 24, 2010 by Designer

Shanghai Pudong International Airport, China | One of the Largest International Airport in the world

Shanghai Pudong International Airport is a primary International Airport serving Shanghai of the People’s Republic of China. It is also a major Aviation hub in Asia, particularly in East Asia.

Location of the International Airport

It is located 30 kilometres from the city centre. The area occupied by the airport is around 40 square kilometres. The site is adjacent to the coastline in the eastern edge of Pudong District within the Shanghai Muncipality boundaries.

Pudong Airport comprises of two main passenger terminals. The terminals are flanked on both sides by three parallel runways. The requirements have been on a tremendous rise. The Airport was constructed with a view to be extended and expanded to cater to increasing passenger growth and the growth in Cargo sector.

World’s Largest Underground City | Montreal’s RESO, Canada

July 25, 2010 by Designer

Montreal Underground city and Over ground city – Double Decker City

Montreal is the Second largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. The name Montreal has been taken from Mont-Royal which is the triple peaked hill located in the heart of the city.

Montreal is also the world’s largest underground complex in the world. It is also known as the indoor city. Montreal is the network of interconnected complexes underground. But entire city is not underground. There are certain parts which are overground. Since Montreal has both overground city complex as well as underground city complex, it is popularly known as “Double Decker City” or “Two Cities in One”. The interconnections between different complexes that are underground has been achieved through the construction of tunnels. The tunnels are technically and architecturally sound. They have conditioned air and good lighting to create comfortable environment and make it aesthetically pleasing.

Cape Town Soccer Stadium, South Africa | FIFA World Cup 2010

June 16, 2010 by Designer

Cape Town Stadium, South Africa

The Cape Town Stadium is a stadium is a world class stadium. It is located in Cape Town, South Africa.

This Stadium has been specially constructed for the FIFA World Cup 2010. Another stadium existed on the same site called “The Green Point Stadium” which has been demolished for the construction of the new stadium.

Its an honour to be hosting the FIFA World Cup Matches 2010. There are other two stadiums in South Africa that are also hosting couple World Cup Matches namely;

Moses Mabhida Soccer Stadium, Durban, South Africa
Johannesburg City Stadium, South Africa

Since the stadium on that site has been known as Green Point Stadium for a long time, so this name is also used frequently in during World Cup media coverage.

Design of Moses Mabhida Soccer Stadium, Durban, South Africa

June 15, 2010 by Designer

The Moses Mabhida Stadium is a stadium is a world class stadium. It is located in Durban, South Africa, named after Moses Mabhida, a former General Secretary of the South African Communist Party.

The Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban will host one of the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup 2010.

Moses Mabhida Durban Stadium, South Africa

It has a capacity to accommodate 70,000 people during the World Cup but generally it can accommodate only 54,000 people. For this reason, special seating arrangements are done to increase the seating to 70,000 during the World Cup.

It includes an adjoining indoor arena, football museum, sports institute, and a transmodal transport station.

Design of the Durban Stadium

This stadium stands on the grounds of the Kings Park Soccer Stadium, in the Durban sports precinct in the suburb of Stamford Hill.

The design of the stadium is incredibly flexible. The stadium design allows the reduction or increment in the seating capacity as per the events carried on at the Stadium.

NIT Trichy | Case Study, Documentation and Analysis

May 11, 2010 by Designer

NIT Trichy, or the “National Institute of Technology” is an Engineering College in Tamilnadu.

The ensuing design is primarily based on the Indian values of living and at the same time converging a number of technologies, applied in a creative and innovative way.

Evolution of Form

The solar performance of various forms of the same volume has been analyzed to evolved the ultimate profile. A cuboid oriented with the longer side along the east west axis gets heated throughout the year.

A semi-circular cylinder with inclined walls performs exceptionally with insignificant heating in the summer and increased heating in winter.

Influence of space and volume on psychology

Variation in temperature and volume along the transition spaces increases user receptivity.

Interaction between the atrium and the various levels, facilitates cognitive mapping of the form.

Progression from formal to informal spaces promotes interactive group behavior.

The circulation staircase invokes a sense of accessibility in the building.