I am an architect/ urban planner with professional and research experience in designing urban systems and climate resilience. My research is focused on long-term urban planning for Mumbai and Amsterdam. I use a combination of methods, including land-use models, exploratory modeling, and qualitative design research. The research is supported by the Delft Global Fellowship and the CDRI Fellowship. Previously, I was on the core team of the global Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and also practiced as a licensed architect in India. Given my background and training, my work constantly navigates the Global North/South divide and critically examines how resilience concepts differ across different spaces and cultures.
Ph.D. project summary: Cities across the world are acting to improve climate resilience. They largely rely on conventional urban planning, which looks up to 20 years in the future. Because infrastructures have a much longer lifecycle, this approach is inadequate to deal with the tremendous change and long-term uncertainties that climate change will bring. To manage these uncertainties, modelling tools can help cities set long-term goals while committing to short-term actions. However, these tools do not capture the complexity of cities and are not adopted by urban planners. Using the cases of Amsterdam and Mumbai, this PhD project is designing a methodology for urban planning under long-term uncertainties. This requires understanding how model-based methods can include building lifecycles and finer aspects of urban planning. We combine adaptive planning with qualitative ‘research by design’ to ensure that cities can adapt and transform.