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LOOKING IN & AROUND

LANDSCAPE DISCOURSE

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contents

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Suneet Mohindru | Landscape Architect | New Delhi

Brijender S Dua Architect | New Delhi

Geeta Wahi Dua Landscape Architect | New Delhi

Adit Pal Landscape Architect | USA

Savita Punde Landscape Architect | Delhi NcR

Rohit Marol Landscape Architect | Bengaluru

M Shah Alam+grafinitiAvdhesh KumarAtul Naahar Paramount Printographics

ADVISORY EDItOR

GUESt EDItOR

DESIGN

ADMINIStRAtION

PRINtING ADVISOR

ADVISORY BOARD

EDItORS

report |

CANALS AS URBAN GREEN LUNGS SEARCH WORKSHOP 18

landscape discourse |

LANDSCAPE DISCOURSELOOKING IN & AROUND

LANDSCAPE DISCOURSESuneet Mohindru

LANDSCAPE ARCHItECtSHOW RELEVANt ARE WE AND WHOM DO WE SERVE

Akshay Kaul

LANDSCAPE ARCHItECtURE AND ECOLOGY IN INDIANikhil Dhar

REFLECt | REASSESS | REACtCHARtING FUtURES

Aniket Bhagwat

WHAt LANDSCAPE MEANSAruna Ramani Grover

FRIENDS FOR LIFEMEMORIES AND ASSOCIAtIONS OF PLACES AND NAtURE

Narendra Dengle

MEMORY CREAtING IDENtItY FOR LANDSCAPE FORMSPrerana Chatterjee

tHE NEED FOR A NAtIONAL URBAN OPEN SPACE POLICY Saurabh Popli & Dr Sanjeev Singh

DIRECtING tHE COURSEGeeta Wahi Dua

'WE’RE NOt A PROFESSION, WE’RE A CONSPIRACY'Sandip Kumar

WHItHER LANDSCAPE ARCHItECtURE? PERSONAL MUSINGS AND MESSAGES

Shishir R. Raval

interview |

RE-LOOKING At PRACtICE AND EDUCAtIONIN CONVERSAtION WItH PREM CHANDAVARKAR

ROLE OF LANDSCAPE IN tODAY’S WORLD IN CONVERSAtION WItH MICHAEL JAKOB

students’ design competition |

NURtURING CHILDHOOD WItH NAtURE — LANDSCAPE FOUNDAtION StUDENtS’ COMPEtItION-2018RESULtS | WINNING ENtRIES | LISt OF PARtICIPANtS

seeing the unseen | IMAGINED REALItIESIN CONVERSAtION WItH MALAVIKA KARLEKAR

book review |

WHItHER INDIAN URBAN SPACES READ AND HEEDURBAN SPACES IN MODERN INDIA

Review by Shishir R. Raval

UNSUNG HEROES OF tHE StREEtS: KERBStONESMehul Jain

AUtHORS+CONtRIBUtORS

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Depending on one’s interest, one can read any particular paper in any or-der. However, reading the introductory paper first will help. The authors offer new research questions, methodologies, and directions for action while observing, lamenting, taking debatable positions, theorizing, and detailing grounded case studies. These papers offer the designed/built environment academicians and professionals insights into urban socio-economic-cultural and policy details. These should nudge them to reconsider and reimagine plans and designs for development that a perfunctory site visit with a digital camera and tired trials would not allow.

Edited books are good in offering diverse perspectives in one volume. How-ever, like in this book, they sometimes lack consistent quality in the content and format. Many papers have well-organized text with helpful endnotes and references but some lack this and are poorly written. Introductory notes for each section, a conclusion paper, and a subject index would have enhanced the book. Not delving into the dialectic of ‘space’ and ‘place’ seems like a lost opportunity and a critical lacuna. Also, the lack of attention given to two of the most critical issues, increasing human population and indiscriminate consumption, is unfortunately entrenched in many discourses and debates on contemporary issues that eschew dealing with such wicked realities. Alas, this book is no exception.

The emphasis on the metro cities is somewhat jarring but was perhaps an unavoidable trap given that the book is based on writings by those who par-ticipated in the preparatory conference. It could have benefited if there were contributions by administrators, developers, planners, landscape architects, and ecologists. Maybe, a follow-up IIAS conference and book is due.

“As India urbanizes rapidly, ...” may evoke exasperation and motivation. Both are needed to move forward in understanding and addressing the issues more holistically. This book, along with others such as, “The Divided City” by Binti Singh and Mahendra Sethi in India and by Alan Mallach in the USA, the Routledge series on “Cities and the Urban Imperative”, and numerous articles, reports, and dissertations in related fields aid greatly in doing so. Professionals, academics, and students in the field of designed/built environ-ments should read, heed, write, act, and reflect. This is a long overdue and much needed endeavor. The time is now!

Mehul Jain

KERBSTONES

UNSUNG HEROES OF THE STREETS

From inadequate sizing and detailing of footways, to poor accessibility or deficient surface drainage, our streets are systemically hostile towards pedestrians. While the main issue needs accomplished studies, the focus here is to offer material solutions to address some parts of the problem.

Vacuum wet press kerbs at Sky City, Ahmedabad

the authors offer new research questions, methodologies, and directions for action while observing, lamenting, taking debatable positions, theorizing, and detailing grounded case studies. these papers offer the designed/built environment academicians and professionals insights into urban socio-economic-cultural and policy details.

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Kerbstones along road edges help with design augmentations, importantly those involving pedestrian safety and respectability. Many street designs

remain lacking owing to sketchy knowledge about use and availability of kerb-stones. Kerbs in streets across India tend to often manifest in an apologet-ic sort of way, like poor destitute materials along the edges rather than the proud, elegant and solid streetscape defining elements that they ought to be. However, fortunately, the times are changing and with them the availability of quality ranges of kerbs in the country.

Functions

Often referred to as the ‘unsung heroes of the streets’, kerbs serve many func-tions, key among which is the fact that they provide functional strength to edges of carriageway. They improve channelization of traffic flows, providing a demarcation between the roads and footway and deter the traffic from mount-ing on the footway, thereby ensuring the safety of the pedestrians. Kerbs help in improving the aesthetic values of the road alignment and contribute to a formal paved environment with enhanced access for the physically challenged. They provide a boundary to landscaped treatments. Well-designed streets will provide excellent built-in primary storm water drainage solutions for sites.

Materials

Kerbs are made from different materials and in different ways, but usually from stone or concrete. The ones made of stone have a great advantage as they can become an extension of the design vocabulary if the same stone is used in the footway or the driveway. However, stone kerbs tend to be either pro-hibitively expensive or are many times, not up to mark in consistency, or di-mensional accuracy to be able to make a substantial contribution to the street aesthetics.

Concrete kerbs could be cast on site (with or without reinforcement), extruded on site – as typically seen on highways, or precast at a factory. The ones cast on site are highly dependent on the skills of the civil agency, and one cannot be faulted for harbouring a feeling that it might be easier to achieve just about anything than have the kerbs cast smartly throughout the site. They are also not easily amenable to changes in road planes or directions. The ones made with extrusion machines require large equipment on site, and are restricted by availability of profiles and details. So, they are usually used for selected contexts like National Highways.

Precast concrete kerbs too can be easily marred by problems discussed above. However, it is the precast kerbs that hold the greatest promise to provide the kind of solutions that are required by most projects for street edgings. Good quality precast kerbs are an industry norm across Europe and the Gulf Co-operation Council countries for a few decades now, and are now making their presence felt in India too.

Precast kerbs are made in dif-ferent ways. For best quality and finish, the wet-pressed meth-od is used, where wet concrete is pressed at high pressure and excess water in the mix drained during the production itself.

Selection

Designers are at times guilty of trying to draw up new kerbstones details for every project. These drawn up kerb elements are then incorporated in drawings and re-leased for execution without iden-tifying the vendors or availability of the drawn up products. It caus-es the reinventing of the wheel for each project for all concerned, and which is likely to render each party a day late and a dollar short. Further one needs to understand that kerbs made from heavy ma-chines in standard processes have much better performance charac-teristics, than kerbs that may have to be custom cast to comply with the drawing requirements.

Worldwide standards (for e.g. EN1340) list down the standard kerb profiles and dimensions which cater to most design re-quirements. The smart thing to do would be to use the profiles available from the standards and request for special elements only where not.

FACING PAGE | CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Half batter vacuum wet press kerbs at Surat

Municipal Corporation Road, Surat

Offlet Kerbs

L-profiled kerbs with drain cover at Safal Goyal, Sky City, Ahmedabad

ThickneSSThe heavier the traffic, the higher the kerb thickness is required. Typically, 150 mm thick kerbs are selected for highways while 125 mm thick kerbs are used for city streets. While private-use areas can have kerbs that are only 100 mm thick, pedestrian-only areas can opt for ‘edgings’ within 50-70mm thickness.

heighTKerbs are laid so that at least 50% of their height is embedded in the ground. The most visually appealing option is to have kerbs that measure 100 mm above the finished road level. However, there have been some instances of vehicular overrun on these kerbs, so some municipalities have increased their heights on the carriageways to 125 or even 150 mm. If footways are too crowded and there is a possibility of someone getting pushed off on to the street, a higher kerbing is more likely to prevent an accident. In such cases, care needs to be taken for proper detailing for access for the elderly and the physically challenged people. At times, higher kerbs are used to create planted road medians or make strong traffic deterrents.

LengThTypically, lengths of 1000 mm are considered a standard in many European countries. However in India, given the absence of mechanical laying aids at most sites, a 600 mm long kerbstone is most preferred, as it weighs up to 50 kgs per piece and, thus, is just about manageable for manual laying. Smaller lengths are also available.

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Road keRbS - baSic pRoFiLeS

haLF baTTeR (hb) – The STandaRd pRoFiLe keRb• Most elegant and commonly used

shape. • Used when a footpath is provided

adjacent to the carriageway, helping deflect the traffic back on to the carriage way and hence protect the pedestrians.

• ‘Sloping back’ profile enables road rollers to operate right up to the edge of the pavement without scratching or damaging the kerb face when the surface is laid.

45° SpLay (Sp) pRoFiLe• Used to allow access to vehicular

traffic over itself. • Used when access is to be given

for demarcated parking spaces, or where vehicles may need to climb on to verges in case of emergencies.

• Not used when a footpath is present.

buLL noSe (bn) pRoFiLe• Used to provide access to vehicles

from carriageways to a private driveway or an access point across pedestrian footpath crossing, allowing vehicles to cross over most easily.

SquaRe oR FLuShed pRoFiLe• Used as a flush kerb, embedded

completely in the ground, with only the top surface visible.

• Helps provide restraints for both the footpath as well as the carriage way.

• Useful in very low traffic areas, where the sidewalk is intended as a mixed use space to occasionally allow parking of vehicles.

• Blurs the boundaries between road or paving on one side to landscape features on the other and promote undisrupted visual experience

dRainage aSSiSTing keRbS

WaTeR diShed channeL• Used adjacent to kerbs towards the carriageway.

Aid in smooth drainage of water.

SLoped channeLS • Are alternative drainage systems for dished profiles.

oFFLeT keRbS• Allow standing water to drain away from

carriageways.

guLLy keRbS• Offer a possibility to gather water along the

carriageway edge, and to drain it away by using pipes across the corresponding offlet kerbs.

• Slope on the face of the gully matches that of the sloped channel and can be used almost seamlessly on the pavement edge.

L-pRoFiLed keRbS• Help form a trench that enables placement of precast

drain/trench covers on top.

TRench keRbS• Excellent solution to drain out from the surface itself. • Withstand light vehicular traffic overrun and

occasional heavy vehicular traffic.

dRain coveRS• Practical yet low cost solution for many storm water

drain, electrical cable conduit etc. type of needs.

deTaiLing acceSSoRy keRbS

RadiuS keRbS• Are available in various radii in concave and

convex shapes with a half batter profile and a similar finish to match the other road kerbs.

dRoppeR keRbS• Used to link half-battered kerbs to bullnose kerbs

(and vice versa) with drop in height to match the lower placed BN kerbs which allow access over footways at crossings.

• Allow for aesthetically pleasing and seamless transition.

quadRanT and angLe keRbS• Help achieve a neat radiused finish or curved edging,

whereas the angled kerbs assist in 90°changes in edgings.

TRanSiTion keRbS• Helps transition from half batter profile to splay

profile and vice versa. • Form an important detailing element.

Accessory Profiles

Accessory kerbs aid surface drainage, handle transitions from one type of kerb to another, pro-vide friendly transitions for drops in footways, and allow smooth details for radii and turns in the roads. These are all necessary to obtain complete and integrated design solutions.

others kerbs

• Precast concrete kerbs are also at times available in colours, textures or with added sealing protection to match the adjacent paving material on the footways or on the carriageway to enable a visual continuity.

• Separation edgings are made of flexible plastic and can be useful for small areas like lawn edgings. These plastic edgings are nailed down to the floor and are normally not visible after growth of grass.

• Polymeric kerbs are strong but lightweight and available only from a few sources worldwide. • For enhanced safety, kerbs can be made with inbuilt reflectors, LED lights or ‘glow in the

dark strips’. • Alternately, kerbs can be painted with water based road marking paints.

Genuine awareness and usage of kerbing materials contribute immensely in defining all kinds of circulation systems at any scale while giving a designer’s touch to the landscape schemes.

all images courtesy the author

Bull nose kerbstones

External angled kerb

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