In a city as dense as Mumbai, public space is a precious, life-enhancing commodity. But nestled on a narrow urban peninsula where the population has almost doubled in the past 10 years, such space is desperately lacking: a report by the BMW Guggenheim Lab and Mumbai research group PUKAR calculated that each resident in Mumbai has an average of just 11.84 square feet to escape to – and falling.
Can anything be done to offer Mumbaikars more room to gather and chat, to relax and reflect? Enter the Urban Vision, a self-styled “think-do tank” that seeks to re-envisage India’s cities by brainstorming new designs for urban spaces – and then, crucially, making those designs a reality.
