A project funded under EU Erasmus+ Program in the field of Capacity Building
in Higher Education
Increased frequency of natural hazards and sea level rise are
expected impacts of climate change in India. Marginalized urban settlements
are often vulnerable to disaster due to their location in hazardous areas
and the use of non-durable building materials, already today their
inhabitants are therefore strongly affected by climate change. But amidst
strives to meet climate targets, the poor’s needs are mostly overlooked.
In this context, there is an urgent need for paradigmatic shift in the
education of graduate students in spatial planning and design as well as
training of urban professionals from different back-grounds in order to
confront upcoming challenges related to climate change impacts on urban
informal settlements.
BReUCom therefore will:
Produce Open Educational Resources by developing 10 comparative
case studies & 10 descriptions of new courses for graduate students in existing pro-grams,
following MIT’s Open Course Ware model. Pilot 5 new courses on urban resilience in existing curricula
for graduate students. Develop 20 new Professional Development Programs (PDP's)
modules on urban resilience for urban professionals from different backgrounds and working
experiences, pilot 10 modules including internships with
NGOs in India and Europe.
Why perform B_Re_U_Com ?
From the next 100 metro cities in the world about 40 are going to be in India, India is
a growing economy with rapid urbanization which is expected to have a total housing
shortage from about 18.8 million in 2012 to about 30 million in 2022. About one thirds
of the Indian population lives in slums and on an average 48 percent of metro cities
lives in informality with poor habitat conditions, living on untenable land with no
access to safe water and sanitation, insecurity of tenure and constant threat from
eviction. This carries the danger of growing poverty and - subsequently - of social and
political unrest.
The proposed many programs and schemes creates huge demand and more importantly
responsible architects and urban planning professionals who are trained to deal with
ground realities and are sensitized to deal with complex challenges towards development
of Inclusive communities.
The BReUCom project conceives and pilots postgraduate short-term Professional Development
Programs (PDPs) targeted at real world problems.
Many authorities and local stakeholder lack well trained planning experts capable of
sensibly responding to the needs of informal squatters. Sustainable approaches to support
different types of urban poor require well trained academic personnel with a sound
understanding of social and spatial mechanisms at work in informal settlements.
The integration of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary aspects into architectural
training holds high potential for relevant services to the society. However, Indian HEIs are
not well equipped to meet these demands, since curricula in architecture and urban planning
predominantly focus on technical and design skills. Therefore, Indian Partner institutions
have identified the following needs for innovation:
Indian HEIs need to strengthen their relations to the wider
economic and social environment (public authorities, companies, community organizations and
NGOs) to exchange experiences, build awareness, meet
societal needs and accomplish their social responsibility
Indian HEIs need to incorporate interdisciplinary and
trans-disciplinary aspects in their curricula for architecture and planning, which is either
partly or completely new for them.
HEIs lack indigenous educational resources, which reflect the
specific Indian context for sustainable housing and inclusive community development.
For developing indigenous educational resources, which contain
new tools, methodologies and pedagogical approaches, they require specific know how, which
will be rendered by European partners.
BReUCom hence helps bridge this gap between planning and
architecture training to working environments to understand and react sensitively to
community needs and partnerships.
B_Re_U_Com partners
Danube University Krems, Austria SPA Vijayawada, India NIT Hamirpur, India SPA Bhopal, India KRVIA, India SPARC, India University of Twente, The Netherlands CURE, India
Work Packages (WPs)
WP1: Preparation Lead organization: DUK, Austria
WP2: Development Comparative Case Studies Lead organization: SPA Bhopal
WP3: Development Courses and PDPs Lead organization, KRVIA Mumbai
WP4 Development Pilot Implementation & Evaluation Lead organization, SPA Vijayawada
WP5: Quality Plan Entrepreneurial advisory board Lead organization , NIT Hamirpur
WP6: Dissemination & Exploitation PDP academy as platform model Lead organization ,
SPARC
WP7: Dissemination & Exploitation Project Management Lead organization, DUK
Case Studies Undertaken by SPA Vijayawada
Case Study I - Thermal Comfort study for mitigating heat stress through climate responsive
planning: A case study of Vijayawada (in collaboration with DUK Austria)
Case Study II - Urban Energy and Spatial Dynamics towards Climate Resilience: A Case of
Bangalore (in collaboration with ITC Netherlands)
Case Study III - Climate resilient adaptation of built-form in Hilly Region through
Traditional Wisdom and best practices – A case of Himachal Pradesh Region (in collaboration
with
NIT
Hamirpur)
SPA VIJAYAWADA TEAM MEMBERS
1. Prof. Dr. Minakshi Jain
2. Dr. Adinarayanane R
3. Dr. Ayon Kumar Tarafdar
4. Dr. Prashanti Rao
5. Dr. Faiz Ahmed C