Urban mapping will bring change

Hyderabad: Art definitely is multidimensional and its integration with technology and dynamics of a changing urban landscape can do wonders. In a similar first of-its kind attempt, Hyderabad has taken the initiative of creating a platform wherein people, institutions and organisations who experience the change in the city’s evolution and its dynamics can meet and study their cities.

“Everybody now is part of technology and yet everything we do involves some kind of a craftsmanship to it. When you bring this concept down to a simple thing, as studying a change, it shows an attitude about your commitment to the city. One can be a great surgeon and another could be a great city planner, but what do you discuss when you come together and how can you bring in your best, is something that counts. A vision with a view to discover more ideas,” said Anant Maringanti, a geographer with the Hyderabad Urban Labs.

To provide a space for people to put forth their ideas, a community-driven techno arts event called Do Din (two days) featuring workshops, discussions, performances and film screenings revolving on urban themes was held.

The themes ranged from mobility and safety, housing, planning, violence, water, waste, memory and negotiation. Do Din also featured a very urban and a radical approach called the Geo-hack space. A mapping workshop that brought together designers, hackers, data scientists, geo activists to brainstorm and find innovative ways to use open source mapping to solve urban problems like mobility, water logging, among others.

Harsha Devulapalli, another member of the HUL, meanwhile, developed a route map of all the buses, sharing autos and the MMTS services across the city with their time durations and frequency.

On similar lines, HUL has created a model map of the Mallepally area, near Masab Tank, which was one of the model colonies during the Nizam’s era.

Drawing parallel to the current scenario, an exact idea of the land and lakes encroached as part of urbanisation was found in the region. “The city planning back then was done with so much finesse that every colony had its own park among other things,” Harsha said.