David
Nightingale’s urban design comments in the October 2020 Auroville
Today article bring attention, again, to some main town development
points. These include: a conventional Crown road would be
destructive; parking for polluting vehicles outside the Crown at the
radials; and urban spaces on the Crown.
An
urban spaces ‘Squares’ on the Crown town planning study,
originally called plazas on the Crown, was integral with the petal
parks idea and based on the existing land and developments at that
time, the early 1980’s. I was working with Dorothee at the Eco
House organizing land maps, working with several green-workers, and
surveying for water conservation projects partly funded by the Tamil
Nadu Forest Department, and developed a fairly comprehensive sense of
the land and existing buildings. The nine urban ‘Squares’ seem to
fit, at the intersection of radial roads at that time, and in part
formed a Crown reference diameter. Part of the idea was by building
the Squares/plazas...
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