Last month, students in SARUP's Urban Edge Award Studio received grants to travel to India for two weeks. Directed by Prof. Manu Sobti, the UWM team visited numerous sites in the cities of Delhi and Agra before their arrival in Chandigarh.

There they were joined by seven students from the Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA). Together, these students participated in a workshop let by Prof. Sobti and Sangeeta Bagga-Mehta (CCA). 

Over the course of this workshop, two 'edge' sites in Chandigarh were analyzed - one positioned within the formal confines of the city (Badheri) and the other on its periphery (Kansal).

The sites of study are urban conditions that are made and un-made over successive generations responding to complex cultural, economic, political, environmental, and physical transformations, which induce building morphologies and instigate place definitions. 

Urban design propositions were prepared and presented to the Chief Architect and Urban Development Director of the city. 

The trip provided the foundation for the Spring semester’s India Urban Edge Award Studio, “Rethinking the Urban Edge”, where students will continue to study Badheri and Kansal, investigate the urban edge as both a physical boundary and as a metaphoric concept within the changing, global city, and develop their own interpretations of what it means to design at the edge.

Work of the Urban Edge Award Studio will culminate in an exhibition, a publication, and a conference in the Fall.  

Images courtesy Andreya Veintimilla