How would be the city's now famous heritage walk look like if the streets were paved in a way that could guide the tourist on his own, while respecting the residents' privacy.
These ideas kept a group of 30 students from National Institute of Design (NID) and University of Ferrara, Italy, busy for the past fortnight. NID's Gandhinagar campus played host to the students from Italy for the workshop on the theme of 'Accessible mobility for public spaces & cultural heritage in Ahmedabad.' As part of the workshop, the students got divided into four groups and took up projects to provide revamp plans for Blind People's Association, Adalaj stepwell, Geeta Mandir bus depot and heritage walk of the city.![http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/images/pixel.gif]()
Vipul Vinzuda, coordinator, transportation and automobile design, NID, said that the project aimed at inclusivity. "We chose the projects very carefully to provide diversity and local relevance. We wanted the students to get sensitized to the local situation, needs and feasible solutions, while keeping in mind all user groups," he said.
Professor Giuseppe Mincolelli from University of Ferrara said that it was a valuable experience for Italian students. "The purpose of design is social improvement and we worked to improve the heritage conservation and public services. We believe that with intelligent design solutions, we can improve accessibility and inclusiveness," he said.
Aravinda D K, a transport design student, who was part of the heritage walk project, said that they have proposed an idea for paved streets and mobile dustbins on the route. "We had to work on narrow streets so we also devised plans for autos that can be used as emergency vehicles and signal towers for the visitors from outside," he said. Abhishek Kumar, who worked on Geeta Mandir project, said that the group pitched in for colour-coded pathways for passengers and revamped parking plans to decongest the area.
Source: TOI