RAHUL MEHROTRA

INTRODUCTON
• Rahul Mehrotra is a practising architect and
educator. He works in Mumbai and teaches at the
Graduate School of Design at Harvard University,
where he is Professor of Urban Design and
Planning, and the former Chair of the Department
of Urban Planning and Design as well as a member
of the steering committee of Harvard’s South Asia
Initiative. 
• He is a practicing architect, urban designer, and
educator. His Mumbai + Boston based firm, RMA
Architects.
• was founded in 1990 and has designed and
executed projects, including government and
private institutions, corporate workplaces, private
homes, and unsolicited projects driven by the firm’s
commitment to advocacy in the city of Mumbai. 
• The firm has designed a software campus for
Hewlett Packard in Bengaluru, a campus for Magic
Bus (an NGO that works with poor children), led
the restoration of the Chowmahalla and
Falukhnama Palaces in Hyderabad, and formulated
a conservation master plan for the Taj Mahal with
the Taj Mahal Conservation Collaborative.
• The firm also recently designed and built a social
housing project for 100 elephants and their
caretakers in Jaipur, as well as a corporate office in
Hyderabad.
• Mehrotra has written and lectured extensively on
issues to do with architecture, conservation, and
urban planning and design in Mumbai and India.
• His writings include co-authoring ‘Bombay: The
Cities Within’, which covers the city’s urban history
from the 1600s to the present; ‘Banganga: Sacred
Tank’; ‘Public Places Bombay’; ‘Anchoring a City
Line’ a history of the city’s commuter railway; and
‘Bombay to Mumbai: Changing Perspectives’.
• He has also co-authored ‘Conserving an Image
Center: The Fort Precinct in Bombay’. Based on this
study and its recommendations, the historic Fort
District in Mumbai was declared a conservation
precinct in 1995 – a first such designation in India.
• In 2000, he edited a book for the Union of
International Architects, which earmarks the end
of the last century and is titled, ‘The Architecture
of the 20th Century in the South Asian Region’. 
• Mehrotra’s latest co-authored book is titled ‘Taj
Mahal: Multiple Narratives’ which was published in
December 2017. Mehrotra’s research on urbanism
is focused on evolving a theoretical framework for
designing in conditions of informal growth – what
he refers to as the ‘Kinetic City’. 
• Rahul Mehrotra has long been involved in civic and
urban affairs in Mumbai, having served on
government commissions for the conservation of
historic buildings and environmental issues with
various neighbourhood groups and, from 1994 to
2004, as Executive Director of the Urban Design
Research Institute in Mumbai.
• He studied at the School of Architecture,
Ahmedabad (CEPT) where he received the gold
medal for his undergraduate thesis and graduated
with a master’s degree with distinction in Urban
Design from Harvard University.
• He has taught at the University of Michigan (2003–
2007) and at the School of Architecture and Urban
Planning at MIT (2007–2010).
URBAN PROJECT
 Goa 2100 
•  The project looks at planning from a ‘RUrban’
perspective – a method of sustainable
development that combines high quality living
conditions, a successful economy, and sustainable
levels of resource use and waste generation for
both the city as well as its rural periphery. The aim
of the proposal is to integrate urban and rural
communities through physical infrastructure and
the formation of symbiotic economic networks. It
visualizes the city as a net producer of ecological
services rather than a sink for regional and global
resources.  culture provides a powerful basis for an indigenously lead
• Greater Panjim (GP)Water and nature areas are
interwoven into the urban fabric, yet both traditional and
contemporary elements are well-balanced and
integrated . Panjim, the capital of the small westem Indian
state of Goa with an urban area of about 170 sq. km. and
a population of 113,000.
• needs can be met non-materially.
• This urban, Rurban, rural and marine agglomeration is the
chosen unit of analysis and design. Located in the lower
watersheds of the Mandovi river basin facing the Arabian
Sea, its rich natural resource base and community-centric
transition using renewable energy, gas, local food
production with water and energy conservation.
• This is made possible by a culture of sufficiency and local
governance, where non-material needs can be met non-
materially.
• This urban, Rurban, rural and marine
agglomeration is the chosen unit of analysis and
design. Located in the lower watersheds of the
Mandovi river basin facing the Arabian Sea, its rich
natural resource base and community-centric
culture provides a powerful basis for an
indigenously lead transition using renewable
energy, gas, local food production with water and
energy conservation.
• This is made possible by a culture of sufficiency
• Hence, multiple potential development pathways
and local governance, where non-material needs
are now opening. Three were selected for more
can be met non-materially.
rigorous analysis and design by this project.Sibley
• Greater Panjim: future scenariosGoa index, Depply Sustainable condi within the target
Change has been relatively slow in the state, but
• is a small self-contained ecological and cultural
that is altering rapidly.
region that has retained its identity in spite of
almost 500 years of colonialrule. • Opportunities are appearing in the IT, bio-
technology and eco-tourism sectors,Transition2000 .
• Each performs very differently in achieving
sustainability of long-term resource security: 4Goa
2100 scenarios have been adapted from a set of
global and national scenarios produced by RIVM,
the Global Scenario Group and TERI.
• They have been significantly adapted to match the
reality of Gos, but are still only ustrative and not
SUSTAINABLE TRANSITION
• Resource security and contained demand makes
energy, resources and savings available for efficient
technology - recycling, reproduction, maintenance
and de construction - and the sunrise sectors of
biotechnology, IT, advanced materials, human
contact and info-edutainment Renewable energy,
sustainable transport and IT links enable
consolidation of smaller urban nuclei, while
dynamic components can swell or shrink, allowing
interplay of city, forest and fields.
PROPOSAL
High investment, Intensive, static components are
concentrated in the center. A spine the linear arrangement
links static components. A hub connects the spine to
nuclel, at the heart of each communed ads in other cells.
Pedestrian and cycle pathways enable horizontal
movement. Nature interpenetrates the body of the
nucleus.
Waking time from one end to the other determines scale.
Each nucleus is bounded to prevent cancerous growth.
These skins inter-connect with the surrounding Urban
environment
The spine provides all up-and-down mobility, mostly
automater networked services run through a subterranean
tunnel Arterial goods and services networks also recycle
waste, The body of the mucus is flexible, is density can
swell or she responding to changing population and
economic needs celebrate the static.
Waking time from one end to the other
determines scale. Each nucleus is bounded to
prevent cancerous growth. These skins inter-
connect with the surrounding Urban
environment
The spine provides all up-and-down mobility,
mostly auto mater Networked services run
through a subterranean tunnel Arterial goods
and services networks also recycle waste, The
body of the mucus is flexible, is density can
swell or she responding to changing
population and economic needs....celebrate
the static.
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