Research Projects & Publications Shaping future of Architecture

The research project was for the Jadavpur Market Road, a market for people traveling from Garfa, a residential area to Jadavpur University and the Jadavpur Station Road in Kolkata. Street vendors have been setting up their shops at the market road for over two decades. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, some of the vendors were required to leave their homes in Kolkata and now travel close to 60 kms daily to set up their stalls. To help solve this problem, a housing module was conceptualized for these vendors. This module uses the existing buildings on the market road as host buildings and are attached to the host’s facade using brackets. These lightweight modules have beds, storage space, a community space with kitchen, and toilet facilities. The vendors can climb into their modules at night with their products and need not travel daily a distance of 60 kms. 

Our research publications include the following work include this urban design research. In contemporary urban planning, understanding the preferences of residents and visitors is most important for effective city management and tourism development. This study delves into the potential of harnessing social media data to gain insights into urban preferences and city image perception, with the aim of informing tourism planning practices. The research question investigates the feasibility of extracting meaningful insights from social media user's; activity, thus converting big data into actionable information for planners.

The project's primary objective is to validate the hypothesis that social media data can reveal people's perception of city image, aligning with interview data from visiting tourists. The study aims to establish indicators of city image using available big data from social media platforms and complementing it with qualitative interview data. By analyzing changes in the popularity of landmarks over time, the research seeks to discern patterns and trends, ultimately informing tourism planning practices.

Methodologically, the study utilizes a dataset of photos sourced from the social media platform Flickr, leveraging timestamps and geo-tagged information for temporal and spatial analysis. This approach enables the identification of popular circuits and the tracking of changes in attraction preferences over time. Furthermore, the study juxtaposes these findings with governmental policies and infrastructure developments to assess their impact on urban preferences.

The results reveal valuable insights into the dynamic nature of urban preferences and highlight the correlation between governmental interventions and changes in tourism patterns. By discerning popular circuits and understanding visitor perceptions, planners can optimize resource allocation and enhance the overall tourism experience. This study contributes to the evolving field of urban planning by demonstrating the efficacy of integrating social media data into decision-making processes, thus facilitating more informed and responsive tourism planning practices.

Our research articles review the literature on intergenerational differences, migration, housing tenure. The housing tenure inequality across generations is mainly attributable to an increase in the property prices alongside a relatively less increase in the income making home ownership unaffordable. Migration largely impacts the housing market as an influx of immigrants lead to an increase in the housing demand, whereas the supply more or less remains the same. Changes in the mix of migration flows, cross country disparities in housing market behaviour, and institutional factors may contribute to differences in outcomes across countries in how natives respond to an immigration shock. Local population might have a propensity to leave city neighbourhoods where migrants settle which results in a fall in property prices in that area. Immigrants are more likely to reside in underdeveloped neighbourhoods, which has an impact on their standard of living. Homeownership rates among immigrants are low in the beginning which eventually become at par with the rest of the population. The choice of housing tenure depends on financial and socio economic factors such as household income, future propensity of residential mobility, future length of stay, generational effect, housing price, social status and life-cycle situation. A comparative analysis of Hong Kong and Mumbai is presented to study the effects of intergenerational differences and migration on housing tenure in different regional contexts. The paper displays an understanding of the need for social rental housing, controlling real estate speculation and tax vacant properties.