Mixed-use · Urban Redevlopment · Culture · Public Spaces · Restoration · Adaptive Re-use · Competition
Program
To design of ‘mix’ buildings or groups of buildings, showing what the proposed mixed would be, why, and how it/they might successfully be achieved. This can include any or all of: urban blocks or quarters with a combination of mutually beneficial uses; proposals for new buildings or typologies which cater for different uses, and units of buildings in which different activities can take place, simultaneously or at different times.
Client
World Architecture Festival, Berlin 2016
Location
Chanderi, India
Project Status
Winner - 1st Place
Architecture/Design
Aayush Jindal
Role
Documentation, Conception and Design
Other Partners
Aditya Singh
Husam Nazer
Abhin Mohan
Tarun Bhasin
Yug Aggarwal
Dr. Sanjeev Singh
Year
2016
Project Overview
This is an urban rejuvenation proposal for the historic weaving town of Chanderi. Developed through independent site visits, contextual studies, and observations of the city’s architectural and cultural fabric, the project reimagines Chanderi’s silk route heritage as a living framework for renewal.
The proposal studies the town as a layered urban landscape shaped by weaving, trade, monuments, domestic life, markets, and everyday public spaces. Rather than treating heritage as a collection of isolated buildings, it approaches Chanderi as an active cultural ecosystem where craft, architecture, economy, and community remain deeply connected.
The intervention proposes a polycultural settlement — a mixed framework where craft production, tourism, community spaces, and daily urban life can overlap. Through this approach, Chanderi’s identity is reactivated as both heritage and future possibility: a city where the threads of craft, memory, and public life continue to shape one another.
Reimagining the City Core
The proposal reimagines Chanderi’s historic core as a layered public realm, recalling accounts of a city once animated by markets, craft, and movement across multiple street levels.
New connections, stepped paths, terraces, promenades, and maidans reopen the city as a multidimensional public landscape. Existing havelis and built fragments are preserved, restored, and adapted with new cultural and civic functions, allowing the genius loci of Chanderi to remain visible while supporting contemporary use.
The intervention connects the historic core to the new weaving settlement, creating a continuous urban experience where craft, heritage, tourism, and everyday life can overlap across day and night.
Photo Gallery
