Bringing the Yamuna back to life
team of faculty from University of Virginia, a leading public university in USA has chalked out a robust plan for bringing back the Yamuna River to life.
While the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) is actively tracking and treating the raw effluent of the supplementary drain adjacent to Wazirabad, a major source of highly polluted and contaminated effluent flowing directly into the Yamuna River, the team of faculty members will focus on the parallel design upgrade solutions for the area around the drain to make a powerful synergy of DJB’s efforts to clean the river, said Pankaj Vir Gupta, Visiting Professor, University of Virginia School of Architecture, a part of the current team of 10 senior faculty members. “This area shall be the focus of the University of Virgina efforts for the next six months,” he said
“As a resident of Nizamuddin, close to the river, I grew up watching the river frequented by migratory birds and fish. Over a period of time, the river slowly became the backyard of the city,” Gupta said.
Gupta started this project way back in 2012 as a part of his annual research, funded by the university as his efforts to rejuvenate the Yamuna River. Based on the data evaluated by him with a multidisciplinary team of experts to create a roadmap of solutions to bring back the river to life, the DJB signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the university in 2016.
The team from University of Virginia includes experts from various disciplines – architecture, landscape architecture, environmental sciences, public health, engineering, business, and those with a background in politics and governance structures in India
Not just professors, so far over 75 research students have travelled to India to study the health of the river and worked with the faculty to propose solutions. The number of faculty members working on the project is also set to go up, Gupta said
Since 2016, when the MoU was signed, the team has proposed some very realistic, implementable, on-ground solutions for bringing the Yamuna River back to life, Gupta said.
“We have suggested the DJB to create ecological drain corridors as spaces for slow mobility (like public walkways, bicycle tracks), proposed a significant design investment in the quality of urban housing - especially low income housing, suggested simple design methodologies for offering the citizens of Delhi a city surrounded by an ecosphere – a Yamuna river forest, a floodplain that fully embraces the city,” Gupta said.
Basis these proposals now, the university alongwith DJB held a public exhibition in Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi this March-April wherein Delhi’s Lieutenant Governer Anil Baijal issued instructions to begin pilot work based on the study, Gupta added.
The team is also working to protect and secure the floodplain from urban advances, and propose to restore the hydrology and river dynamics back to the river, so that in the event of a seasonal flood, the water returns to a natural cycle as opposed to being a human ecology disaster.
“In mega cities such as Delhi, with urban populations in excess of 20 million people, there is a critical absence of ecological space. However, we believe that in protecting and enhancing the quality of ecological space, we also add tremendous value to the many kilometres of derelict space, contaminated by refuse and effluent, that is presently under utilized,” Gupta said.
Finally, he mentioned that the team imagines these areas to become vital urban community spaces, enabling the creation of schools, public health amenities, cultural venues, low-income housing, and vital green space for citizens.
Stylists should be able to research, conceptualize original ideas, collaborate with designers, brands, art directors, modelling agencies, hair & makeup artists to source the talent and material for the shoot or the project. Also, with the advent of blogging, stylists need to have strong CAD skills to visualize their ideas.
Professional education is required as stylists and image designers are required to have a keen eye for fashion, a sound understanding of society,
Students looking at styling as a full time profession should choose schools which