Architecture student’s project to transform slum through sports wins praise
Vyasarpadi in North Madras has a lot of disturbing stories to narrate. Priyadharshan TA, a fifth-year student at Kalasalingam School of Architecture, has developed a project to transform the slum through sports. “Upliftment of a slum region through sports is a very successful approach. Right from the slums of Lagos in Nigeria to even closer home, places like Dharavi in Mumbai, sports like football have transformed the lives of talented and aspirational individuals living in those places. It has produced some of the biggest sports talents. My design is an extension of the vision of NGO SCSTEDS (Slum Children Sports Talent and Educational Development Society) providing opportunities to the community that gradually wants to liberate itself from the clutches of misinterpretation and negligence. The design aims at catering the structural needs of the organisation within the available limited plots, that will further help them engage with the kids of the community,” says Priyadharshan, who was a finalist at the 2020 Nippon Paint’s AYDA Awards (India) edition.
The project attempts to detect opportunities within the slum residence and take advantage of the existing scenario. “The project site is in Kalyanapuram, Vyasarpadi. My design proposal focuses on identifying specific spots in the region that are decaying and used as dump yards. These have eventually become spots of public menace like alcohol and smoking. So, four cases are identified as representative spots for small-scale urban interventions to regenerate and transform this existing space into one that will have a positive social impact on the community. The proposed spots will host a football ground, a micro-library, an informal school and a park with an open gym, all of which will replace the existing decaying nodes,” adds the student.
These design solutions are urban intervention experiments that are universal in theme connecting every individual’s aspiration living in a slum. “It is an attempt towards revitalising the ignored lands that can now not only become social hotspots for human consumption but also ensure that the cultural identity of the locals is kept intact and not displaced at the expense of the design intervention,” he tells us.
Slum Children Sports Talent and Educational Development Society (SCSTEDS) is supporting the project and the amount of progress that they have achieved as an organisation in the last two decades is inspiring and revolutionary. “They have truly brought in change within Kalyanapuram and I’d like to collaborate with them in the coming years to focus on the needs of the people of the marginal community. Sports like football has been an integral tool of empowerment, and with architecture complementing it, we can holistically uplift the future generations of Kalyanapuram or any other slums for that matter,” concludes Priyadharshan.