To redesign and make its streets safer and inclusive in a studio project, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has invited urban designers to join hands with its engineers so as to create innovative place-making strategies for improving walkabilty and vehicular efficiency. 

The project, called Mumbai Street Lab, is a first-of-its-kind in which the civic body has chosen parts of five important streets – SV Road, Napean Sea Road, Vikhroli Parksite Road No.17, Maulana Shaukat Ali Road and Rajaram Mohan Roy Road – and called for sustainable and people-centric design proposals from city-based architects and urban designers.

Each participant will have to submit their design proposals for two out of five streets by October 22 to the MCGM. Those shortlisted will then present their designs ideas to a jury of experts, academics and MCGM representatives. In the final studio phase the jury will fine-tune the proposals of the final five winners with each winner designing one street. Each will be awarded Rs 5 lakh in honorarium for implementation of final designs in November.

BMC chief engineer Sanjay Darade said, “To begin with we have picked five specific roads, so as to add value, beauty and architecture. We are inviting entries from urban designers with five-year experience who will do a detailed study on pedestrian behaviour. The streets will be designed following international best practices with street furniture, landmarks and signage, traffic movement etc. We have also developed a website for the project.”

Dhawal Ashar, senior manager, integrated transport, World Resources Institute, said, “Mumbai Street Lab offers a platform to urban designers and architects to collaborate with MCGM and design streets of Mumbai. Every street element will be carefully designed to create a contextual and holistic design solution. The success of this lab can mainstream the involvement of urban designers in designing city streets in the future.”