In contemporary urban planning and designing the places are highly influenced by local cultural values, image of the city, forming an integral part of the design process. When we travel to different towns and cities, we observe local variation in its socio-economic structure, making design more vibrant and meaningful to the local culture. This diversity in design make places interesting with ever changing vista by the observer. The design is further influenced by other factors such as geographical location, local climate, historical importance in terms of heritage value and strategical impor ..read more

Beginning in the 1980s there was renewed interest in the micro-macro linkage. Despite the early integrationist tendencies of the classical theorists, much of 20th-century theory was either micro-extremist or macro-extremist in its orientation. On the macro side are theories such as structural functionalism, some variants of neo-Marxian theory, and conflict theory. Conversely, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, exchange and rational-choice theory are all examples of micro-extremism. Thus micro- and macro- extremism can be seen as a development in modern theory, and indeed, many of the ..read more

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known as Mahatma is arguably the most admired human being of the twentieth-century. Not an academic philosopher, Gandhi was never concerned with abstract philosophical analysis. When asked his philosophy, he typically responded, ‘My life is my message.’ And yet one could make a strong case that Gandhi is more philosophically interesting and significant than most professional philosophers. (Douglas Allen, 2004: 103-105)Gandhi, like Socrates, was a gadfly, and he was often an embarrassment and an irritant, even to his friends and allies. He challenges unackno ..read more

In India, real estate sector is the second largest next to agriculture in terms of employment generation and substantially contributes to the GDP of the Indian economy. There is a significant growth in housing and allied segments such as retail, hospitality and commercial real estate and is contributing almost 5% of the country’s GDP.  Furthermore, these activities of the real estate are closely linked with the industries such as cement, steel, paints, brick, timber, building materials and so on which enables increase in a household income of the families. With such increase in the income, e ..read more

Transitional Construction Materials and its Impact on Architecture: The transmutation of architectural ideas, building materials and structural techniques from one religion to another, and from one region to another is the rich and glorious tradition of Indian architecture. (Grover 2004, 9) Historically it is proven that Materials have strongly influenced architectural character.  One of the most fascinating aspects of studying everyday buildings from the past is noticing how the simplest materials, such as wood, clay, thatch and stone, have been employed to create architecture.  If clay alo ..read more

Introduction: India is the largest democracy in the world. The existence of NGOs is important in this kind of democracy to solve the problems which are still prevailing in the society. Civil society derives its strength mainly from the Gandhian tradition of volunteerism, but today, it expresses itself in many different forms of activism. India has a long tradition of voluntary action.  The mainspring of voluntary action was charity of human kindness.  Some people in society felt deep concern for suffering of humanity, the poor and deprived and those afflicted by physical disabilities and ailm ..read more

Planning profession essentially is concerned with shaping the future based on the past experiences. In a highly urbanised country such as Britain they have to work with the planning arrangements and ideologies of the planners, which are inherited from the past. Planning, necessarily means regulating urban spaces and the ways in which they are to be done. Planning system guides them and embodies past political assumptions and social institutions with the help of planning policy instrument. They have to live and improve the past planning decisions, expressed within the fabric of towns and citi ..read more

Introduction: There was a significant lifestyle change that occurred in the mid-20th century due to sedentary habits of the people during that time and which continued till date (Schmitz and Scully 2006). This resulted in the design of a suitable built environment for such lifestyle with vehicle-oriented communities and commercial districts (Schmitz and Scully 2006). They were provided with an abundance of parking and were accessed through highspeed roadways (Schmitz and Scully 2006). There was a little accommodation for pedestrians and bikers in such designs (Schmitz and Scully 2006). The des ..read more

Introduction:Considering the system approach, sustainable architecture can be viewed as a practice of architectural discipline, which seems to arise as concepts and strategies based on common themes of sustainability (Bennetts, Radford, & Williamson, 2002). This process of change in the institutional settings depends on the continuation, small shifts, fundamental transformations, or replacement of issues such as political events, changes in technologies, scientific discoveries, calamities (actual or imagined) or economic practices and processes (Bennetts, Radford, & Williamson, 2002 ..read more