[Ryan James Aldrich]

Yes there are many social issues to deal with when designing public space in India.You listed some important ideas.

Fruit trees are fantastic, though I have concern with placing edible plants in a garden designed to absorb heavy metals / pollutants. I am an advocate of public fruit trees, and would love to see more throughout all urban areas of the world however perhaps not in rain gardens.

Toilets are an interesting concept in India, public toilets can be found however they are always ‘pay to use’.

Seats is an interesting point – prehaps seats can be arranged to prevent animals from tramping the rain garden, ie they are located around the garden acting as a fence. 

Sleeping is another deep social issue. From my observation a majority of homeless sleep at construction sites. Within major Indian city there is an enormous rate of growth and construction. Every 50 meters often  less there seems to be a construction project of a significant scale. The laborers who work on these also sleep in the under construction buildings. Or poor, small and rickety shacks are build at a corner of the site in which the laborers live. There is also the situation of slums, the informal settlements. The idea of been homeless in a western country does not directly translate to India.

Hammocks – why only at night! lets have permanent hammocks in our public space! I love this idea of yours.

I hope my rambling is of interest. Thank you for the comments and thoughts. It is fantastic!   

[Ryan James Aldrich]

Feeding the cows is an interesting topic. I would love to see parks / urban sanctuaries created throughout the cities for cows. In my home country of NZ, in Auckland city we have urban parks on the many volcanoes with sheep grazing the grass. (As an example Google image search: One Tree Hill Auckland). In India Instead the cows roam the concrete and feed on garbage. It is a horrible site that makes me sad. Unfortunately without some sort of protection I see a small rain garden being completely consumed and destroyed one day after planting.

There is probably a balance that can be achieved – enough protection so the rain garden is not destroyed yet a controlled amount of vegetation is exposed and can be consumed by cattle.    

[Ryan James Aldrich]

Perhaps seating can be arranged to protect the green infrastructure – benches used as fencing.

[Ryan James Aldrich]

Thanks for your thoughts. I think there are ideas that can be taken from the farming industry.

[Ryan James Aldrich]

Thanks for the Ideas. Fencing is the most pragmatic – although there is opportunity in design to develop interesting / creative fencing solutions. Bollards could be an interesting aproch.

I was considering that where room is sufficient plants that are deterrents to cows could be used – perhaps something very un-tasty for cows, spiky and hardy / robust.

Thanks for your thoughts!   

[Ryan James Aldrich]

A HA-HA is a interesting idea, however I dont think it is the most applicable to urban situations as it require a large space to implement. However to continue this thought another similar idea for larger sites is tall steps that are pedestrian friendly but not traversable by cattle.

As a note: Parks within Indian city’s are always fenced to keep cattle out. I posed this question more in regards to urban streets. For example how can you achieve rain gardens / bio swales between a road and a sidewalk. This is now typical design practice for LAs in most developed countries – How does it work with roaming cattle? 

 Thanks for your input!

[Ryan James Aldrich]

[Ryan James Aldrich]

Another resource is Landscape Architecture for Humanity:

http://www.laforhumanity.org/

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