URBAN DESIGN
A city is an assemblage of build­ings and streets, sys­tem of com­mu­nic­a­tion and util­it­ies, places of work, trans­port­a­tion, leis­ure and meet­ing places. The pro­cess of arran­ging these ele­ments both func­tion­ally and beau­ti­fully is the essence of Urban Design.
Delhi had a tra­di­tional Urban Design which is reflec­ted in the glory of 17^th cen­tury  Shahaja­hanabad and New Delhi. In the course of time Delhi is becom­ing amorph­ous aggreg­ate of masses and voids. The Walled City of Shah­ja­hanabad has cer­tain urban form char­ac­ter­ist­ics. The Jama Masjid is a dom­in­at­ing fea­ture loc­ated on hill top and is dif­fer­ent, both in form and scale from the other devel­op­ments of the city. The boulevard of Chandni Chowk was its com­mer­cial centre piece, with cer­tain visual char­ac­ter ter­min­at­ing at two land­marks viz. Red Fort and Fateh Puri Mosque as its two ends. In the plan­ning of New Delhi in 1916, the Cent­ral Vista was con­ceived as a land­scaped stretch to form con­tinu­ity between the ridge and the river Yamuna. The stretch with the Rashtrapati Bhawan and the India Gate at two ends has tre­mend­ous visual qual­ity and is one of the finest examples of Urban Design and monu­ment­al­ity in plan­ning in the world. The Jama Masjid was visu­ally linked with Par­lia­ment House, Con­naught Place and Jama Masjid in the same axis.

The fol­low­ing aspects need to be con­sidered to arrive at the basis for policies affect­ing the urban fab­ric:
i) Areas of sig­ni­fic­ance in built envir­on­ment.
ii) Visual integ­ra­tion of the city.
iii) Policy for tall build­ings.
iv) Policy on unhindered access move­ment, park­ing and ped­es­trian realm.
v) Policy on Hoard­ings, Street fur­niture and Sig­nages.
vi) Urban Design Scheme.
vii) Policy for design of ped­es­trian realm.
viii) City struc­ture plan and Urban Design objective.

1 SIGNIFICANT AREAS OF BUILT ENVIRONMENT
The areas iden­ti­fied for Urban Design guidelines are as given below:

1.1 METROPOLITAN CITY CENTRE
1. Con­naught Place and Exten­sions
The vari­ous pro­pos­als are:
i) Detailed Urban Design and Land­scape Schemes are to be pre­pared to integ­rate MRTS sta­tions, safe ped­es­trian walk­ways, park­ing areas, recre­ational and cul­tural areas, etc.
ii) The inter­me­di­ate pub­lic trans­port such as mono­rail, bat­tery oper­ated / high capa­city buses, sky buses to be intro­duced to increase the mobil­ity within the City Centre.
iii) Activ­it­ies such as view­ing gal­lery, open-air theatres, amuse­ment parks, mini-golf courses/sports activ­it­ies, food plazas etc. to be intro­duced to make them more attract­ive even after work­ing hours.
iv) The envel­ope, FAR, archi­tec­tural fea­tures of the build­ings in the Con­naught Cir­cus – Con­naught Place should be retained as exist­ing.
v) Con­tinu­ity of the side­walks should be main­tained, in terms of the width, sur­face treat­ment, curb cuts, tree and street fur­niture loc­a­tions, for ren­der­ing it safe for the ped­es­tri­ans and dis­abled.
vi) Use of altern­at­ive renew­able sources of energy should be encour­aged for new build­ings (espe­cially those of com­mer­cial or insti­tu­tional nature), traffic sig­nals, pub­lic sig­nages, etc. Encour­age the concept of rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing and remod­el­ing the storm water drain­age to recharge the ground water as per the norms.
2. Walled City And Exten­sions
The vari­ous pro­pos­als for revital­iz­ing the glory of Walled city are:
i) Con­ser­va­tion approach to retain the over­all tra­di­tional char­ac­ter of the Walled City.
ii) Visual integ­ra­tion of major land­marks to revital­ise the past glory. Enhance the exist­ing visual link between the three major land­marks namely Red Fort, Jama Masjid and Fatehpuri Mosque as per ori­ginal concept of Walled City of Shah­ja­hanabad.
iii) Many areas in Shah­ja­hanabad could be ped­es­tri­an­ised and made com­pletely free of vehicu­lar traffic so as to restore the human scale and con­veni­ent liv­ing. For example ped­es­tri­an­isa­tion of Chandni Chowk to impart grandeur to the monu­ments.
iv) Judi­cious use of exist­ing spaces for devel­op­ment of open recre­ational uses.
v) MRTS sta­tion areas are to be dealt as per spe­cific Urban Design schemes and be declared as ped­es­trian zones.
vi) Intro­duc­tion of activ­it­ies such as traditional/craft bazaar, her­it­age walk/rides to attract tour­ists.
vii) Gen­er­a­tion of urban cul­ture at neigh­bour­hood level such as festivals/fairs, kite fly­ing etc.
viii) Envir­on­mental up-gradation required to reduce degen­er­at­ive effects of traffic con­ges­tion.
ix) Reju­ven­a­tion and con­ser­va­tion through man­age­ment option, fin­an­cing incent­ives, innov­at­ive devel­op­ment con­trols con­sid­er­ing built to edge typology.

1.2 DISTRICT CENTRES
A Dis­trict Centre has been envis­aged as a focal point of a dis­trict with the pop­u­la­tion of about
5 – 6 lakhs. In cer­tain situ­ations it may be pos­sible to pre­pare an integ­rated plan for all of the com­pon­ents. In other cases because of factors like the time required between the land devel­op­ment and dis­posal, ten­ure con­di­tions or even cer­tain design require­ments such a solu­tion may not be pos­sible. The com­pon­ents like facil­it­ies, hotel, etc. may be required to be demarc­ated sep­ar­ately for devel­op­ment. Pos­sibly the other group i.e., retail, office, cul­tural com­plex and res­id­en­tial could be more eas­ily integ­rated in the same build­ing space or area through land­scape and cir­cu­la­tion. Thus it would be desir­able to leave it to the designer to pre­pare an integ­rated plan for all or some of the com­pon­ents.
The dis­trict park adjoin­ing to the dis­trict centre pro­posed in the mas­ter plan / zonal plan should be prop­erly integ­rated with the dis­trict centre. The area provided for land­scape as part of the dis­trict centre should weave through the entire dis­trict centre to cre­ate a pleas­ant envir­on­ment.
A dis­trict centre should be access­ible from the sur­round­ing res­id­en­tial areas through the ped­es­trian approach or by sub­ways etc. Planned dis­trict centres in city (form­ing a multi nodal city struc­ture) can be best util­ized for cre­at­ing pub­lic spaces.

1.3 OTHER AREAS
Other areas of Urban Design import­ance are as fol­lows –
a. Cent­ral Vista and the areas in its North and South
b. Ancient set­tle­ments
c. His­tor­ical Monu­ments and Gar­dens
d. Designed envir­on­ment like Exhib­i­tion grounds, Zoo etc.
e. Areas along entry routes and other import­ant routes in Delhi
f. Repub­lic day parade route
g. Road and Rail, MRTS cor­ridors, entries, and ter­min­als.
h. City as a whole for aer­ial view.

2 VISUAL INTEGRATION
Delhi has a tre­mend­ous diversity of built form, color, scale and tex­ture with a het­ero­gen­eous
end product from aes­thetic point of view. Visual integ­ra­tion can pos­sibly be achieved by
identi­fy­ing fea­tures, which integ­rate the city phys­ic­ally.
The import­ant mass move­ment cor­ridors i.e., Ring road/Outer ring road and major radi­als are used by city dwell­ers for internal city com­mut­ing. These move­ment cor­ridors along with newly intro­duced MRTS cor­ridors have poten­tial to acquire an addi­tional dimen­sion of visual qual­ity and integ­ra­tion. The stud­ies and pro­pos­als for ring road and MRTS cor­ridors should be for­mu­lated to improve geo­met­rics, land­scap­ing, street fur­niture, sig­nages, and intro­duc­tion of urban forms at selec­ted points and clear­ance of unsightly devel­op­ments.
Other import­ant ele­ments for the integ­ra­tion of dif­fer­ent parts of the city, planned at dif­fer­ent times are
(i) Flora i.e. tree plant­a­tion con­tinu­ance of ‘New Delhi char­ac­ter’ to other parts of the met­ro­polis and link­ing open space
(ii) Har­mo­ni­ous treat­ment for major eco­lo­gical fea­tures i.e. the Ridge and the River Yamuna.

3 TALL BUILDINGS
Present policy regard­ing tall build­ings is based on height restric­tion for build­ings in dif­fer­ent
use zones, which is not amen­able to delib­er­ate urban form. The height of build­ings (above and below the ground) needs to be seen in the light of mod­ern tech­no­logy with due con­sid­er­a­tion for nat­ural dis­asters like earth­quakes, floods etc.

DUA-2001 is mostly developed except dis­trict centres and there is little scope left. How­ever, restric­tions on tall build­ings would be neces­sary in import­ant areas, namely Walled City, the Lutyen’s Bun­ga­low Zone, Civil Lines and North Delhi Uni­ver­sity cam­pus. No new tall build­ing should be allowed in any area without an Urban Design scheme. In case of Urban Exten­sion, areas for tall build­ings and spe­cific Urban Design pro­jects should be identified.

4 URBAN CORRIDORS
Delhi with huge intra city trip lengths and increas­ing num­ber of per­son­al­ized vehicles, few imper­at­ives can­not be ignored for its sus­tain­able and healthy growth. Such as more depend­ency on effi­cient, con­veni­ent and safe modes of pub­lic trans­port, link­ing large num­ber of work centres with res­id­en­tial areas and over­all dis­in­cent­ives for private vehicle ownership.

4.1 CITY GATEWAYS
1. Road:
i) Prefer­ably loc­ate non-residential pub­lic build­ings with pleas­ing appear­ances on entry cor­ridors.
ii) Attract­ive land­scape to be developed in accord­ance with the high­way land­scape norms.
iii) Segreg­a­tion of goods and pas­sen­ger vehicles at the entry point through sep­ar­ate lanes and improv­ing the visual envir­on­ment.
2. Rail:
i) Enhan­cing visual exper­i­ence for com­muters through appro­pri­ate land­scape along rail­way tracks.
ii) Recon­struc­tion / redevel­op­ment of exist­ing sta­tions to be under­taken through com­pre­hens­ive Urban Design schemes.
iii) Attract­ive designs may be evolved for new sta­tions.
3. Air:
i) Nat­ural & built envir­on­ment to be revital­ized to give an impres­sion of global city.
ii) The over­all green cover in this zone should be enhanced and protected.

4.2 MRTS CORRIDOR
In prior mas­ter plans, city struc­ture was thought in terms of hier­arch­ies with CBD, Dis­trict Cen­ter and Com­munity Centres in des­cend­ing order of import­ance. But with due course of  devel­op­ment and intro­duc­tion of MRTS, need is felt to con­nect these scattered dis­tricts with more ima­gin­able com­pon­ents. These com­pon­ents with enhanced built up areas and activ­it­ies form a net­work by which the exper­i­ence of vari­ous dis­trict and com­mer­cial centres becomes a part of con­tin­ued experience.

5 SERVICES
The organ­iz­a­tion of ser­vices makes the city to work along with the build­ings and the open spaces. Ser­vices and pub­lic amen­it­ies should, there­fore, be provided in a coördin­ated way, con­form­ing to the National Build­ing Code, wherever applic­able.

5.1 PUBLIC AMENITIES
The clean, lit­ter free pub­lic spaces add to the pleas­ant built envir­on­ment. Thus the design,
loc­a­tion and main­ten­ance of pub­lic amen­it­ies such as pub­lic toi­lets, garbage bins, bus stops,
etc. determ­ine the qual­ity of pub­lic spaces.

5.2 PARKING
Access to the park­ing should be well defined and con­du­cive to its usage, whether it is at the sur­face or under­ground. Base­ment park­ing lots need to be struc­tured legibly and access to ver­tical cores clearly defined. Sur­face park­ing should be loc­ated in a man­ner that it does not dimin­ish or hinder the con­tinu­ity and homo­gen­eity of the spa­tial and ped­es­trian movement.

6 HOARDINGS, STREET FURNITURE & SIGNAGES
Hoard­ings, sign boards, dir­ec­tional boards, bill boards, neon sign bards, bal­loons, ban­ners etc.
have become sym­bols of present day urban­scape and import­ant instru­ments of out­door pub­li­city and pub­lic inform­a­tion These, if loc­ated prop­erly and aes­thet­ic­ally, to fit into the total scheme of Urban Design, may enhance the visual qual­ity of the city.
Oth­er­wise, these may cause haz­ards, obstruc­tion and visual pol­lu­tion etc.

6.1 STREET FURNITURE & SIGNAGES
Pub­lic art is an import­ant part of the urban spa­tial exper­i­ence, which can be incor­por­ated,
in the form of func­tional objects such as street fur­niture and pav­ing designs. Street fur­niture and sig­nages should be designed sens­it­ively con­sid­er­ing the land use, intens­ity of activ­ity and other iden­ti­fied design dis­tricts. Their design must also reflect respect to ped­es­tri­ans and phys­ic­ally chal­lenged people.   Access pro­vi­sions for the phys­ic­ally chal­lenged should be made from the street to over­come curb heights, rain water grat­ings etc. Park­ing spaces close to the entrance should be reserved for phys­ic­ally chal­lenged.
Exclus­ive park­ing bays are pro­posed near major inter­sec­tions as part of road R/W with adequate land­scap­ing. This will provide for park­ing of mobile repair vans, PCR vans, ambu­lances, cranes, fire tenders and other pub­lic util­ity vehicles.

6.2 ROAD SIGNAGES & SAFETY
Safety of road users shall be one of the prime con­sid­er­a­tion while plan­ning / design­ing of road net­work and infra­struc­ture. A major cause for present day chaos on the roads is that the road infra­struc­ture, sig­nages and road mark­ings are not in accord­ance to the stand­ards laid down by the Motor Vehicle Rules and High­way Code. Appro­pri­ate road sig­nages and mark­ings are excel­lent means of edu­cat­ing road users about road safety rules and road dis­cip­line and add to the road beau­ti­fic­a­tion. These pre­vent the devi­ant beha­viour of motor­ists and at the same time
provide use­ful route related inform­a­tion. It is there­fore pro­posed that the con­cerned road own­ing agen­cies shall be respons­ible for installing the appro­pri­ate road sig­nages and mark­ings on reg­u­lar basis. Few other meas­ures by the con­cerned agen­cies shall be:
i. Pro­vi­sion of adequate ped­es­trian facil­it­ies.
ii. Removal of encroach­ments from foot­paths.
iii. Improve­ment in acci­dent hand­ling and reporting.

7 PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY CITY
Major work centres, where large num­ber of ped­es­trian net­works emerge and cul­min­ate should have enhanced facil­it­ies for the ped­es­tri­ans. This will lead to more sens­it­ive and intric­ate design of street fur­niture mak­ing major image­able com­pon­ents part of daily urban exper­i­ence.
Ped­es­trian net­works affect spaces in a very dis­tinct­ive way. Estab­lish­ment of ped­es­trian net­works in any area reveals its vital­ity. They provide rich­ness in terms of spa­tial exper­i­ence and com­munity inter­ac­tion etc.

8 URBAN DESIGN SCHEME
In case of devel­op­ment / redevel­op­ment of an area of around 4 ha. an Urban Design scheme
shall be pre­pared for approval by the com­pet­ent authority.