00:01I come from a very special place.

00:03It's called...I call it special because it'll take a while to explain otherwise.

00:07It's an experimental township in southern India close to Pondicherry...

00:10...which is about...that's the town of Pondicherry.

00:13It's about 140 kilometers south of Madras, if anybody knows where it is.

00:16It was...used to be a French colony and now the...part of India.

00:21So this was an experimental township that was planned just outside of the city.

00:26Experimental because the idea was that it should be a place of unending experiments owned by nobody...

00:30...experiment in human humanity, looking for, searching for beauty and perfection.

00:34So we experiment with everything including economy, livelihood, planning, wastewater treatment.

00:41And even the wastewater treatment has to be beautiful. That's one of the conditions.

00:44Starting in 1968, it...the project's recognized by the government of India and UNESCO.

00:52It's on a plateau, so as you can see it's on a plateau.

00:55It's next to the coast, the big water body around here. Thanks.

00:59A big water body around here and a series of lakes, which is part of the irrigation system, which was built in the 1600s.

01:06Designed by a French architect.

01:08The concept was designed by a French architect Roger Anger, who passed away last year.

01:12Given by the...the form that...given the concept design of zones and based on that, he came up with the galaxy model sketch...

01:18...which was further refined and developed with zones and other things.

01:22This is a 1968 plan. You know, when people were designing Brasilia, Chandigarh, and those kind of cities.

01:28And it was a...some 3D experiment issues done with that, you know, with the...

01:32Of...of course, that time, the concept of ground realities didn't exist, you know...

01:35...and so it was one of the things that was developed as a form and function is...

01:41So here we come back to the existing situation. The villages in between...

01:45...orange color, they are a...these are the four zones.

01:48They are the center part, and then these are...the black colors you see...

01:50...[unintelligible] are the existing buildings that have been developed over the last 40 years...

01:53...have come up with the last 40 years.

01:55It's supposed to be a township of 50,000...

01:57...but still has only over 2,000 people from 40 countries, so that's a diversities there.

02:03Land...does...I'll just go through a series of layers that we put together for a...

02:09...for the planning purposes and we went through land owned by Auroville.

02:14White patches are not owned.

02:16Then there has...a lot of green work has gone through in the last 40 years...

02:20...over three million trees are planted; a lot of forest has come back.

02:22So these are the areas where the tropical rare...rain forest, which is maybe forest that has come back...

02:27...and water has been around...water has been headed; no water flows out of the township right now.

02:32Percolation area has been studied using geology and soils.

02:35High percolation areas and the medium percolation areas and also the water flow that...that...

02:43...water regime in this area...that's a ridge line.

02:45And so you have water flowing toward the sea and then flow...flowing to the tanks...

02:47...and one flows...tanks flows to the other tank; it's connected to the whole region.

02:53And when you put all of them together, along with that galaxy concept that was there around that time in 1968...

02:59...this is what you get.

03:01And so this is where, you know, you know...

03:04...actually trying to figure out how actually the existing buildings, the proposed development or the concept.

03:10We don't even know whether it's a concept or needs to be built as it is or how it is going to be.

03:14And the existing ground realities and everything on this layer.

03:17And these other layer...other surrounding areas...

03:20...that's the greenbelt which is around that place.

03:23The ci...the diameter is about 2.5 kilometers and this is another 2 and .25 kilometers of greenbelt.

03:31So this is going on.

03:33It's an ongoing project and we are working with a...a well-learned planner and architect, Mr. Doshi...

03:40...who started his career in nineteen-six-...'50s with Le Corbusier in Paris and worked on the township of Chandigarh.

03:46And so web...once we get into these areas here, which is...what happens in these green areas...

03:53...the water bodies, the buffers around the water bodies that need to be protected and the percolation areas...

03:58...and also the building forms that the architect had visualized in 1968.

04:02How exactly do you go around detailing all these areas...

04:04...and how it connects with the existing road networks and the existing buildings...

04:09...and the...and the green areas and the land to be built or what happens on that.

04:15So that is something that is an ongoing process and we've been working on detailing all this.

04:19But what I've seen and...and there's a...when you get to do this analysis of the existing situation...

04:23...and when it gets to an architect or a planner, then it moves on to drawing boards and sketches...

04:27...and then eventually it moves into AutoCAD and goes into a totally different thing.

04:31And what we are trying to experiment here is how to bring this back into GIS...

04:35...this whole...detail of these areas, these in-between areas...

04:38...and bring it back into GIS and do different scenarios where you can actually use this and bring it back into, so...

04:45And Mr. Doshi's about almost 82 years old.

04:47And he started in an era where there was no computers and nothing...

04:51...so...he just started using a cell phone actually, recently.

04:54So the...so you can imagine that we are, I know...but again...

04:58...his...his experience is thinking and all those things that is behind that in his mind.

05:02It's quite a...a challenge to bring it out into the...into the GIS thing, and so this is one of the plans.

05:09You may have seen this. This map was there outside yesterday...

05:13...but I didn't have time to actually put the description on that, but...

05:16...but this is the world that is ongoing and this is what actually, you know...

05:19...when I saw the GeoDesign Conference, and I said yes, this is the perfect place to come and look for it.

05:23Thank you.