Fact File:

Project Name : Chakrajeevan Udyaan
Location: Ahmedabad, India
Size: 40,000 sqft

We began by listening to the site. Climate studies and sustained observation of daily use patterns made the priorities unmistakable. Women, children, and many senior citizens did not feel safe, and as a result they often avoided the park. Our goal was to turn that reality on its head and to build a landscape that these user groups would prefer, without excluding anyone else. Three principles shaped every decision. Safety, legibility, and ease of access.
A continuous, gently winding pathway now threads through the park and acts as a lucid spine. This spine opens into clear programmatic rooms. Children’s areas and senior citizen zones sit within deliberate visual reach of one another, and seating pockets for caregivers, teenagers, and young adults occur at regular intervals. The central viewshed remains intentionally open so that parents and grandparents can observe play while children can easily find their families. To discourage vandalism and misuse, the plan removes blind corners, deep recesses, and hidden pockets. Edges are gentle, transitions are visible, and circulation reads naturally at a glance.
Sustainability provides the second foundation. The project reuses, regenerates, and recycles more than 30,000 square feet of materials, including concrete, tiles, MS rods, bricks, tires, and wood. These materials are recast as pathways, gazebos, trellises, edging, benches, and play structures. The result is not only tactile and durable, it also reduces environmental impact in measurable ways. The strategy avoids approximately 36 tons of CO2. For a public audience, the scale becomes clearer through equivalence. About 1,700 trees cultivated for ten years, roughly 150,000 kilometers of car travel avoided, electricity for around 25 Indian homes for an entire year, and nearly 81 domestic flights not taken. These numbers translate design intent into everyday meaning and they demonstrate that delight and responsibility can reinforce one another.
The material expression remains rooted in Indianness. Familiar local substances are celebrated rather than concealed. Discarded concrete pipes become climbable rings and shaded portals. Reclaimed MS rods form light trellises and slender frameworks. Salvaged tiles yield durable and textured paths. Reconditioned wood and repurposed tires create comfortable benches and playful inserts. Proportions and details follow the anthropometrics of children and young people. Heights, reaches, footholds, and grasp points promote confidence and safe exploration. Seating for seniors prioritizes back support, armrest leverage, shade, and easy ingress and egress. All assemblies are robust, repairable, and modular because a public park is a living organism that must withstand weather, time, and spirited daily use.
Building this garden also became a civic lesson. Confronting vandalism and misbehaviour pressed us to design not only objects but behaviours. Sightlines, shared thresholds, and collective guardianship are embedded in the form so that the environment itself encourages good conduct. The space invites activity without inviting concealment. It feels playful without feeling permissive, and it is open without feeling exposed.
In sum, this is a public garden for dignity and delight. It is accessible, circular in spirit, and proudly local, a place where the youngest and the oldest can meet in the open and feel at home.