My Elastic City, Anab Jain

MY
Designing for Indiaʼs Immaterial Urbanism

ELASTIC
CITY
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Thanks to the organisers and Simon for inviting me.
Anab Jain, Director, Superflux
_
Twitter: @Superflux_

I am Anab, and I am the founder of a small design company called Superflux, we are primarily based in
London, but we also have a small base in Ahmedabad, India, where I am from originally.
The title of my talk is ʻMy Elastic Cityʼ... and I will hopefully be able to explain what I mean by that in the
next fifteen minutes.

Consultancy Superflux Lab

NOW FUTURE
SWEET
SPOT

www.superflux.in

Hereʼs a little diagram showing how we work at Superﬂux: through our Consultancy we work hands on
with clients to design interactions: products, experiences or services. And through the Lab we like to
push the boundaries and do more speculative futures oriented work: we explore the implications of new
and emerging technologies on our everyday lives. And that bright spot where they overlap is what we
call the ʻsweet spotʼ where - the merger of the now and the possible future can lead to what you might
call: “innovation”.

Yellow Chair Stories [2005] 

Simon had suggested that for this session I focus on India, linking street level innovations to
information technology. In order to be able to, let me start by brieﬂy showing you the “Yellow Chair
Stories” project from ﬁve years ago. I worked with a range of participants to explore their sense of
belonging to a place. They were given empty yellow cards and asked to write what was it that they
wanted in their neighbourhood. Some wanted neighbours, others wanted a password to a wireless
network. Meanwhile our home router was broken and someone had been stealing our network
connection. My response to all of this was an experiment, and hereʼs a little video clip of that:

People wanted free access to wireless networks

Back in 2005, getting free wiﬁ was a novelty, and people wanted that...

To see the ʻYellow Chair Storiesʼ video visit: http://vimeo.com/2935189
Yellow Chair Stories video clip:

I gave them a chair, a street and a service.

But instead, I gave them a chair, a street, and a service. And even after I took the chair away, people
still came and made use of this transient service. It was a physical ʻblog spaceʼ, a node where the
physical and digital met.

Yellow Chair San Jose with Tom Jenkins [2006]

Much to my surprise the project was well received, we were able to scale it up to couple of other cities.
Hereʼs what we did in San Jose. I also received emails from people who wanted to replicate it in their
own neighbourhoods.
While today we have thousands of iphone apps, maps and augmented reality games which have taken
the digital urban experience to a whole new level, I think the point of this project was to create unique
exchanges at the juxtaposition of the digital and physical. To create spaces where local communities
can converge and then disappear again.

And this idea is very well captured by the guys from Urbz, an organisation working in Dharavi, Mumbai.
After all isnt it all about people? Cities are people, cities are stories of the people who live there.

Deﬁnition of an ʻelastic cityʼ by David Rusk, [1993]

“Elastic cities are those that either embrace
some form of regionalism or, better still, expand
their boundaries by annexing suburbs.”

Which is what I think would be the essence of an elastic city. As I looked for the interpretations of this
term, I found that David Rusk had coined the term way back in 1993. His deﬁnition refers to the physical
boundaries of the city.

My Elastic City [2010]
Is a city that utilises its immateriality to continually
stretch collective urban imagination.

Creates experiential services to reconnect residents
to their cities in new ways.

*Disclaimer: Not an urban designer
But what about the “immateriality” of the city, those digital bits that entering our skins, rushing past us
into flows and networks of stuff we cant ever put a finger on? In 2010 it only makes sense to reinterpret
Ruskʼs definition. So Iʼd say that my elastic city is...

Welcome to India

While all cities are elastic in different ways, I want to talk about this in the context of India.

590 million Indians, or 40% of the
population will live in cities by 2030

McKinsey Global Institute Report, April 2010

A recent report by McKinsey Global Institute says that 590 million Indians or 40% of the population
will live in cities by 2030.
If you just look at the video, youʼll see how we are used to elasticity - squeezing in between
spaces... But how much will that stretch? How many layers will we build?
And while built infrastructure needs immediate attention, what about the soft infrastructure ? The
communication, the services, the experiences, the networks?

How can we design for Indiaʼs Immaterial Urbanism?
Photo credit: ﬂickr.com/photos/39547215
How can we design for Indiaʼs Immaterial Urbanism? (This is the image of the STD booth, it marked a
telecom revolution in India, envisioned by Sam Pitroda.) While the mobile phone is being sold like hot
cakes, how will local, community level services and information networks cope and deal with the urban
explosion? For this, we should go and see how some of the information networks of the cities operate:

This is because they work in India. here. looks boring on the
map. Most of the roads dont have names, so rather blank.

This is the state of Gujarat,

If you zoom into the city of Ahmedabad, where I am from, there are 5 million people who live there. But
youʼll discover that as yet, not many roads have names. I am aware that google are working on it, but it
must be difﬁcult.

Hereʼs one example of how places are addressed. (Bharat General store). If that bus stop came down or
the road got widened, theyʼd have to re-appropriate the address. And same for all their neighbours.

comparing it to Amsterdam

On the other hand here in Amsterdam its pretty impossible to get lost, its all well thought out and
organised.

Well, we may not have street names, but as Jane Jacobs, said, streets are the deﬁning character of
Indian cities. And to explore them better, lets just make a trip... Now if you arrive in the city by train, you
can jump into an autorickshaw...

Rickshaw wallah: Latest Bollywood Hits and Misses

Photo Credit: Jon Ardern
While holding on to edge of the rickshaw seat for dear life, you will get an insiders guide to the latest
bollywood hits and misses.. (*Audio playing the remix of the latest ﬁlm ʻHousefullʼ.*)

And you will have a conversation with the rickshaw wallah about the other hits and misses as well.
Wallah or Wallih is sufﬁx we attach to people / vendors/ agents/ makers/ who form a huge part of Indian
urban life. They are the spirit of entrepreneurship in India, and also as I will show, work as important
ʻnetwork nodesʼ too.

Temporary TV Wallah: Whats the Score?
Photocredit: flickr.com/photos/anewnadir
On the way, you can stop by at the corner shop to get the latest cricket score. (*Audio playing cricket
score*)
Someone has borrowed the neighbourʼs cables, and setup a temporary TV shop. Now you can see why
the yellow chair doesnt feel quite so wrong from my perspective.

Local Barber: Live Stock Market Updates
If you are a bloke and feeling lazy, you could walk down to the corner of your street and get a quick
shave and... (*Audio playing live stock market update*)
The Barber updates you with a ﬁltered version of the live stock market update, which may not be as
efﬁcient as your bloomberg app, but perhaps more relevant to you...

Flourwallah: Top Recipe of the Week
Photo Credit: Jon Ardern

You could pop by at the flour mill on the corner of your road to pick up some fresh flour... but also
hang out with the local ladies and get the top recipe of the week. (*Audio playing flour mill sounds*)

Gameswallas: Collaborative Community Gaming

Hearing squeals of excitement you wander over to the back of a corner shop which is converted into a
gaming zone. As children play collaboratively with old arcade games - (*Audio playing arcade game
sounds*)
There is an equally excitable exchange of ring tones, gossip about new games and all things worth
acquiring.

Shaadi Walli: Local Marriage Bureau

And if you walk past the streets or a side temple, youʼd ﬁnd elderly women hanging out, often
discussing detailed marriage propositions, basically they are ﬁxing matches, often without the
knowledge of those concerned... umm.. well.
(*Audio playing street+temple sounds*)
This idea of ʻfree timeʼ used for communal activities is also a notion of elasticity that you dont see much
of in the west.

blood selling service - the fringes of society

Underground wallah/walli: Deviant Services
In the old town youʼll pass by rows of shops that offer free food to the needy. Amongst these groups of
people are agents wandering around, whispering code numbers, looking for people who may want to
sell a bottle of blood, an organ or want to be a surrogate mother. There is this other ʻdeviant
economyʼ (ref: Nils Gilman) ﬂourishing entirely through a loose informal network of information. (*Audio
playing busy street sounds*)

Paanwallah: Real Estate Updates

Photo Credit: ﬂickr.com/photos/rohitrath
In case youʼve had a busy day you can go treat yourself to the indian staple high - the paan. And while
chewing the “zero tension paan” you could join in the conversation going on about real estate. (*Audio
playing Bollywood tune ʻMahiya reʼ *)
The paan wallah has done well in selling plots of land in the neighbourhood, and is perhaps the best
person to ask about ﬂats for rent in the neighbourhood.

Robot wallah: Your horoscope for the week

And ﬁnally end the day with a dose of your auspicious future... This robot will tell you your horoscope for
the week (*Audio playing robot horoscope*)
Also to note: You wont go up to the robot on your own, there will always be the person playing the role
of the ʻsocial interfaceʼ, who will take the money, give you headphones, and watch you while you hear
your fate.

So on the blank map of the city, what I have attempted to show:

This is how the barberʼs network grows. He is like a data set, a node stretching to covers nooks
and corners of the area around him. Now if we starting populating this map with all the other people
we just met...

SHOW THE FULL MAP

these are networks in-formation, data-sets in-formation

You get this map! A local map of soft services and networks, which I think is not only compelling, but
also meaningful for the people who live there, at Ground Zero.

THEN THERES THIS MAP

Unlike this map showing sparse photographs and youtube videos that is also ʻpeople-generatedʼ
content,

An alternate IT blueprint for India?

This map is a whole new set of opportunities...
Just as the drive for new urbanism has to recognise the ʻoccupancy urbanismʼ of Indian cities, those side
walks and shops and sheds that are important element of urban life, so also information visionaries and
technology planners should recognise the value of these “in-formal” networks and services. While they
may not be most efficient, and I think personalised efficient soft services are of utmost value... these “in-
formal” or “in-formation”networks are also the lifeline of human stories, and equally valuable.
Could this map be an alternate blueprint for Information Technology a blueprint that highlights
the value of such ambiguous information flows that are important for making the city what is it?

THIS IS MY
ELASTIC
CITY

That would be ʻMy Elastic Cityʼ.

WHAT WOULD THE APPS FOR MY ELASTIC CITY BE?

And ofcourse the next question would be: What would the ʻappsʼ for my elastic city be? I guess from
where I stand here, some immediate thoughts might be...

The rickshaw arrives at the press of a button

Have the rickshaw arrive at the press of a button

Horoscope delivered to my device

Or get the robot wallahʼs horoscope delivered to my personal device

Horoscope delivered to my device
The flourmill tweets when the fresh flour is ready

Get the flourmill to start tweeting when the fresh flour is ready.

Hmm...I think that might all be fine and good and work, but we are perhaps missing the essence of the
street - the extension of the social space to the world outside.

examples -

On the other hand, what we do have a lot of right now are services such as “sms jokes”, which are at
best mildly annoying, and at other times hugely offensive like this one.

EKO: Your mobile *is* your Account

On the other hand, a good example is that of ʻEkoʼ which is a banking service aimed at the 60% of
Indiaʼs ʻunbankedʼ population. In this service your mobile phone is YOUR ACCOUNT. You make
payments simply by dialling numbers.

ﬂickr.com/photos/rey_k

And the *corner shop* is the Teller

Photo credit: ﬂickr.com/photos/paulancheta
Whats quite so cool about it, is that all those ʻwallahsʼ I showed earlier - those multipurpose hubs which
not only sell medications by the pill, shampoo in tiny sachets, cell phone minutes by the Paisa, tell you
about rents, and stocks - well they are the Tellers! Eko just seeks to give this already trusted, daily-
visited vendor one more thing to sell - building on the idea of the community that already exists, which is
great.

The Street as Facebook (except that this one is Open Source)

flickr.com/photos/oneeighteen

Which again emphasis the point, I am suggesting that for a social community like india, you could
consider the street as the Facebook. Ofcourse it has the same issues around privacy, but atleast
its Open Source! And has been for a very long time.

Lets Design:
Open Source, People-generated Immaterial Urbanism

Photo Credit: ﬂickr.com/photos/ashish_tibrewal

And so lets start playing. And designing for this open source platform, taking advantage of the
inherent informal street level exchanges to design rich experiences that stretch our cities like
an elastic band...

Thank You
www.superflux.in | Twitter: @Superflux _

Something about anticipating change, digging deep into it,
and find ways of making a difference - at whatever level -

Thank You!

My Elastic City, Anab Jain

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