Imagine @ Low-cost Action Lab (i’Local) Competition

i’Local supports and nurtures meaningful placemaking efforts through the (re)imagination of city spaces and the values associated with them. It is an opportunity to revitalise sites of neglect, disuse, and disrepair and return them to their communities. It calls for imagining pathways that make the creative use of existing resources, rather than large investments.

Themes

• What makes us feel safe in the city?
  • The challenge lies in crafting public spaces that are not only inclusive but instill a feeling of safety among diverse users. In Hyderabad, public spaces are often male-dominated, leading to a fear of violence, bullying, and harm that in turn impedes access to work, play, leisure, and health for many.
• How can a city be child-friendly?
  • Hyderabad faces a shortage of publicly accessible areas for socializing and unwinding. Civic infrastructure is often incomplete, hard, and scaled for adults resulting in hostile architecture for children. Recent surges in growth have resulted in new developments overtaking spaces of nature and scaled to prioritize vehicular transportation over walkable spaces, further diminishing access to public space.
• How can we seed positive change in the urban ecologies?
  • Hyderabad has multiple historical water bodies, Nizam-era banyan trees, and a distinctive topography. Yet, these endemic ecological markers are at risk due to rapid urbanization. The city is grappling with altered precipitation patterns and changes in land use leading to deformed landscapes, extreme weather events, and a contradictory situation of water scarcity (alongside the disappearance of vital water bodies) coupled with severe urban flooding.
• How can people cope with rising urban heat?
  • Hyderabad is already known for record-breaking temperatures and heat waves in the summer months. Recently, rapid urban growth paired with reduced green spaces has increased the heat index resulting in hotter summers through the phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect.

Prize Details

• Win cash prizes up to Rs 20,000, receive mentorship to develop proposals for implementation, and be published!

Eligibility Criteria

• The competition is open to all! Entries need to be sent in by teams of three or more. Interdisciplinary teams are highly encouraged; for example, they may include architects, designers, social scientists, media students, and/or professionals!
• Participating teams may choose to work on one or more of the ten pre-determined sites scattered across Hyderabad. In part one of the competition, interested participants identify a site, network and form a team, attend virtual workshops, and generate ideas concluding with an abbreviated submission of their best idea. In part two, the jury selects ten teams to carry forward their idea with dedicated professional mentors for a robust final submission. The selected teams win cash prizes and an opportunity for their idea to be published in an ideas compendium.

For more information, visit Hyderabad Urban Lab Foundation.