Gandhi Bazaar – heritage street
The festive buzz of this heritage market street became a mess of barely managed chaos. Gandhi bazaar’s redesign through a participatory process keeps its spirit and celebrates the street character, its activities elements. The infrastructural transformation is designed to facilitate the activities and culture that had occupied it organically.
Gandhi bazaar is more than a street market. It is a cultural space that is buzzing with activity- mixed, vibrant and inclusive. It is at once a modern street market with branded stores and also a buzzing traditional bazaar with vendors selling all kinds of goods, snacks and knicknacks. It is a microcosm of Bengaluru - bringing the old and new together.
Gandhi bazaar has changed but keeps most of its spirit and character
Transforming a chaotic market was a big challenge - with no space to walk the footpath, shops struggling for visibility and entry space, vendors cramped in the narrow footpath, vehicles everywhere and poor management. Crafting a sensitive and inclusive approach, we worked with a participatory design process with many meetings and workshops with stakeholders - shop owners, vendors, parastatal agencies and onground workers. Following this three design proposals were exhibited in the local park (Tagore Park). The final design was developed from here as pedestrian centric design.
The street was redesigned with a principled but pragmatic approach - with people at the center, the prevailing spirit of inclusiveness intact and physical interventions done sensitively. Footpaths were widened and the carriageway for vehicles kept intact, parking reorganized and junctions and social spaces designed to be inclusive. In the process, the vendors are organized into platforms, away from the shopfronts, paving in granite done with care and character. Signage and artwork are designed in strategic spots. This has made the place more walkable, vendor friendly, comfortable to shop, eat and hang around as all street markets should be.
