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propositions studio | winter 2021
instructor: Maria Arquero de Alarcon





building design by: Autumn Bender
landscape by: Talia Moretti
proforma by: Isabelle Borie


This studio focused on evaluating opportunities for climate action in Jaipur, India, centered around a housing development in the Jyoti Nagar neighborhood. In collaboration with Autumn Bender and Isabelle Borie, Reinvigorating Hydrology proposed the redevelopment of the Jyoti Nagar Housing Board Flats as part of a larger metropolitan effort to restore water levels and mitigate water pollution. While attending to site specific constraints, this project aimed to generate replicable strategies to renaturalize the Kartarpura Ganda Nala and serve as a framework for other developments in the watershed.

We advised the formation of a Watershed Development Authority which would implement watershed management design and finance-driven development practices in Jaipur. This work would emphasize the creation of accessible greenspaces, clean water bodies, habitat restoration and safer public spaces. Jaipur experiences the polarity of drought and monsoon seasons, requiring more thoughtful water management than many regions.

Through decades of pollution the natural drainage path passing through Jyoti Nagar had become a ‘nala’, a polluted creek. Our proposal aims to reinvigorate this into a functioning drainage path with riparian buffers, floating gardens, community green spaces and more frequent pedestrian crossings.










reinvigorating hydrology






© talia moretti