Dreams and Designs - Lifelong Learning in Architecture and Planning - THE ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING NEWS

by Ashok Kumar Jain, Foreword by M.R. Brett Crowther, 2926, ISBN: 978-93-6224-575-5, Discovery Publishing House, New Delhi, Rs 4000/- , P.250

Cover of Dreams and Designs: A Lifelong Learning in Architecture and Planning by Ashok Kumar Jain.

The book ‘Dreams and Designs’ in its 18 chapters covers six decades of author’s engagement with architecture, planning, housing, slums and informal settlements, conservation of heritage, ecological sustainability, pollution control, climate resilience, design of a million city, Commonwealth Games, regeneration of River Yamuna in Delhi, infrastructure services and traffic and transport. His journey begins with the graduation in Architecture from the MACT Bhopal in 1969, Post Graduation in Town Planning from SPA, New Delhi, Urban Management from University of Birmingham and Housing, Planning and Building from the IHS Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He credits the DDA for his lifelong learning, besides the UN Habitat, and engagement with the School of Planning and Architecture, Human Settlements, Management Institute and other Universities. Every chapter in the book is a testament to the resilience, wisdom and simplicity woven into urban space. What is amazing is variety, volume and the weight of work during the lifetime.

The book Dreams and Designs is more than scholarship of author. Whether the ceremonial gate or Delhi Master Plan each work bears author’s stamp. It is a continuous dialogue between planning, architecture, housing, and lived reality, where nature and human welfare become one. It weaves a narrative of transformation through the layering of both public and private sector, unified with policy planning and regulatory mechanism. This integrative approach reflects the perspective of someone who has engaged with architecture and planning not as theory, but as practice. There is a personal dimension that runs through the book. The intent to share experience is not merely as knowledge, but something that can be carried forward. This gives the work a continuity beyond its pages.

There is no exaggeration in what Christopher Benninger (2023) states about the author: “A. K. Jain is India’s most experienced urban planner and policy maker, nurtured through his years in public service, culminating as the Commissioner of Planning in the Delhi Development Authority, where over the years he dealt with detailed micro-level plans, campus and neighborhood plans, urban district planning and policy decisions impacting on entire cities and their urban regions. He has enriched this saga of experience, with the devoted curiosity of a true guru, with unbound intellectual energy and passion, sharing his thoughts through his years of writing spent.”