The Forum of Coexistence: Urban Ecological Interpretation Center, Leisure Valley

This project reinterprets Le Corbusier’s vision of Chandigarh’s Leisure Valley for a new ecological century. Set along the N-Choe’s natural depression, the Urban Ecological Interpretation Center transforms water, landscape, and architecture into a unified civic experience. Rather than treating water as hidden infrastructure, the design celebrates it as a public protagonist—surfacing it through rain chains, reservoirs, bioswales, and seasonal sponge gardens that reveal the rhythms of monsoon, drought, and everyday life.

As part of the Sah-Astitva Collective’s masterplan, the project acts as a cultural and ecological anchor, connecting heritage landscapes, biodiversity zones, and civic institutions through an elevated pedestrian spine. Its spaces serve as a forum for dialogue, learning, and coexistence—where visitors, researchers, school groups, and local communities encounter nature, memory, and culture as one continuous narrative.

The design positions landscape as infrastructure and public space as ecological learning. It bridges topography, heritage, and hydrology to create a democratic civic ground that evolves with time and season. Water terraces, skywalks, bioswales, and interpretive trails choreograph movement through shade, sound, and changing water levels. The project ultimately proposes a new paradigm for Indian public space—one where ecological performance and civic life are inseparable, and where nature becomes both educator and collaborator in shaping urban futures.