Gold On Silt

MIT Options Studio | Spring 2020 | Professors Brent Ryan & Arindam Dutta

with Alberto Meouchi (SMArchS Urbanism)

Kolkata was built by the river, both in terms of its geographic location and the foundations of its economic power. The silt of the ganga river system, today an impediment to trade, is integral to the productivity of the agricultural hinterland. Located on a wide-sweeping delta, Kolkata’s urban development has been one of intervention in the deltic system, one that attempts to counter natural flows while simultaneously depending on them. In this project, we attempt to harness some of the wasted energy of resisting the river in order to create new landscapes of urban life along the river’s edge.