- Open Space Renaissance: The ‘ebb’ & the ‘throb’ in Chennai City    80 kb by    Sasidharan, Priya & Prosperi, David .C. | priya.sasidharan@gmail.com    Short Outline Open spaces, the ecological links need ''resuscitative interventions'' in the context of urbanization. The planning imperatives and habitat conservation strategies adopted in Chennai city has been presented as a precursor to the revival mechanism. Abstract Open spaces are natural assets dictated by the constructs of human intervention. The city & its ecological links are vulnerable potentials that need fostering in the midst of unbridled urbanisation. This paper discusses the inbuilt eco networks (pattern language of sustainability, Tippett. J.) in the city of Chennai where the waterways had been -the pulse of the urbanscape, the system of tanks – the arterial circulation and the green cover – the lung spaces. The city’s triad – the blue, green and the brown reflected in the water bodies, green belts and wetlands, the impacts of development, the temporal ravages, and the revival mechanism in representative sample studies. The crux of the paper is to unfold the habitat conservation strategies as the precursor to inclusive open space conservation. The sustainable planning strategies mooted by a multitude of actors – “human integration in ecology” (Alberti M.) and the wider spectrum of “local identifiable culture” are the iota of distinctiveness in the process. The policy on open spaces needs to be reinterpreted as design of the public domain that constantly adapts, absorbs and transforms itself in the urban scenario. The paradigm shift from protecting the eco spaces to addressing user needs (Francis. M.) and adaptively conserving with critical emphasis to the regional dynamics defines the new axis to sustainable planning. Keywords: constructs, triad, “local identifiable culture”, conservation strategies Keywords constructs, triad, “local identifiable culture”, conservation strategies Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2011: LIVEABLE CITIES: URBANISING WORLD, Meeting the Challenge   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper