A ‘developing’ community story with plots and subplots in Chennai

Designing community spaces falls into two loose taxonomies. The first one involves a space where nothing exists to thwart efforts to design it. Head in there and knuckle down to the work of turning it into a space for all, and not a fairyfly would buzz in protest. No better example than OSR land up for development of parks. There is a clear policy behind it, and everyone involved follows the letter of the law. 

In the other taxonomy are fuzzy roadside spaces to which everyone stakes a claim: the vendors, vehicle parking slot seekers, and sad but true, reckless litterbugs. This is a coarse-grained category, one militating against standard action plans. Expect curveballs. Expect regression to a former state of chaos, after some progress in designing it has been made. On the upside, expect to see unlikely heroes emerge during the process of reclaiming the space. Belonging to this category with undefined borderlines is a space along East Mada Street in Thiruvanmiyur, one sandwiched between the Marudeeswarar temple tank and the road. In mid-November of 2025, residents rallied behind Project Thiruvanmiyur Mada Street, spearheaded by two architects, Dhanya Rajagopal and Pavithra Sriram and Design Co Lab, to reclaim this space from unauthorised parking and general squalor for art, culture, music, hyperlocal history, community, reading and for a plain hangout culture.