07/04/2026
Water has somewhere to go :
Ian McHarg argued in 1969 that design should follow nature's logic, not override it. Fifty years later, most Indian cities are still building and over engineering concrete drains.
Water Sensitive Urban Design ( WSUD ) is the framework that operationalises this. Treat water as a resource to be managed through the landscape, not a problem discharged into pipes. Bioswales slow and filter runoff. Retention parks absorb peak monsoon flows. Permeable surfaces recharge aquifers. The landscape does the hydraulic work — and the city becomes more livable in the process.
At Godrej Rivergreens in Pune, the site's ravine was the hydrological logic made visible. We structured the entire masterplan around it: bioswales, native planting, soil stabilisation, and elevated trails through a functioning watershed.
At Riverhills, the Central Park is designed as an ecological sponge — absorbing rainfall, recharging groundwater, moderating microclimate — without conventional drainage carrying the primary load.
A city that works with its water cycle floods less, spends less on infrastructure, and is simply more pleasant to live in. The physics has always been in our favour. The planning imagination is what we've been missing.
What would your city look like if water had somewhere to go?
Credits : Team StudioPOD + Enviroscape
Photography : Atul Kanetkar
Pictures : Godrej Riverhills Central Park
