Andhra Pradesh and Special Economic Zones: economy and territory

(1) Territory

• Capital city: Hyderabad
• Polulation: 76,000,000
• Repatriated workers: tens of thousands every year
• Between 1969 and 2002, about 42,24,000 acres (1.71 million ha) of government lands have been given to 29,23,000 landless poor; but the government has recalled at least 20,000 ha of this land, and possibly more
• The idea is that the land not be cultivatable farmland, this is not to exceed 10% of the land assigned to SEZs; but this is not enforced
• The architectural style of HITEC City and of the large office buildings built by IT firms, the vast landscaped campuses, and the remarkable quality of the roads mark a striking contrast with the surrounding environment, which is generally dry and rocky and poorly equipped in basic infrastructure. In this way, HITEC City is actively contributing to the formation of highly differentiated “mixed spaces” midway between urban centres and rural spaces that characterise peri-urbanisation 

(2) SEZs

• The 2005 SEZ act does not allow any public hearing or consultative process on the issue of land acquisitions
• Top-down decision-making practices have effectively excluded many local actors from the policy process, and the creation of special purpose enclaves in suburban areas has weakened prospects for the development of governance institutions at the metropolitan scale 
• Private sector actors have emerged on the scene, for instance as builders and managers of infrastructure complexes, mainly through public–private partnerships. 
• In contrast, locally elected representatives have been largely excluded from the policy process, as have civil society groups, learning about major decisions only after the fact
• The act of 2005 deregulated many aspects of production and trade and was intended to facilitate private investment, including foreign direct investment
• Economic reforms and political change are redefining relations between the federal government and the states, and have effectively contributed to a form of political decentralisation. From the point of view of the states, one of the trade-offs of decentralisation is that they are required to take on greater responsibilities in resource generation and sound fiscal management. States have reacted differently to these opportunities and constraints and have adopted various approaches with regard to empowering local governments including their largest cities. Most states, including Andhra Pradesh, have been reluctant to cede significant powers to elected municipal councillors, or indeed to include them in decisions that directly affect their constituencies. Economic policies in particular are considered to fall outside the purview of local governments
• Numerous incentives were designed to attract investment to the IT sector, many granted automatically, such as: exemption from purview of statutory power cuts, exemption from inspections under most labour laws, and permission for three-shift operation.  Incentives for which corporations may apply (and which affect land development in Hyderabad/Andhra Pradesh): a 25% rebate in power tariff, exemption from zoning regulations, and a rebate on the cost of land

(subset)

• Approvals are given by a single body
• A company can set up an STP unit anywhere in India
• 100% foreign equity is permitted
• All imports of software and hardware are duty-free
• Import of second-hand capital goods is permitted
• Sales within the area are permissible, up to 50% of exports
• STP units are exempt from corporate income taxes for entire fiscal years
• Capital invested by foreign entrepreneurs, know-how fees, royalty, dividends, etc., can be freely repatriated after payment of income taxes due on them, if any
• Repatriation of foreign currency can be done freely

HITEC City: An overview of Hyderabad's Software Technology Park

(1) Hyderabad Today

• Capital city of Andhra Pradesh
• Pop. 6.2 million people
• 6th most populous metropolis in India
• Known as the City of Pearls
• 16 sub-districts, or mandals: Amberpet, Ameerpet, Asifnagar, Bahadurpura, Bandlaguda, Charminar, Golconda, Himayathnayar, Khairtabad, Marredpally, Musheerabad, Nampally, Saidabad, Secunderabad, Shaikput, and Trimulgherry
• Home of 23 SEZs, more than any other single city/mandal in the country, and Andhra Pradesh has more than any other province

The Government of Andhra Pradesh constituted the Quli Qutub Shah Urban Development Authority to provide better civic amenities including water supply; drainage; communication; electricity; housing; hospitals; schools; banks; hotels; and education, recreation, and marketing facilities.

The various handicrafts of the district are ornaments made with Rice Pearls, lacquer bangles studded with stones, silverware, Jewellery, saris, nirmal and kalamkari paintings and artifacts, bidri handcrafted items, silk-ware, and handloom-based clothing.

The IT industry of Hyderabad is one of the main sources of revenue for the district and the state. At present more than 150 companies are registered with Hyderabad's Software Technology Park (STP) including Oracle, Microsoft, Dell, Motorola, Verizon, Accenture, Convergys, and Google. The district of Hyderabad is known for its IT and IT Enabled Services, Pharmaceuticals and Entertainment industries, call centers, BPO (business process outsourcing) firms, and other technological services.

 (2) Hyderabad Historically

Golconda Fort, 13th century

Qutb Shahi Tombs, 1543-1672
Monuments to the kings of Golconda

Charminar, 1591
Four minarets built on four grand arches commemorating the end of the plague

Mecca Masjid, 1694
Based on the design of the mosque at Mecca
One of the largest mosques in India, it can accommodate 10,000 people at a time

Faluknama Palace, 1893
Name means "mirror in the sky".  Designed by an Italian architect.

(3) HITEC (Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy) City

• 20-minute drive from downtown Hyderabad
• Comprised of built-to-suit as well as multi-tenanted corporate campuses
• Phase I-II: Two towers, Cyber Gateway and Cyber Pearl
• Cyber Pearl (phase I): 5 million square feet; intended to house 5,000 IT professionals and support staff
  
• Cyber Gateway (phase II): almost 900,000 s.f. of office space; much of it tenanted by Indian companies
• Hyderabad International Convention Center: 15 acres; 291,000 square feet; designed to accommodate 5,000-6,500 visitors at a time; combined with Novotel, a business hotel; India's most technologically advanced assembly space
• HITEX (Hyderabad International Trade Expositions) Center: 100 acres; opened in 2003
• L&T Infocity is the first layout that attracted major international corporations.  It's spread over 151 acres, 5 million built square feet, and houses 45,000 employees

Cyber Pearl, HITEC City, 2003

Cyber Gateway, HITEC City, 2003

L&T Infocity, 2010

Hyderabad International Convention Center (date?)

HITEX, 2003

Michel Foucault's "Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias" (an excerpt from "Poststructuralism"): a response

Utopias: unachievable.  "Unreal".  From the Greek 'ou' + 'topos' = no place.

Heterotopias: "real and effective spaces which are outlined in the very institution of society, but which constitute a sort of counter-arrangement, of effectively realized utopia, in which all the real arrangements, all the other real arrangements that can be found within society, are at one and the same time represented, challenged and overturned: a sort of place that lies outside all places and yet is actually localizable." (352)

Two kinds: heterotopia of crisis and heterotopia of deviance.  The former is disappearing; stated uncritically.  Perhaps because more behaviors are embraced as inevitable?  And the latter provides an invisible real place, a shunt for the things we do not want to see, or the things we want to see when we do not want to see anything else.

Second principle: "over the course of its history, a society may take an existing heterotopia, which has never vanished, and make it function in a very different way." (353)  For example, cemeteries: is death assumed a part of life (central to the city) or stigmatized with disease and trauma and removed to the outskirts?  It exists, but we choose to make places of death invisible, visitable and visible only by special intention.

Third principle: "The heterotopia has the power of juxtaposing in a single real place different spaces and locations that are incompatible with each other." (354)  For example, the garden: the smallest indivisible unit of the entire earth, and also a microcosm of it; the simultaneous reflection of human temperance and unstoppable nature.

Fourth principle: "Heterotopias are linked for the most part to bits and pieces of time, i.e. they open up through what we might define as a pure symmetry of heterochronisms."  (354)  For example, a library, which intends to serve as an au courant resource for as comprehensive a collection reaching back into the ages as possible: ancience and nowness not only cannot escape each other, they need each other.  What about county fairs?  Renaissance festivals?  Holiday markets?

Fifth principle: "Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that isolates them and makes them impenetrable at one and the same time."  (355)  Think of a nursing home or a prison, where even if you are there, you may not actually be present according to the specified function of the building.  Sometimes rigorous rituals ("hygiene", "security") are required for any kind of entry.  Think also of South American farmhouses, where entry does not entitle casual passersby admittance to the private areas of the residence.

Sixth principle: Heterotopias "have, in relation to the rest of space, a function that takes place between two opposite poles.  On the one hand they perform the task of creating a space of illusion that reveals how all of real space is more illusory, all the locations within which life is fragmented.  On the other, they have the function of forming another space, another real space, as perfect, meticulous and well-arranged as ours is disordered, ill-conceived and in a sketchy state."  (356)  Think of a brothel: a place you go to to fill your needs, where the customer selects which needs are to be filled and the institution provides the illusion of a closed circle, a perfect world where only those needs matter, where they are met perfectly, and where outside considerations are utterly irrelevant.  Or of Jesuit colonies, who impose perfectly unnatural conditions on a space in order to achieve social and spiritual perfection.

A Hidden Gem: the GM Heritage Center

Walking through the General Motors Heritage Center means discovering an unhidden but unknown treasure of Detroit.  It's an oasis of design in the middle of a tract devoted to engineers, factories, and combination Pizza Hut-Taco Bells: cars and engines maintained and displayed like jewellry inside a brick-and-siding box.  Our genial tour guide, an eleven-year employee who describes himself as a newcomer, spoke with a strange mixture of pride in the Center's invisibility to all but aficionados, and a wistfulness that more people aren't compelled to visit.

The space is invisible compared to its brilliant contents but utterly relentless.  The moment you step in, you're in love with the vintage colors and meticulously polished chrome.  Also the moment you step in, you understand everything there is to know about the space.  The dynamic and intelligently arranged collections of cars are almost enough to seduce you into forgetting that you are in a concrete-and-steel box dimly illuminated by small skylights.  At the end of the day, though, does that matter?  The primary users of the Center are engineers doing technical research and car buffs indulging passionate hobbies.  As an architect, the space leaves everything to be desired...but I'm unconvinced that that matters in any material way.

The uber-orthogonal building was relieved only once, with this element.

Unlike the Ford mentality, where even tours to the factory can be had by anyone.

BARCELONA CHAIRS

The exhibits were lit with spotlights, but the upper part of the space was lit with natural light from skylights.

Metal ad from the 70s. Plastic QR code from yesterday.

At the heart of the space, which was visually dominated by the treasures within, was a regular column structure on regular floor plates. Regular, regular, regular.

The center stage, an add-on, with a very minor bump to accommodate cars easily.

ALL the dynamism in the space was provided by the content (although that was formidable).

A blueprint of one of the earliest chassises

Pastoral ads force nostalgia. They were fairly disconcerting.

The one natural element in the entire display was highly fetishized.

Although they made little actual impact in the space, the tinted spotlights added to the plastic (material, not characteristic) feel of the space.

For people not there for the cars, control panels and simple work surfaces are tiny oases of function.

Dampers.

The verbal signs are more highly designed than the visual. (Actually, the one above the door is - well, submitted without further comment.)

The white wall and "office area" door lead into--

A wall (literally) of color and material.

The World Trade Towers, carefully crafted from layer upon layer of copper.

State-of-the-art meets state-of-the-art.

The atrium of GM's Renaissance Center.

Architect John Portland designed spaces deliberately intended to invoke disorientation. I think the teal column both serves and thwarts his purposes.

Are we inside, are we outside?

Are we inside, are we outside?

Small unprogrammed spaces seem excruciatingly uncomfortable for anything at all involving human activity.

He even managed to make green unnatural.

View from the 72nd floor: the sun seems a little bigger from this high up.

Corporate Architecture Presents: Corporate Architecture

In contemplating the future of corporate architecture, one must first contemplate the past of corporate architecture.  Well, actually, one must first define corporate architecture.  In the context of this coming studio, it is being defined by five types.  The types are not hard and fast; there is overlap and gray areas between several of them.  (They may not be comprehensive either, but they are a place to start.)  To that end, neither corporate museums, factories, skyscrapers, corporate campuses, nor promotional pavilions are safe from exploration.  The facilities examined reflected the fact that corporations as such are a relatively modern invention.

The pictures below reflect the collective effort.  12 people researched buildings of all types from the past century.  More detailed information to come.

Bob, Katie, and Leann work to pull together over a hundred case studies across five types and eleven decades. 
And they do it with grace.

Bob can even make reaching for pushpins look cool.

This is how the rest of us helped: by staying out of the way and admiring their handiwork.

Taxonomies describing nematodae, rapper names, and beer.  Who knew organizational systems could be so broadly accommodating?

A century of corporate architecture.