BDP wins two Indian Masterplans

BDP, with Nippon Koei and PwC, has won two masterplan commissions in India in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

The Puducherry Smart City project will transform it into a global tourist destination by leveraging its heritage, cultural, spiritual and educational assets. The city has one of the oldest ports in the world, and is already a major destination in southern India. The Smart City target area covers 1,500 acres and includes an area steeped in French colonial heritage with key natural assets such as the iconic beach promenade and the grand canal.

The project includes public realm improvements for the grand canal area, creating city cycling lanes, redeveloping the beach promenade, pedestrianisation of key locations within the city centre, and developing a new botanical garden. Proposals also include a new art and cultural complex at the old distillery, an eco-resort, convention centre, and preservation and regeneration of the city’s main Goubert market. BDP’s scope is to design the key intervention areas and will involve an interdisciplinary team including landscape architects, architects and urban designers.

The second commission is for the Chennai-Kanyakumari Industrial Corridor (CKIC) Industrial Nodes Masterplan for the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The bank is India’s lead partner in developing the East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC), a 2,500 km multimodal, regional maritime corridor linking India with south east Asia via land and water routes which will spur the manufacturing sector in Tamil Nadu.

There are six industrial nodes in Tamil Nadu comprising automobile, textiles, machinery, petro-chemical, metals and minerals and food production. We are appointed to masterplan two of the nodes with a total land area of 20,000 acres.