A Living-Learning Laboratory for Smart Urbanization

Problem

The Telangana State Urban Center of Excellence (TSUCE) was conceived as an urban campus that researches, incubates start-ups, and runs capacity-building programs aimed at India’s urbanization challenges. The brief was reflexive by design: a campus about smart, sustainable urbanization should demonstrate the thing it teaches, not just house classrooms about it.

Approach

As design assistant and visualization/technical lead, I supported the masterplan team, developed conceptual 3D massing in SketchUp, produced the schematic design sections and detail vector diagrams, led the visualization team on the drawings, developed the landscape framework and typology toolkit, and prepared the quantification charts for runoff, energy, and carbon sequestration that back the numbers below.

Circular diagram of the TSUCE campus loop connecting public plaza, community, biodiversity, and test-bed programs around a central water-management and way-finding core; a diagram characterizing five districts — infrastructure, cultural, mixed-use innovation, housing, ecology; and a full site plan with a numbered legend of 47 elements from the convention center to future development parcels. — Five districts around one campus loop, with 47 distinct programmed elements in the site plan — the density of a real research campus, not a diagram of one.Source: Professional Portfolio - Abdul Kalam 10MB.pdf, p. 16.

The campus supports a multi-disciplinary, hands-on curriculum with research, learning, and incubator space, organized so that future urban leaders can guide India’s urbanization to be “smart” in a holistic sense — not just instrumented, but ecologically and socially accountable.

Technical detail — the numbers behind the sustainability claim

The masterplan’s resource loops are quantified, not asserted:

Solid waste: 820 tons generated annually — 370 tons recycled, 245 tons composted, 120 tons landfilled, 82 tons incinerated. The 82 tons incinerated can generate up to 2% of annual energy demand.
Energy: 600 kW of rooftop solar meets 25% of total annual demand — equivalent to 25,000 trees over a full lifecycle.
Land: 68.25% of the site is open space (landscape, plazas, preserved areas) against a building footprint of 7.3 acres out of 30.7 acres of open space; 34.25% of rooftop area carries green roof or terrace farming.
Water: developed parcels have an annual rainwater-harvesting potential of 30 million litres, meeting 40–50% of annual water demand.

Results

Detailed axonometric aerial view of the TSUCE campus showing the urban economics, mobility, infrastructure, ecology, and housing departments arranged around a central pedestrian spine, with a forested park, biodiversity research center, terraced podium parking, and convention center in the foreground. — The axonometric is the argument: every department building sits directly against the open space and water infrastructure its research concerns, rather than a campus quad with labeled buildings around the edge.Source: Professional Portfolio - Abdul Kalam 10MB.pdf, p. 17.

Infographic diagram of the TSUCE campus's infrastructure and energy systems, showing solid waste management flows, a 600 kW solar energy production loop, open-space and green-roof percentages, and annual water consumption and rainwater-harvesting figures, layered over a cross-section of the campus from an incinerator power plant through mixed-use buildings to a sunken badminton court. — Waste, energy, and water shown as one connected system cross-section, not three separate charts — compost feeds the farm, greywater feeds landscape irrigation, solar feeds EV charging.Source: Professional Portfolio - Abdul Kalam 10MB.pdf, p. 18.

Finalist, Telangana State Urban Center of Excellence competition, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), 2021.

What I’d do differently

The resource metrics are strong on generation and capacity but don’t close the loop on demand variability — a campus with research labs and a convention center has a very different hourly load profile than the residential spine, and the 25% solar-demand figure would be more convincing paired with a load-duration curve.

Problem

Approach

Results

What I’d do differently

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