About
35
Publications
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Introduction
Dr. Rajjan Chitrakar is an educator and researcher with a strong background and an emerging track record in architecture and urbanism. He is the editor of the book titled Revisiting Kathmandu Valley’s public realm: Some insights into understanding and managing its urban spaces (Nova, 2020). Rajjan has published book chapters
with Routledge and Springer Nature and peer-reviewed papers in highly ranked international journals. He is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
August 2018 - July 2022
Position
- Research Fellow
Description
- • Conducting workshops with Brisbane City Council & Property NSW • Collecting and collating data from workshops and interviews • Contribute to publications resulting from research data • Work on RAISE “community version” and integration of QLD data
March 2012 - September 2015
Position
- PhD Student
Description
- a) Conducting research leading to a doctoral degree b) Preparing research articles to publish on international peer-reviewed journals and present in academic conferences
Education
March 2012 - October 2015
September 2005 - September 2006
September 1997 - September 2002
Publications
Publications (35)
Rapid and unplanned growth of Kathmandu Valley towns over the past decades has resulted in the haphazard development of new neighbourhoods with significant consequences on their public space. This paper examines the development of public space in the valley's new neighbourhoods in the context of the current urban growth. A case study approach of th...
This research seeks to demonstrate the ways in which urban design frameworks stimulate and encourage social activities in urban public squares. We observed two public squares in Brisbane using a framework of design factors identified from existing literature to examine how such a framework correlates with user activities and engagement. The observa...
Placemaking is being increasingly recognised as a strategy to improve the quality of urban public realm. Placemaking helps to build better communities with an important role to play in achieving sustainable urban development. According to the Project for Public Spaces (2007), strengthening the connection between people and the places they share is...
Big data analytics in smart cities has given rise to the new interdisciplinary field of urban science, which uses data mining, visual analytics, modelling and simulation to create novel planning support systems. One such system is RAISE – the Rapid Analytics Interactive Scenario Explorer, which assists urban planners and local government authoritie...
Public spaces are being increasingly controlled and managed by non-government agencies, and their publicness is shifting constantly, prompting concerns about the nature of the public realm in contemporary cities. Using a qualitative single case study analysis with the data collected from observations and interviews, this paper examines how control...
Traditional perceptions of human-animal relationship in the urban context typically see the spatial rejection of wildlife from the built environment and limiting of biodiversity conservation programs to areas of natural reserve. However, the recently introduced conservation approach of reconciliation ecology makes a call promoting ecological stewar...
Jan Gehl, an eminent Danish Architect and Urban Designer, has worked in more than forty cities around the world and contributed to revitalising their city centres. Although his work in Australia has drawn considerable attention in recent years, not much is known about his early and exemplary work on revitalising the city centre in Melbourne. This p...
Urban change is a worldwide phenomenon with widespread consequences on the city’s physical form and social life. The changing urban patterns of contemporary cities have transformed how public open spaces are developed and used in new growth areas. Kathmandu Valley is not exempt from the forces driving such transformation. Following the political ch...
In recent years, the Australian government’s policy agenda for urban development has embraced transit-oriented development (TOD) initiatives driven by green concerns. There is a growing consensus that the combination of green urbanism and TOD offers social and environmental benefits and can significantly reduce the carbon footprint associated with...
Kathmandu Valley has a rich urban history and exhibits a distinct pattern of human settlement that is unique even in South Asia. However, the contemporary approaches to urbanisation have failed to deliver positive outcomes as evident in the haphazard development of the new growth areas. Although scholars have long argued about its poor urban planni...
This presentation explores urban design works of Jan Gehl in Melbourne over a period of more than 25 years. It focuses on examining how Gehl his public space study methods contribute to transforming the Melbourne CBD into a vibrant city centre. Findings indicate that not only has Gehl made a significant contribution in revitalizing public spaces in...
Australia is a suburban nation, and Australians value home ownership highly. The standalone house on a “quarter acre” block is seen as almost a natural birth right. Yet architects only design about 3% of housing in Australia, the vast bulk of Australia’s housing is designed and built by “volume builders” who buy up huge tracts of land on the urban...
Can the combination of green urbanism and transit-orient development (TOD) shrink the environmental footprint associated with vehicular oriented transport? This is just one of the several questions that may be asked when thinking of measures to provide a carbon neutral future. Not only is transport Australia’s one of the primary sources of greenhou...
This talk presents a case study of the traditional towns of Kathmandu Valley, the major urban centre of Nepal, to illustrate how these towns have evolved as a constructive conglomeration of the tangible and intangible urban heritage elements. Evidence shows that in these historical towns, the urban heritage elements not only coexist to define a pub...
Contemporary urban development of Kathmandu Valley, the major urban centre of Nepal, has largely failed to deliver positive outcomes, with direct consequences on its public realm. While the problem demands effective management of urban growth and change, there is also a need to expand scholarly dialogues on the impact of urbanization on public spac...
Traditional towns of the Kathmandu Valley boast a fine provision of public space and offer a unique setting for urban life. This chapter presents a comprehensive review of the morphology of these towns and the organization of public spaces within in the residential neighborhoods, with an aim to identify the key attributes of such spaces and the fac...
Traditional urban spaces contribute to delivering city’s unique ethos that helps to build urban identity and gives character to a place. However, these historic hubs are constantly being challenged by the growing conflict between the modern needs and the traditional values. This chapter presents a case study of Patan Durbar Square, one of the histo...
Public open spaces are no longer the central element of contemporary residential neighbourhoods in the Kathmandu Valley.
This research examines how the capacity of urban communities to respond and adapt to the natural disasters have been affected by social change.The research will use the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, one of the rapidly growing urban agglomerations in South Asia, as a case, which was hit by a devastating earthquake in April 2015 killing more than 9000 p...
Modern cities have witnessed a significant level of transformation of urban environments, in which the urban neighbourhoods of recent origin have also changed. This paper explores the transformation of public space in contemporary urban neighbourhoods of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. It examines the changing provision and use of public space throu...
The lack of management has led to the degrading quality of public space in modern cities around the globe. Contemporary public spaces are facing challenges in terms of maintaining them as a “social space” so that they are accessible and functional for the users. Using Kathmandu as a case study, this paper explores the challenges the contemporary pu...
Urban residential development aims at building a community in a geographic location based on physical proximity, with social ties and networking among neighbourhood residents. However, due to the transformation of modern urban environments, not only the physical layout of the contemporary urban neighbourhoods has altered but these neighbourhoods ar...
This paper examines the meaning of public space and sense of community among neighbourhood residents in the changing urban context of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. Two new neighbourhoods were selected for the purpose of this study with data collected from interviews with the residents. The study has found that most residents of the new neighbourho...
Urban change is a global phenomenon with widespread consequences on urban form and life across geographical regions. The changing pattern of urban growth has transformed how public spaces are developed and used in the neighbourhoods of modern cities. Kathmandu Valley, the cultural, economic and political centre of Nepal, has not been immune to the...
Traditional towns of the Kathmandu Valley boast a fine provision of public spaces in their neighbourhoods. Historically, a hierarchy of public space has been distributed over the entire town with each neighbourhood centered around more or less spacious public squares. However, rapid growth of these towns over the past decades has resulted in haphaz...
Traditional perceptions of the human-animal relationship in the urban context typically see the spatial rejection of wildlife from the built environment and limiting of biodiversity conservation programs to areas of natural reserve. As urban growth places further spatial demands on natural habitat and contributes to continued global biodiversity lo...
This research seeks to demonstrate the ways in which urban design factors, individually and in various well-considered arrangements, stimulate and encourage social activities in Brisbane's public squares through the mapping and analysis of user behaviour. No design factors contribute to public space in isolation, so the combinations of different de...
The current growth of Kathmandu Valley has been malignant in many ways which suggests a decline of public realm in the city. As the current efforts for planning and design of public open space exhibit numerous problems related to both physical and social aspects of city building, this book examines the shortcomings with contemporary urban developme...
This article presents an overview of pedestrian environment in Kathmandu, Nepal to briefly discuss some of the emerging problems. It argues that pedestrian ranks lowest in the food chain of Kathmandu's urban jungle as there is too little concern shown by the government agencies in improving the quality of the street space for walkers.
The destructive effort of the current development trends has seriously altered the unique features of the historic city cores of Kathmandu Valley, and this has in turn resulted in the weakening identity of the traditional built environment. This paper examines some key issues related to the conservation of physical built environment in the historic...
This presentation gives a brief overview of historical development and typology of urban squares in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal and also highlights their physical, social and urban design attributes.
The development of human settlement in Kathmandu Valley can be traced back to more than 2000 years.
In responding to the needs of the social life of city dwellers and in being testimonies of a quality urban design, the city builders in the past have created numerous successful urban squares which still serve their purpose till today. The historic squares of the medieval
towns of Kathmandu Valley are examples of such great city squares that have e...
The historic squares of the medieval towns of Kathmandu Valley are the examples of successful urban open spaces that have excelled in physical design and succeeded in making a built environment that highly encourages the public life. In contrary to the historic examples, the contemporary trend of open space design in the valley is found unsatisfact...
Questions
Questions (4)
Please see the research project I have uploaded for more details.
Urban informality is a growing area of research in urban studies, with a focus on cities of global south. Can anyone suggest some good sources to better understanding this topic? What are the emerging trends in the study of informal settlements? Which new concepts are being proposed? It appears that not many studies have been conducted to comprehensively address the development of such settlements in the presently changing contexts. Any information on recent literature or case studies will be highly appreciated. Thanks.
I am particularly interested in both the literature and case studies from the developing world context with a focus on unplanned or uncontrolled growth of urban areas.
I also invite interested urban design scholars to join me in this project as a collaborator.
Thank you.
This is part of my ongoing research on management of urban neighbourhoods.
