Hyderabad's Knowledge City business district viewed from across the Durgam Cheruvu Bridge. Image © Mohammad Anees Qamar

Published on October 30, 2026

Architecture has treated water either as a backdrop or a problem: a view to be framed, a hazard to be drained, or a utility to be connected . In contemporary India , a more consequential relationship takes shape. Water remains a shared ecological resource, yet the land and infrastructure around it are increasingly financed and defended as economic assets. Coastlines are extended to carry traffic and lake edges become lucrative development zones. The decision to do so passes through multiple institutions with different vocabularies, thereby challenging who determines how water and its surroundings are used, and who faces the consequences.

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Manufacturing Land: Mumbai's Coastal Road

Mumbai has historically been built by displacing water, and the Coastal Road continues that tradition at infrastructural scale.…