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[amitjha]

Stalwart, visionary and eminent structural engineer Shirish Patel


Shirish Patel, one of the pioneer Directors of City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO) was with the company right from its inception in 1970, holding the prestigious designation of ‘Director of Planning and Works’ for close to a decade till Navi Mumbai came into being.

CIDCO was established in 1970 to create a city across the harbour to decongest Mumbai and the city's pioneer planners were J B D’souza, Shirish Patel and Charles Correa along with Pravina Mehta.

Arun Mhaisalkar, former CIDCO officer who retired as Chief Architect and planner, said Patel formulated the entire master plan of Navi Mumbai city and the blueprint of the city’s drainage system. Mhaisalkar who retired from CIDCO in 2004, said, “Patel was my mentor. I am extremely saddened with this shocking news.”

He added that visionaries like Patel, Correa and the members of the Planning Committee formulated a very interesting conceptual structure of the twin city we call Navi Mumbai, keeping in mind the perils of mono centric form of city like Mumbai. “The basic form and structure of New Bombay evolved with the circular and the intense development of CBD around the Vaghivali Lake - the geographic centre of Navi Mumbai and with four transport corridors of Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) emanating from the centre towards Thane, Nhava-Sheva, Taloja and Panvel,” he said.

The Vaghivali Island has now been transformed into the upcoming Navi Mumbai international airport. Mhaiskar said Patel's other unique contribution was the master plan for the drainage. “There are no floods in Navi Mumbai as it often happens in Mumbai,” Mhaisalkar added.

After the plan of Navi Mumbai was implemented, Patel continued to be associated with CIDCO as a consultant.

Vidyadhar Pathak, who also retired in the year 2004 from Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) as Principal Chief, Town and Country Planning Division, worked with Patel for close to six years while he was with CIDCO. “He was a well-known structural engineer and urban planner in Mumbai. In 1965, he authored an article where he first mentioned about the development of New Bombay as it was called back then. In 1970, the responsibility of planning and developing the city was entrusted to him, Charles Correa and Pravina Mehta. Besides planning Navi Mumbai, he was also very concerned about slums, Dharavi and chawls in Mumbai and regularly contributed his articles to EPW magazine,” Pathak said.

The latest work of Patel has been a two-volume book that he compiled named ‘6 metros’. Pathak had collaborated with Patel for many other projects, he said. Pathak is not sure what Patel felt about the plan of the international airport in Navi Mumbai. “I know Correa was agitated with the plan of the airport but Patel’s views were not clear to me but I am assuming he was not in favour as he never actively expressed anything about the idea of the airport,” Pathak added.

NatConnect Foundation Director and environmentalist B N Kumar said that Patel was the great visionary who, along with Correa, conceived the  idea of Navi Mumbai as a planned and self-financing city, “Hats off to the planner who questioned the BMC as to what happens to the east of Mumbai and beyond the Thane Creek and that was the planned city idea germinated,” said Kumar. “As I always say, CIDCO was a good planner in the initial days of planning from the 1970s and mid-1990s, but of late the corporation wants to gobble up all wetlands and destroy mangroves under the guise of infrastructure development,"Kumar pointed out.

“There is a lot that we have to learn from the meticulous planning and ideas of Patel and a case study on his life and works should be taught to our urban planners of today. Patel believed in low-density housing to uniform FSI with greenery and open spaces. But unfortunately the green cover and open spaces are rare commodities now. We will miss you Shirishbhai".



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Stalwart, visionary and eminent structural engineer Shirish Patel







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[spsvasan]

[quote="amitjha"]Stalwart, visionary and eminent structural engineer Shirsh Patel


Sad to note the expiry of Shri Shirish Patel

S.P.Srinivasan

[vikram.jeet]

Shirish Patel - An eminent Structural Expert and Planner

The passing away of Structural Expert  Sri Shirish Patel saheb  is great loss to Nation, and Structural /Civil Engg fraternity including those Other discipline Technocrats / Architects.

Like  late Sri Mahendra Raj  ,  he was  also a great planner  ,, which helped Architects to create extra ordinary  Structures,, and concepts given by him gave Architects name and fame.

We salute him for his accomplishments.

[S.C.KESHAV]

Sad to learn about the demise of Late Sh.Shirish Patel.May thou bestow peace to his soul.             Thanks to u for sharing this sad news.
On Mon, Dec 23, 2024, 7:18 PM vikram.jeet <forum@sefindia.org (forum@sefindia.org)> wrote:

[Mohammed Iqbal]

thans

On Mon, Dec 23, 2024 at 7:19 PM vikram.jeet <forum@sefindia.org (forum@sefindia.org)> wrote:

[engineerjamaludeen]

The legendary Structural Engineer Shirish Patel. I have seen his design of the L & T headquarters building in Manapakkam, Chennai standing on one column pillar.

RIP.

Thanks







On Mon, Dec 23, 2024 at 5:49 PM vikram.jeet <forum@sefindia.org (forum@sefindia.org)> wrote:

[hemraj chanchal]

hiLike the late Sri Mahendra Raj, he was an extraordinary planner who empowered architects to create remarkable structures. The innovative concepts he shared inspired architects and brought them recognition and success.We honor him for his exceptional achievements.Hemraj Chanchal
Hc constructions and consulting engineers


On Mon, 23 Dec 2024 at 19:19, vikram.jeet <forum@sefindia.org (forum@sefindia.org)> wrote:

[vikram.jeet]

Mahenra Raj & Shirish Patel

Their Association in ECI Bombay

I met late Sri Mahendra Raj at his Jangpura Office, N Delhi somewhere around 2006.

On tel talk with Sri UH Varyani Sir just recently ,,  I came to know that Both the Stalwarts of Structural / Civil Engg opened Design Consultancy Firm ECI, at Mumbai when Mahendra Raj saheb, returned from abroad after his Masters .

Later  Sri Mahendra Raj saheb shifted to Delhi.

Just to say,, that their style of working was same,, and were far ahead of their contemporary Experts.
Sri Shirish Patel saheb Social aspect was very predominant in his creations and Navi Mumbai is example of that.

It was told by Varyani saheb, that in those times, when not much of specialist literature available,  Shirish saheb used to write in Concrete journals giving solutions to complex creations like spiral stairs,, cantilevered stairs snd many other.

Thanks Our Living Legend and Structural Expert UH Varyani saheb for putting light on life of two greats working together in begining of career.