NAINA

NAINA is an industrial township proposal by Palak Gupta set in Uran, Maharashtra, India, a locality already shaped by multiple logistics hubs. The project introduces a planned work environment that aims to balance the lives of people against the hard surfaces of the industrial tarmac, treating the warehouse district not as a place to pass through but as a place to belong.

Industrial Sector Planning

The plan works through modules organised on a stakeholder and company based allocation system, so that the business of a particular company can be sustained within its own module. Each module brings together a warehouse, a container yard and a truck stop, and these modules can be combined in different ways depending on the space required and the policies in force. This kit of parts gives the township a flexible logic, where the footprint of any single operator can grow or contract without breaking the larger order of the site.

Designing for logistics carries challenges that ordinary urban planning rarely faces. Heavy freight movement, container handling and round the clock truck traffic demand wide turning radii, durable surfaces and a clear separation between fast industrial flows and the slower rhythm of daily life. Gupta answers this by weaving in pockets of living and working alongside the warehousing, connecting people to the place rather than leaving the area to empty out when shifts end. Smart solutions are built into the framework to cater for future growth and development, which adds value to the quality of life of the people who will work and live in the same area.

The planning takes the neighbourhood character of the surrounding logistics hubs and transforms it into a multi functional program that builds up the urban fabric of the township. Mixed use spaces of this kind keep the place active throughout the day and across every season of the year, giving it a recognisable identity instead of the anonymity common to freight zones. The thinking sits close to ideas of mixed-use development and logistics planning, applied to the fast changing context of Maharashtra. For a region defined by ports and supply chains, NAINA offers a model where industry and community can share the same ground.