This little tailor-shop adjacent to Koliwada, Dharavi is about 7 feet wide and 4 feet deep. The story of the shop is the story of many such entrepreneurs in Dharavi. This neighnourhood  is not only the destination for those from the countryside seeking to take part in the economics of the big city, but Mumbai’s citizens too often seek shelter here after eviction from other locations in the name of redevelopment.

Slum areas in the city are frequently demolished to make place for high rises. Those who lived there are either relocated in transition camps and find new homes in the high-rise, or cannot stay on at all as there is no scope for a livelihood in their new vertical residences.  After all, many entrepreneurs need a business on the street level. Vending only works well there and that is why for the city’s millions of self-employed hawkers and vendors, there is a need for an architecture that understands this. Not one that surgically disconnects people from their livelihood in the name of redevelopment.

The demand for retail space in Dharavi is enormous. A shop of only 4 feet deep is therefore already worth exploiting. Vending often begins with a cloth laid down on a street, backed by a blind wall in an alley. A little stall is a step forward. A built shop is the logical follow up.

The tailor’s shop on the left, beginning street vendors on the right.

On top of the shop a floor is created for a room. By extending this room over the street, more room is created inside. The extra floor doubles as a weather shade, protecting the shop against the blazing sun and torrential rains. The shop’s counter can be moved outside, leaving more space inside the shop. Business is perfectly tuned with the spatial dimensions of the shop. No stock is kept here, production is located elsewhere.

In the shop, client’s orders are taken and delivered. All agreements regarding the design are collected in the order book. All sizes of the customers can be found here. Samples mark the chosen fabric. When a customer arrives to collect the order, a staff member walks to the studio to fetch the gown.

Production takes place in the studio on top of the shop. The distance between production and retail is thus very short and efficient. The alley is in close proximity to one of the busiest streets in Dharavi, which is good for patronage.

In this example, you see how a shop and the studio are built to a blind wall. That wall is part of a bigger house dating from times when this was still a fishermen’s village. This story of building against and building upon is typical for the architecture of neighbourhoods like Dharavi.  The forces of society are clearly visible. The owner of the house was willing (or had to be) to allow trading next to his property. The width of the original alley allowed for a stall of only 4 feet. The stall was eventually improved to a built shop. On top of that came a studio, jutting out over the street. Thus the entrepreneur found shelter for his business.

This is also the story behind the many narrow alleys in Dharavi. Just imagine if the tailor’s shop and his studio were not here. We would be standing in a very ordinary street in a very traditional village. The difference now is that we are in a special village attached to a strong urban economy where people are making the most, with very little resources, by adding on to the existing architectural fabric and thus enhancing their contribution to that very economy.

We feel that the word ‘informal’ has now become another catchword that can be affixed to all kinds of terms to give them a superficial edge: informal settlements, informal networks, informal cities, informal design. The term has not been adequately thought through and glosses over many dimensions of lived reality.

If we want to describe the cities of today, especially the parts that fall out of the grid or creep through it, we need to invent new terms that express not so much their form but rather the way they evolve. That is why we would rather describe MG Road as being constantly ‘in-formation’ rather than informal.

Saying that a habitat is ‘in-formation’ doesn’t necessarily mean that it is incomplete. Instead, the term echoes Kevin Lynch’s description of cities as “evolving learning ecologies” (1981 p.115) and seeks to capture the capacity of certain urban spaces to evolve continuously and adapt to the context. The hyphen between ‘in and ‘formation’ is there to emphasize the dynamic production of urban forms and its perpetual incremental improvement and conservation.

The terms in-formation also invokes the word ‘information’ in its systems-theory sense as “any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns” (Wikipedia). If urbanists, architects, policy-makers, self-helpers, users and commentators, can stop describing some neighbourhood as ‘informal’ (and therefore in need of formalization) and understand how economic, social and cultural patterns influence the formation of physical habitats in planned as well as unplanned neighbourhoods, we will be that much closer to solving some of the most important challenges of our urban world.

Examining and learning from the way fellow humans use space across geographies and histories is without any doubt the most exciting trigger for creative intervention and architectural innovation.

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While studying photos taken after the atomic blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it came to me that seen from the hypocenter; most structures that still stood were trees. Scorched trees were still up where all else was reduced to rubble. Apparently, the qualities of nature’s oldest living structures cannot be met by human construction. It is therefore surprising that contemporary architecture is mainly about concrete, steel, and glass and that the use of wood seems something of the past. What happened with wood? Time to reconsider this marvelous material by a visit to people who still live in a close relation with the forests: the tribal folks in India.

This chapter will focus on the application of wood and stone in several combinations. The first combination is a wooden structure on an earth base, the second is about stacking and positioning wood and stone in an order making optimal use of properties, the third is about physical and chemical mixing.

In India, the way of living can be described in three groups: urban, rural, and tribal. Whereas urban and rural are covering cities and villages, the term tribal is generally used to describe people who live in the forests. These tribal forest people have a special position in Indian society, as they do not take part in the caste system. They are member of neither a high nor a low caste; they are not a member at all. The caste system does not apply to them. Although the caste system is officially abandoned by the Constitution of India in 1950 and is mostly gone in large cities, it persists in rural areas. One can imagine that the independence from it is still an important issue to tribal people.

Obviously, when speaking of the role of wood and herbal materials, Indian tribal architecture deserves our attention. Both the tribal people’s close relation to the forest and their independence from modern urban society provide a safe haven for the wood oriented tradition.

Elements and characteristics

Wood is strong and soft. It is easy to handle as all cutting, carving, sawing, and chiseling can be done with the force of a hand. Wood can bear pressure in any direction and can stand pulling, especially in the direction of its fibers. Only pulling perpendicular to its fibers can easily split the wood. These characteristics make wooden structures very strong as the combination of bearing press and pull will stand bending forces as well. As a result, any pattern of loads can be met by a wooden structure.

Earth is essentially stone. The size of the parts in which stone is divided makes the difference between bedrock, rock, stone, pebble, gravel, sand, and dust. Stone’s major achievement is being a hard, tough, substance. It can bear incredible loads. Its weakness is the inability to stand pulling and bending forces. Once split it is degraded a step further down the ladder from stone to dust.

In durability, stone is much stronger than wood. Stone can stand rain and sunshine without limitation, whereas wood will rot in water and weaken under radiation. The same goes for fire resistance. Stone easily withstands the fire that will consume wood completely.

The presence of stone and wood is almost endless. The availability of stone is mainly limited by variety and size. Some varieties, like granite, are too hard to handle easily. Others are too soft, like gypsum and lime. Wood will replenish after harvesting. By growing the right variety, man can create an endless supply of the most useful wood.

Use and Mixed Use

A forest is earth with wood on it. The architecture of the tribal people reflects this perfectly, as no other materials are used in building. In its most essential form, wood and earth are not even mixed.

Photo 1. The essential shelter: a wooden structure with a roof of rice stalks. Mira Bhayandar, Maharashtra, India.

Photo 2. A wooden floor elevates the living area from the flooding prone earth. Mira Bhayandar, Maharashtra, India.

Photo 3. A raised floor, created with stones and infill of gravel and sand. Tara, Raigad, Maharashtra, India.

Photo 4. Wooden structures with facades of palm tree leaves. Vasai, Thane, Maharashtra, India.

Photo 5. Cattle shelter with facades of palm tree leaves. Virar, Thane, Maharashtra, India.

In all of the above examples, earth stays where it belongs: on the ground. Wood is also in its natural position: a structure fighting gravity, seeking distance from the earth. The main technique to fight the weaknesses of the materials is proper application. Wood’s sensitivity to moisture is averted by protecting it from soaking. For the bearing structure, this is done by elevating the earth base, as to escape flooding. The roof and walls use the natural draining capabilities of leaves to keep the water on the outside. Earth’s sensitivity to being washed away by water, is met by making a frame of stacked big stones containing the infill of the finer gravel and sand.

Proper application being the first way to make use of earth’s and wood’s properties; the second way is to put them in an optimal location. This means that earth is no longer restricted to ground floor level. Wooden structures can be used to bear stone elements. As stone is better water resistant, the use of stone roof tiles is so obvious that it has become a world standard. A wooden structure bearing roof tiles is the most common shelter. Slate is the best natural stone used for roof tiles. Fired clay makes up for artificial tiles.

Walls of wood and leaves provide little protection against creepy crawlers. Insects, rodents, and snakes can easily find their way in. Plastering wall matting with mud is a good solution and an example of actively locating and applying the protective properties of earth on wood. Be it that mud is brittle and comes off easily when the wooden structure is shaken. This is where cow dung comes in handy.

Cow dung is a special material in tribal building. It can best been described as herbal plaster. By its herbal origin, it contains cellulose, which gives it its strength once it is dry. For the same reason it is sticky when wet. This binding quality makes it an excellent co-worker for mud plaster. Matting walls, made of bamboo or other reeds, are plastered in three layers: cow dung – mud – cow dung. The resulting structure is the same as in contemporary plasterboard: cardboard – gypsum – cardboard.

Photo 6. Wall of bamboo matting, plastered with cow dung and earth. Karnala, Maharashtra, India.

For its binding effect, cow dung is also used as a floor finishing. An earth floor is strong and solid but inevitably dusty. Before application, cow dung is dissolved in water. Bigger particles are taken out. The remaining cow dung soup is then plastered on walls and floors. The sticky cow dung glues mud and sand to a solid unity. The process of plastering walls comes with soft forms on edges, as those are easier to make and will be less prone to damaging. This natural finishing and its soft edges create pleasant forms. Sweepers are used to wash floors with cow dung. Sweeping distributes the mix of cow dung and water evenly and at the same time removes small particles. The result is an even and smooth floor, very pleasant to bare feet. It is used both indoor and outdoor. Washing floors with cow dung can be a weekly routine. Plastering walls is done less often.

By the application of mud as plaster on walls, the protective properties of earth are combined with the advantages of a wooden structure. Cow dung is a micro scale wooden (herbal) structure.

Photo 7. Mr. Mathre is sweeping his outdoor floor with dissolved cow dung. Tara, Raigad, Maharashtra, India.

Photo 8. Interior of a forest home in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai.

Photo 9. Walls and floor are plastered with mud and cow dung. The plaster is fire resistant and protects the wooden structure behind the fireplace.

Photo 10. Exterior with traditional Warli tribal painting.

Combining properties

Brick holds the combined properties of wood and earth. The same goes for ceramic roof tiles. In tribal architecture, roof tiles and bricks are replacing the traditional herbal materials as such roofs and walls give better protection and require less maintenance.

Photo 11. Typical forest – tribal structure of wood, earth, and cow dung. Only the roof tiles are of non-local origin.

To make masonry of sufficient structural integrity, mortar is needed to connect the bricks. An essential component in mortar is cement, as it is gluing the other components in a one-way process based on crystallisation. Cement however is not as ubiquitous in forests as are wood and earth. Therefore, masonry is still quite rare in tribal architecture. Roof tiles do not require cement and are fairly common.

Photo 12. NGO supported improvement. Bricks, cement, and roof tiles are brought in. Karnala, Raigad, Maharashtra, India.

The architecture of tribal villages is an excellent example of truly sustainable architecture. Its strength lies in the deep understanding of the properties of materials and the skilled application of proven techniques.

The roof is the most essential architectural feature.  The need for shelter, being the most basic need in building, is expressed explicitly by the roof. In relief programs after disasters, provisional shelter is created with a tent – by far the best temporary building – which is purely and essentially just a roof.

In dense built-up areas, such as the unplanned settlements of Dharavi, one sees an incredible phenomenon. Not only are individual buildings protected by roofs, made up with the overlapping tile principle, but the roofs themselves are in a similar cohesion with the neighboring structures. Actually, a whole area is protected by putting the roofs in an order that drains the rainwater all the way down to the outside rim.  Such an intricate system is not only achieved through meticulous planning as we see how informal settlements, considered unplanned, are often more capable of generating such accreted structures.

In neighbourhoods directly bordering the sea, such as Darukhana off the port of Mumbai, the open space over the water is an attractive opportunity for expansion. Of course, the tide is something one has to bear in mind,  especially as there is a two meter range between the levels of low tide and high tide in Mumbai.

Photo 16. Kuala Bandar, Darukhana, Mazgaon, Mumbai. Low tide, revealing the supporting piling of the light dwellings.

Darukhana’s main employment is ship repair and ship recycling. The use of sheet-shaped building materials is therefore an obvious choice. Many of these come from dismantled ships. These structures are very light, compared to concrete and masonry. Another advantage is the flexibility. Repair and expansion is easy, since material is locally available. In terms of sustainability, this is an exemplary site.

The roof shape is straightforward. Its slope is down to the waterside, which is the logical thing to do, as it would otherwise drain to the street, with all resulting inconveniences. The street would turn into a mud pool; the water would be pouring from the roof right in front of the shop or the house and in the end, the water would drain into the sea anyway.

To protect the ground from being washed away by the tide, the shore is paved with heavy stones. In order to keep it accessible and capable of bearing the piles under the dwellings, the stones are stacked stepwise, thus providing sufficient horizontal surface. In addition, the stairway form helps to dampen the incoming waves.

Photo 17. The shore is paved stepwise, providing excellent ground for these dwellings. Click photo to enlarge.

Notwithstanding the wish of many for more comfortable housing, there certainly are things to be appreciated about these dwellings. Their design is practical, straightforward and natural. Everything is in the right place, and in that way it is perfect.