Left Buscoldo Italy, right MG Road, Social Nagar, Dharavi, Mumbai

Walking through Mumbai for an Italian student of architecture means confronting something totally different from his own culture. I am a student at the Politecnico of Milan and originally from a small village of just 2500 inhabitants in the north of Italy, Buscoldo, close to a town called Mantova, which has a population of roughly 45000 people. About a month ago I left behind my quiet life and got absorbed in the crazy world of Mumbai. I thought I was prepared. I thought I knew what a big city was, how it works, but actually I was far from it.

I am in Mumbai for 3 months to do an internship at URBZ. My aim is to understand the process of incremental-improvement in Dharavi and other neighbourhoods in Mumbai.

In the recent years I had the opportunity to explore different realities. I spent one year in a South American metropolis, Santiago de Chile. Chile is perhaps not such a typical South American country, because of the strong cultural and economic influence it gets from the US. Santiago is also a mad city but its sense of organization and feel is very Western.

Santiago de Chile

Coming to India made me realize that the last few years of my life have been a curious “Russian doll”-like experience. I grew up in a really small village, where everybody knows each other, I studied in a small town, spent time in Milan, lived for one year in Santiago de Chile in a neighborhood as big as my hometown, and now I am spending time in Mumbai which has a population twice as large as Santiago.

Looking back at my village from Dharavi helps me understand better where I come from and what’s special and universal about it.

In Mumbai I stay in Dharavi, one of the most dynamic and populated unplanned neighborhoods in the Asian continent. Even if at first sight it has nothing in common with a small village like mine, I realized that reality is actually more complex. I was most impressed, for instance, with the deep sense of place and community that people have in Dharavi.

I live in a small apartment in a seven-storied building and I know my neighbors because I have learned from them to keep my door open. This self-imposed rule originated from the time they all lived together in low-rise “chawls”, before their patch of land was redeveloped in the 1980s. The role that my house-front played in Italy is played in Dharavi by the hallway, which connects my life with my neighbors’ life. It is a world of social interaction which fulfills the need that we architects tend to fantasize about public spaces. That little passage from door to lift, with the small gesture of keeping doors open creates a great meeting and interaction space, which was never designed to be used that way. This is just what people chose to do.

A few days ago in Dharavi, I saw Paul -one of the strong men of the neighborhood where the URBZ office is located- preparing lunch for 150 people (photo on the right). I was really surprised but also remembered that this also happens back home when we celebrate something that connects the entire community.

Dharavi is a context where poverty is not a problem. In fact many families keep investing their earnings to improve their own homes. In Italy too we are interested in building up better houses and improving it. The process is very similar, what changes is the type of technology we use.

I live in a house which my father built. He is a Geometra (a specific Italian technical specialization related to construction) and what he basically did for most of his life was to design houses. In this case he was like a typical contractor of Dharavi, who, together with his client tries to build or improve a house, without the help of architects or engineers. What he basically did, was take the typical single house we have in the north of Italy, and tried to redo it with different materials, mostly wood. This is new in a place where wood is not a local material, and has generated a lot of debate in the community.

I have to admit that before coming here I was pretty worried, but now I understand that if we are willing to get involved in the places we visit, maybe the differences we perceive at the beginning are simply stereotypes that we have to outgrow.

My father in front of the house he built in Buscoldo

We are three architecture students from Italy – Daniela, Serena and Valeria. We have been in Dharavi for about a week, and are just getting adjusted to this new but incredible place. We came here after having done a lot of research in school about informal cities. Being here however  is a completely different thing: we have come to agree with URBZ’s idea that Dharavi cannot be labeled simply as an “informal city”, because the quantity and quality of activities that take place in it are actually perfectly organized and functional.

As architects, it is really difficult to accept this reality. We are usually taught to think in terms of minimal standards and measurements. From this point of view it’s not possible to define and think of a possible “solution” in Dharavi. The great thing is that people here are not looking for “solutions” either, as we might have thought before coming here. In fact, we got the impression that architects and planners are looked at with some reserve, as they propose solutions that are too large-scale and homogenizing. Often  the inhabitants treat such proposals as threatening.

Having been here for such a short time, and wanting to avoid the clichè of architects who come and upset everything, we thought it would be better for us to begin with a small, practical task that could have immediate utility. That’s why we were happy to accept the proposal of URBZ: to try to find a solution for the office’s roof -which is in New Transit Camp in Dharavi. This can then be applied to other roofs in Dharavi by the inhabitants. The roofs here are largely covered in asbestos , which is both harmful for health and makes the rooms very hot. Plus, looking around us, we noticed how the roof is a very important part of life in Dharavi: we saw people up there playing, flying kites, speaking on their phones, having a rest or simply socializing, especially in the late hours of the afternoon. Asbestos is probably not the best surface on which to do these things.

Our intent is to find a solution which is very low-cost and uses materials and products that are available in Dharavi. In that view, we think we might leave the asbestos and simply cover it on both sides with other materials. In the past few days we went on two long walks with our friend-interpreter Venkatesh, looking for materials that we could use. As shown in the map, which will be followed by others since the research is still in progress, we walked along 90 feet road and 60 feet road all the way to 13 Compound and back. These walks were revealing: we really didn’t think -even though we had read about it – that Dharavi could be such a big production centre, not only for itself but for the whole city.

Our next steps will include going back to 13Compound and other places like Kurla market with Venkeatesh to look for other products (tetrapak, corrugated metal sheets and so on), ask for prices and availability. After  that, we will begin doing some prototypes of the various solutions we came up with to see which one might be best and most economical. If these will produce valid results, we will try to produce simple instruction pamphlets which will help people in improving their roofs.

More soon!
Daniela Bosco, Serena Alcamo, Valeria Federighi from Turin Polytechnic, Architecture School, Italy

This is Miriam and Fabio, architectural students at the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy. We have landed  in Mumbai, more specifically in New Transit Camp, one of the many neighbourhoods of Dharavi.

We will spend almost two months in India, the first one in Mumbai and the second one in Bangalore researching architectural materials, usages and techniques.

As Europeans landing in Mumbai, we experienced culture shock immediately! The research started with  direct exposure to a totally different culture, languages, religions, ways of living, eating… Walking through Dharavi, entering in people’s houses and feeling foreign to everything around is a very special experience.

With URBZ we are in the process of analyzing an incrementally developed structure in Dharavi. We are mapping it in detail and  trying to understand – for instance- how water reaches the second floor, how electricity is distributed, which construction materials are used and how the building was developed and changed through time.

It seems that all we will need is a few simple tools and lots of goodwill. Actually, we have been here for days. We don’t speak Hindi or Marathi (most of the people here don’t  speak English) and is not so simple to enter someone’s house asking questions about their life and home, measuring the small rooms in which they are living and working. That’s why we are starting with the building where URBZ’s office is located. We have been introduced to the neighbours who, although they don’t always understand what we are up to, are very welcoming.

The type of approaches we are used to can’t work over here. We are right now  simply presenting ourselves and our experiences, hoping that the people we talk to reciprocate. We have already learned so much and we are sure that at the end of this experience we will come back with much more.

We have illustrated this post with some of the drawings we are currently producing. This is the 3 storey building where the URBZ office is located.

Miriam and Fabio

Location: URBZ Office, New Transit Camp, Dharavi

Time: Part-time

Languages: English, Marathi, Hindi

Duties: Update the dharavi.org website. This involves surfing the web for new info on Dharavi, reading the newspapers and most importantly getting updates from local actors.

Skills: The intern will be trained on using the dharavi.org wiki system, uploading text in multiple languages as well as images and videos. The intern should be able to work independently and have good social skills.

This is an unpaid internship ideal for journalism, new media, urban planning, social work students researching Dharavi, willing to work in the area. It is a good chance to do something useful, while learning about Dharavi and new media.

Interested candidate can contact us using this page.