Inviting contractors from all over Mumbai to collaborate on designs for homes in Dharavi with residents, architects, and artisans.

 Social distancing in a participatory process

urbz is working on the design of a house for a joint family of 38 people, on a plot of 330 Sq.mts (3500 Sq.ft) in the dense urban settlement of Dharavi Koliwada, Mumbai. 

The so-called slums of the city are in many ways attempts at increasing affordable housing units through a different construction and financial system.

How local, community owned and managed housing co-operatives, can be a vital step towards improving the neighbourhoods, bringing good quality civic infrastructure and making the city genuinely ’slum-free’.

The Handstorm Workshop will draw on energies that flow from creative manual involvement, acknowledging that it is always wired to the brain, to form a collective of power that attracts attention from the rest of the city.

All you need to bring along are your hands, a desire to produce something useful and beautiful which you feel the residents would love to use and loads of enthusiasm.

The Handstorm workshop brought together various actors from all around the world to build things that could improve the neighbourhood based on discussions with residents and with the help of local artisans

After a handstorm workshop to make a variety of user-oriented objects and with a pilot house on its way, a report about the updates of the Homegrown Cities Initiative