urbz’s inception in 2008 is deeply rooted in the urban realities of Mumbai. What started as a 5-day workshop with the residents of Dharavi Koliwada eventually led us to establish our office in the neighbourhood. Since then we have been engaging with local residents, building contractors and artisans through action research, ethnographic studies, participatory urban planning, design and architecture.
Our innovative work in architecture and planning, which takes as the starting point the user, the resident and the locality has been exhibited in the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Istanbul Design Biennale, the Chicago Architectural Biennale and the Lille Design Festival, Lille. More recently we produced models that are a part of the permanent exhibition at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong.
While our work derives from a rootedness in locality, we also adapt this knowledge to other Indian cities. We have worked with Municipal Corporations, citizen groups and public institutions in Kochi, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Delhi. urbz practice relies on the savoir-faire of an international team with more than a decade of worldwide experience, and a strong network of offices in Mumbai, Bogotá, Goa and Paris.
Projects
urbz has spent the last fifteen years in the neighbourhood of Dharavi, actively participating in the user-driven evolution of its material and social life. This has given us the confidence to conceptualise and embark on a project called “The ABCD of Dharavi Koliwada” - An Action Based Comprehensive Development Plan that aims to support the incremental development of the neighbourhood.
Dharavi Works is a series of projects designed in Mumbai by urbz in partnership with local inhabitants and contractors.
We are taking the Design Comes as We Build project to the next level - the Homegrown Street!
1000 Voices is a project that aims to document and understand Dharavi, Mumbai, through the perspective of people who, through their presence and activities, reproduce this fascinating homegrown neighbourhood day after day.
urbz researched and reported on the ground realities in Dharavi during the COVID-19 pandemic. This series of reports was published from April to November, 2020. We have compiled a collection of four pandemic-focused articles, fifteen Dharavi Weekly issues, and five Dharavi Fortnightly issues available for download.
This series of interviews portrays the economic life of Dharavi in Mumbai through the activities of its inhabitants.
For the past 5 years, urbz has been following families who's lives are spread between Mumbai and their ancestral villages in the Konkan (Western India).
We produced everyday-life objects based on the specific needs of residents and the skills available in the Shivaji Nagar area in Mumbai.
urbz invited local builders from Dharavi to design the best possible house they could imagine. These designs were translated into physical models by artisans.
As part of the Future Architecture Platform, urbz was part of a series of exhibitions and lectures at the MAXXI in Rome, the House of Architecture in Graz, Oris House of Architecture in Zagreb and the Future of Architecture symposium in Ljubljana.
Who we
work with
Who we
work with
Crew
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