#urbz_housing

Issue 3 is out now! We open Pandora's box to discover the residents concerns.

In this article, we situate ourselves in Chile and examine homegrown neighbourhoods in various terrains.

The second issue of the graphic novel will take you through the history of building and rebuilding of the Vithal Bhaskar Chawl.

The second article in the Makers of the Homegrown series takes a look at Ciudad de Barrios (City of Barrios) in Caracas, Venezuela. It is a compact and clustered neighborhood with a multitude of residents engaged in producing homes, urban space, and the city.

We are excited to present the first issue of a graphic novel about the Vithal- Bhaskar Chawl in Dharavi Koliwada. This issue sets the historical context for the issues to follow - where we draw and tell you more about the participatory redevelopment project initiated by the residents.

The homegrown neighbourhood is an expression of local organizational skills and maximum optimization of resources in the creation of built environments. In this series we attempt to understand its chief personnel, their tools and the processes involved in the making of such settlements.

In this article, published in The Architectural Review, Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava discuss the significance of local builders and contractors in preserving the functionality of the neighbourhood. It takes a simple shift in perspective to uncover the driving forces behind the vibrant growth of homegrown settlements such as Dharavi. 

 Social distancing in a participatory process

Based on a multi-year research with the Mobile Lives Forum on the linkages between Mumbai and Konkan villages this essay, first published in the magazine FuturArc, describes an Indian model of urbanization.

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. 

An Insight into Dharavi and the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP)

This essay looks at the theoretical and practical implications of a much used and abused notion in urban planning and development circles, that of ‘informal settlements’.

Local contractors design their ideal Dharavi homes which are exhibited at Zaha Hadid's Maxxi in Rome. 

Residents keep intervening and changing their homes in the process of living, and this contributes to conservation

When pavement dwellers are chased away, which happens often, they have no other option than making a new home on another the sidewalk. 

The official target of producing millions of quality homes for all can be re-imagined, as one in which the process of construction itself becomes a transformative moment.

Housing must be seen as a process rather than a product: its values lie in the relationship and inter-action between the actors, their activities and the produced house.