Homegrown Street
We are taking the Design Comes as We Build project to the next level - the Homegrown Street!
Marginality, Climate Crisis, and the Right to the City: The future of participatory urbanism in the US
In a global context, populations marginalized because of race, class, gender, creed, etc. are those most incessantly stripped of this right to design the city in their own image within formalized constraints. In this way, the “informal” urban process of self-construction is inherently a product of this same marginality that excludes these groups from “formalized” city-making.
Multifunctional Buildings of Sangam Gully
Study of the multifunctionality of houses in Sangam Gully through visuals
Barrios of Bogota
More than a third of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, is estimated to be self-built by the inhabitants, mainly in the periphery of the city. In this article, we learn from Andrés Sánchez of urbz Colombia about the emerging forms of organisation and constant transformation in these self-built neighborhoods.
Vithal Bhaskar Chawl - The Brief
Issue 04 - The Brief, illustrates all the preliminary steps taken by urbz and residents of Vithal Bhaskar Chawl to ensure that the design meets their social and spatial needs.
Colonias of Colima
Colima city in Colima State of central-western Mexico is home to disjointed and fragmented homegrown settlements, also known as colonias. In this article, we learn from Tobias Jimenez about the origins and functioning of a colonia on the outskirts of Colima city.
Vithal Bhaskar Chawl - The Residents
Issue 3 is out now! We open Pandora's box to discover the residents concerns.
Makers of Campamentos in Chile
In this article, we situate ourselves in Chile and examine homegrown neighbourhoods in various terrains.
Vithal Bhaskar Chawl - The Contractors
The second issue of the graphic novel will take you through the history of building and rebuilding of the Vithal Bhaskar Chawl.
Makers of Ciudad de Barrios
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.
Vithal Bhaskar Chawl - Prologue
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 makers of the homegrown city
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.
Local hands and homes
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.
One Space Two Places
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.
Habitat 100: A chawl redevelopment project
We are excited to be working on a new architectural project in Dharavi Koliwada. Our friend, collaborator, and contractor Joseph Koli, approached us to work on his latest project - the redevelopment of a chawl owned by brothers Vithal and Bhaskar Koli.
The Keny House
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.
Project Étoile
urbz has been mandated by the State of Geneva to develop a concept and program that integrates living, working and culture for a 60,000 m2 mixed used development in the city’s new downtown.