Leaving space: an alternative for the chawl redevelopment in Nala Sopara

In Nala Sopara, In the Mumbai metropolitan region, we can find many one-story dwelling blocks called ‘baithi chawls’. Due to the increasing demand for housing in this area, the developers have shifted their focus to the build of four to five-story chawls. We can distinguish two forms of chawl development; the redevelopment and the new...

Integrating Informality: A Case for an Informal Settlement in Mumbai

As Mike Davis has so poignantly pointed out, Mumbai is often considered to be the global capital of slumming with an estimated 10 million squatters living in the city. These informal settlements now account for more than sixty percent of the total population, and have grown largely as islands in the city, cut-off from their surroundings with...

Housing Humanity, Building Locality: Endemic habitation practices driving the reconstruction of a coherent urban locality

The effects of India’s shift towards economic liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation in the mid 1990’s has drastically altered the landscape of its cities. These powerful forces have imposed further spatial disjuncture on an unplanned city. More specifically, forces of contemporary urbanisation plague the developing fabric of Mumbai’s...

Vertical Mumbai: Development of qualitative social housing in a highly dense city

In the past decades Mumbai has experienced a huge increase of citizens who, drawn by the economic opportunities of the big city, come to Mumbai for chances of a better life. The city is struggling with the effects that this has on the city. A big part of its population reside in informal settlements, living under impoverished circumstances. This...

Community in the time of market economy

To balance the outbreak in density which is currently focused in Rahmat Nagar and encourage a city that is open for newcomers, the connection between Nalasopara West and East should be embraced. In order to achieve this connection and create a community linking both sides of the railway, issues such as urban markers, collective spaces, variety...

Dhara - Directing Flows in Mumbai Through Landscape: A resilient blue-green landscape framework towards hydrological, ecological and communal reinstation for the Mumbai Estuarine Urbanscape

From 1700 onwards the natural coastal landscape of Mumbai has gone through drastic changes and has become the highly urbanized metropolis we see today. The natural landscape was that of a forest to estuarine topographical gradient. This transformation of the land has had a major impact on the city’s resiliency, impacting water systems, green...

Bridging Realities: A Response to Spatial Inequality in Mumbai & Nalasopara

In Mumbai, “two-thirds of the city’s (Bombay) residents are crowded<br/>into just 5 percent of the total area, while the richer or more rent-protected one-third monopolize the remaining 95 percent.” The Development Plans for Mumbai, criticized as “a form of ‘planned’ exclusion of the poor and the middle class”, have failed to address issues of...

A productive neighbourhood: Economic activity as a driver for sustainable development

The study aims to investigate humane housing solutions for rapid urbanisation happening all over the globe, specifically engaging with the case of Nalasopara, Mumbai, taking into account issues of density, affordability, economic development, gender and participation.

Bio Cyber Physical Architecture: Use of Computational methods in Ecological buildings and Landscapes

The world around us is rapidly changing and evolving. In a new report by the World green structure committee, the building and development industry are liable for 38.8% of all CO2 emissions internationally, with operational outflows (from energy used to warmth, cool and light structures) representing 28%. Our designed structures depend upon many...