Focusing on the design of large-scale housing schemes, this doctoral dissertation examines the extent to which the architecture of dwelling was affected by the oil-led geopolitics of the Cold War, and influenced by the modernist logic of architectural design and urban planning in Iran’s period of high-modernisation (1945-1979), as Eskandar Mokhtari termed it. This study questions the influence of the country’s geopolitical position during the Cold War, and its impact on the architecture of dwelling. It shows how a series of experimental housing solutions, initiated by leading Iranian architects mostly educated in the West (Europe and North America) became a physical expression of both the state’s modernisation demands and people’s everyday needs. Finally, it illustrates how the design mechanisms employed by these architects enabled for a continual and constant change and transformation in their proposed housing schemes, and empowered the users of space to designate and establish a set of relations with their living environment. While this study could be seen as a contribution to the discourse of urban modernisation in Iran, mainly by focusing on the agency of the dweller in the transformation through time of public housing districts in the country, it also aims to address some current issues related to the design and production of public housing. It seems that in the process of housing development, architects and decision-makers with different backgrounds employ two distinct approaches that mostly cannot be resulted in a convergent solution. While this gap between visions and realities of public housing policies and designs might be seen as a universal as well as a common phenomenon, this issue resulted in many critiques on the development of public housing and built environments, in Iran. Iranian architects criticised the government for its top-down housing policies overemphasising the application of industrialised methods for the production of houses, but neglect the importance of people’s socio-cultural practices as well as vernacular patterns of inhabitation for housing design. On the contrary, decision-makers describe housing solutions provided by architects mostly as visionary and inefficient. Accordingly, investigating overlaps between these divergent approaches is of vital importance, as it would foster and promote a dialogue among multiple stakeholders involved in the process of housing development, and illustrate the roles that architects can perform therein. In Iran’s period of high-modernisation, the architecture of dwelling was widely seen as a place to fulfil the state’s ambitious goals of modernisation projects, and simultaneously to resist universalising tendencies. The Iranian Finance and Planning Organisation prepared five distinct Development Plans, where housing for middle and low-income families held a prominent place. Indeed, these Plans projected the national and international socio-political and economic condition of the time that resulted from rural-urban migrations and the demographic changes being seen in Iran. Accordingly, each Plan led to the construction of a series of large-scale housing projects in urban areas. Among these projects, Kuy-e Chaharsad-Dastgah (1946-50), Kuy-e Narmak (1951-58), Kuy-e Kan (1958-64), Kuy-e Ecbatana (1972-92), and Shushtar-Nou (1975-85) were designed and developed as experimental models by leading Iranian architects, to promote and foster a synthesis of Western living standards and Iran’s vernacular patterns of inhabitation. By investigating these models initiated in three different stages of modernisation in Iran, this dissertation, first, unfolds the processes that created/led to collaboration and negotiation among visions and realities of stakeholders (particularly architects and policy/decision-makers) involved in the production of houses and provision of housing solutions. Then, it shows how the mechanisms employed for the design of these housing schemes enabled for a continual and constant change and transformation. Finally, this study argues that each of these housing models is embedded with a form of inhabitable voids that could be seen and read as heterotopia, as Michel Foucault defined. In other words, incorporating some local archetypes into the design process of these projects implies and creates a certain type of place that the ‘other’ space would flourish. Accordingly, these heterotopic voids might include a creative potential/characteristic to be perceived as an omnipresent tool from the disciplinary toolbox of architecture that would cater for providing certain forms of relationships among people and with their living environment.@en

In recent years, Mumbai has experienced rapid urbanization due to its economic growth. This large influx of migrants, who are looking for opportunities in the city, has led to an issue of overpopulation. It has been estimated that the population will grow to 28 million within the next few years. More than 40% of these people live in informal settlements in extremely poor conditions while two-thirds of the population lives on only 5% of the total area of the city. A clear separation can be seen between different income groups within the city of Mumbai, as well as in the rest of India and the global south. This social polarization is not beneficial for the city nor its inhabitants and current housing schemes don’t provide the tools to tackle this problem. In Nalasopara the same issue is at hand where a city is divided into two part: the eastern area where most of the low-income lives while in the west more and more large towers are being constructed for the middle and high-income groups. This problem has only increased in the past 20 years. This increasing social polarization and a widening income gap lead to spatial and social inequality in Nalasopara and Mumbai. This contributes to unfairness between the rich and poor, unfairness in upward mobility, harsh borders between different income groups, different accessibility to public space and ghettoization of certain groups. Which leads to a disconnect between the city and its inhabitants. This project aims to design and create a framework where all income groups have access to accessible urban spaces & affordable housing. While softening the boundaries between income groups but maintaining the qualities, individuality and opportunities for each income group. Which in turn will encourage diversity within this framework to re-connect the people with each other and with the city. Thus creating an example which will stimulate the development of socially depolarized, sustainable urban settlements in the global south.

The first interactions of the child with its environment can already have long-lasting impacts on its worldview (weltanschauung) and psychoanalytical state. This makes the architecture of housing, especially in poor regions, such as Nalasopara in Mumbai, a critical key point for the development of the next generations. However, after the economic liberalization of India, affordable housing has increasingly shifted from vernacular environments towards a dehumanizing accommodation of people in redeveloped chawls, so-called “vertical slums”.
This thesis aims to investigate the matter and propose an alternative for the chawl redevelopment that can foster children's development and create a sense of community and identity in their dwelling environment without neglecting the pressing issues of density and affordability.

In many of the processes of urban renewal the Social Space produced by the inhabitants of the existing communities is often overlooked. The project makes a claim for the recognition of this "type of space" and further develops strategies so that the built form can be adaptable and open to the constant production and reproduction of Social Space. Ideas behind open system theory and open city planning are used to create a tool set for an acupunctural urban plan that can deal in this in-between of the purely physical urban environment and the social dynamics it holds.

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.

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 graduationproject revolves around improving these circumstances through the development and design of durable, affordable, qualitative social housing that is able to reach high densities while maintaining a qualitative level of living.

India is the second most populated country in the world, counting for over 1,3 billion people, a number that is rapidly increasing. In line with the rest of the world, India is, next to its increase in population, seeing a rapid urbanization, with Mumbai in the centre of it all. Considering the increase of population and the urbanization of India, it is only a logical cause that its capital is now growing at an unprecedented pace. In only fifty years’ time, the population of Mumbai has tripled, with no apparent end to be seen. Almost needless to say, the city is struggling with these numbers. What might be even more striking is the fact that in the same time span, the percentage of people living in slums has risen from roughly ten percent to as much as fifty percent of total population. And although slum dwellers form half of the population, their homes only take up 6% of the total land area. The conditions in which many of these dwellers live, are alarmingly unhygienic and according to the Census of India unfit for human habitation.
Many of them will end up in so-called “Chawls”, five story high apartment blocks, closely packed together. From an economic perspective it is almost impossible to compete with the developments of the Chawls. It is simply not possible to house any more dwellings on a piece of land, without making substantially higher buildings, which would no longer be economical. The developers have maximized their profits, with hardly any regard for the dwellers needs.
When visiting the village of Nalasopara, a mere 2,5 kilometres away from the Chawls, the stark contrast between the two becomes obvious. Whereas the village accommodates in many of the social and economic needs of its inhabitants, the Chawls are very monotonous and lack the richness in sociospatial layers. A large variety in hierarchy of spaces can be observed in the village, constituting a layering in the way spaces are used and the interactions between people taking place. This hierarchy is not present in the Chawls, resulting in a scarce variety of spaces and how they are used. Although most of the dwellers have broken the bonds of village community, that does not mean the spatial practices originating in the village are also thrown away. Moreover, the “village way of life” has certain qualities, which can serve also those who do not originate from the village. Not paying attention to those, which is happening now, is a lost opportunity. These qualities could be used to overcome the problem of the lack of sociospatial layers and not meeting the social and economic needs of the dwellers.
This project represents an attempt to overcome some of the issues described above and will show a design that tries to combine the qualities of the village together with the reality of the Chawls. It will show a design that introduces hierarchical spaces in the overcrowded areas of the Chawls, to blur the boundaries.

In developing cities across the globe, as in Addis Ababa, the number of residents is growing while the amount of good-quality housing remains low. The demand for low-income housing is rising rapidly due to the contemporary aim to eliminate the unhealthy living conditions and the influx of migrants. Without newcomers a city would not be able to grow, as internal migration is essential for urbanization. Research has shown that migration within a country can even play a role in poverty reduction and economic development. A large amount of migrants can, on the other hand, also put pressure on a city when the city fails to have the capacity to adequately house all the newcomers. In turn this may lead to the formation of informal settlements, as previously mentioned. This describes in very few words what has and still is happening in Addis Ababa.

The cities government realized at the beginning of this century that the capital suffered a tremendous housing backlog and initiated the previously mentioned IHDP with good intentions. Unfortunately the result did not live up to its initial goals or the citizens needs and expectations. Only half of the predetermined amount of units were built, thereby the construction costs increased making the units unaffordable for one of the target groups; the lower-income. This so-called urban renewal begins with clearing out the site, meaning the often clinical demolition of entire neighbourhoods. Moreover, this means that the places which used to function as a foothold, the informal settlements, are being destroyed and replaced by static housing units where the newcomers and other poor can only dream of living in.

This research and design proposal aims at investigating the importance and potential of transitory spaces within developing cities. Eventually it has the goal of providing the poor with a foothold in the city, by creating truly cheap housing for a temporary period, through the creation of a permanent structure, which encourages the individual or group to develop.