This video will present a very short history of the sites-and-services approach, one of the most popular strategies for the development of incremental housing implemented over the last half-century. We will explore this approach from the perspective of spatial design, and use two case studies (Nefas Silk, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Charkop, Mumbai, India) to unpack some of the key design and managerial considerations one must take into account while planning for sustainable and affordable housing.

The BK faculty will be represented at the 17th Venice International Architecture Exhibition with “Housing the Urban Invisibles”. A show that displays student work and educational material that critically explores alternative approaches for the design of mass housing as a key component of sustainable development.

This show addresses the theme of the Biennale, “How Will We Live Together?”, and invites the visitors to re-think the current systems for the production of affordable housing worldwide, with a particular focus on contexts undergoing a process of rapid urban growth.

“Housing the Urban Invisibles” draws upon the results of the Dhaka studio co-organised by Prof. Marina Tabassum during her Visiting Professorship at the faculty in the Spring of 2019, expanded with photos and student work developed under the auspices of the Global Housing educational programme for Tema (Ghana), Mumbai (India) and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). The students work from the Global Housing studios is complemented with a display of educational material developed for the edX MOOC “Global Housing Design”, developed by the Global Housing research group.

In 2009, I found myself in the fortunate position of working as a young architect in Charles Correa’s office and assisting him on what would be his last book. Closing the circle on a lifetime spent writing and theorizing on architectural and urban issues, A Place in the Shade: The New Landscape & Other Essays is a collection of about thirty short texts that gives one an insight into Correa’s incisive and analytical mind on a wide range of topics: from architecture and art to planning and politics. Sometimes reflective, and almost always provocative, the essays illustrate Correa’s confident command of these diverse topics and his ability to connect them to the agency of the architect – a role that he was convinced comprised not just of designing buildings but one that also needed to engage with urban issues through public writing, teaching and advocacy. [...]

Building adequate housing is a pressing issue worldwide. With close to a billion people currently living in slums, accommodating a growing population, and improving dwelling conditions is a critical issue for society. This challenge cannot be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach. Every city, region and country demand their own housing models and prototypes. That’s why housing design needs to negotiate many aspects simultaneously to achieve sustainable urban environments and inclusive dwelling communities. This course uncovers how social, economic and environmental factors are interrelated in the design of housing settlements. For this, the course dives into three key aspects that anyone involved in housing design should take into consideration: time, environment, and community. Each of these aspects will be examined through a specific design approach, respectively Incrementality, Typology Mix, and Clustering.

In 1956, the same year when José Luis Sert organised the land - mark conference on urban design at Harvard, the international organisation CIAM met in Dubrovnik with the aim to draft a ‘Charte de l’Habitat’. But while no such charter was ever formally drawn up, over the next two decades, architecture and planning discourse would come to be dominated by members of Team X and their largely Euro-American affiliates who proposed an ecological notion of ‘Habitat’ with varying “scales of association” as an antithesis to the ‘Functional City’ propagated by the ‘Charte d’Athènes’ of 1933. This paper intends to expand the debate on habitat beyond this limited geography and timeframe by throwing light on its development – and transformation – through two understudied manifestos writ - ten from the context of the Developing World. The first is the 1976 ‘Habitat Bill of Rights’ prepared on behalf of the Iranian government and co-authored by Sert, George Candilis, Nader Ardalan, Moshe Safdie and Balkrishna Doshi that found its most direct translation in the design of a ‘sites and services’ scheme prepared by Doshi in the mid-1980s in Indore. The second case is Charles Correa’s 1985 ‘Bill of Rights for Housing’ that described seven principles and a hierarchical “system of spaces” that he believed to be essential ingredients for building affordable cities best demonstrated in his incremental housing project built in New Bombay. In both cases, it is not architecture – which, in fact, was programmed to be morphed by dwellers over time – but urban design that prevails and generates community. Through a spatial reading of these two cases that draws on both archival and contemporary material, this paper seeks to position housing design – especially in today’s context of the Global South – as primarily an urban design challenge of curating thresholds: from the private courtyard to the public commons.

The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization investigates the mutual relationship between the struggle for political inclusion and processes of informal urbanization in different socio-political and cultural settings.

It seeks a middle ground between two opposing perspectives on the political meaning of urban informality. The first, the ‘emancipatory perspective’, frames urban informality as a practice that fosters autonomy, entrepreneurship and social mobility. The other perspective, more critical, sees informality predominantly as a result of political exclusion, inequality, and poverty. Do we see urban informality as a fertile breeding ground for bottom-up democracy and more political participation? Or is urban informality indeed merely the result of a democratic deficit caused by governing autocratic elites and ineffective bureaucracies?

This book displays a wide variety of political practices and narratives around these positions based on narratives conceived upon specific case cities. It investigates how processes of urbanization are politicized in countries in the Global South and in transition economies.

The handbook explores 24 cities in the Global South, as well as examples from Eastern Europe and East Asia, with contributions written by a global group of scholars familiar with the cases (often local scholars working in the cities analyzed) who offer unique insight on how informal urbanization can be interpreted in different contexts. These contributions engage the extreme urban environments under scrutiny which are likely to be the new laboratories of 21st-century democracy. It is vital reading for scholars, practitioners, and activists engaged in informal urbanisation.

This paper reveals how the second Iran International Congers of Architects (IICA), held in Persepolis- Shiraz in 1974, and the first UN Habitat conference, held in Vancouver, Canada in 1976 played an instrumental role in shaping a discourse on the notion of regionalism in the design for human habitats, especially in developing countries. Building upon a brief analysis of the works of Nader Ardalan, Kamran Diba, Charles Correa, Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi and Raj Rewal, this paper discussed the incorporation of the ideas published in the Habitat Bill of Rights within their private commissions for large scale housing schemes and master plans in their respective countries, Iran and India. More crucially, this paper argues that both events helped bring together these architects who later, in different capacities, played significant roles as members of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in fostering and promoting an alternative way of adapting modernism to industrializing countries.

Charles Correa (1930-2015) was arguably one of the most important and influential Indian architects to have worked post-Independence. As an architect, planner, activist and theoretician, he realized an extensive oeuvre, both built and unbuilt, in drawings and in writings. With this book, we want to pay tribute to Correa’s legacy as a leading and inspiring authority on housing design by highlighting the main concerns and themes that guided his work. The vast range of Correa’s designs for housing is remarkable for the consistency with which he addressed the various complex issues of generating habitat. Through both, his built and unbuilt work, deceptively simple ideas expressed with great clarity of thought help identify clear lineages between ideas and projects, whether they be for single-family homes or townships, built for the poor or for the rich.

Public exhibition held between 1st November and 30th November 2018 at Lilavati Lalbhai Library, CEPT University on the housing designs of Charles Correa.

Mumbai is both the financial capital of India and its largest city. The city’s planning authorities are faced with the enormous task of accommodating Mumbai’s ever-increasing urban poor population. At present more than half of Mumbai’s 12.5 million inhabitants live in informal settlements or slums. Over the years, several policies have evolved to tackle the proliferation of slums, starting with the Slum Clearance Act of 1956 right up to the current Slum Redevelopment Scheme (SRS) of 1995, which marks a fundamental shift in the role of the state towards mass housing. Rather than investing itself, the supply of affordable housing in the city has since been primarily handed over to the private sector with the state itself acting merely as a facilitator in the process. In this scheme, eligible families living in recognized slums are rehoused on existing plots by the private developer in exchange for a portion of the land and higher construction rights that can be used to build new market housing. However, being a developer-centric scheme, each family is given a fixed 22.5 m2 housing unit in a high-rise tenement often with drastically inadequate light or ventilation. Moreover, by ignoring the existing living patterns of such communities and the social amenities that they so crucially require, a majority of these projects have done little to improve the living conditions of the urban poor in the city.

Opening with the reflections of Indian architects Rohan Varma, Charles Correa and Rahul Mehrotra on the past, present and future of architecture and planning in Mumbai, the book continues with interviews with a wide variety of local and foreign architects and planners who work in Mumbai. The ins-and-outs of practising architecture and planning in this mega city are explored through their eyes. Small but exciting firms such as Brio Architecture, find a place right beside massive commercial architecture firms including Hafeez Contractor and activist architects such as PK Das and Somaya & Kalappa. Teaching architecture in Mumbai is also discussed extensively, as well as several micro-initiatives that have come up with creative solutions for making the city more live-able and beautiful. Illustrated, covering the many faces and facets of Mumbai, a special place is reserved for the images of photographer Bas Losekoot. With his photo essay, he projects an intriguing new light on Mumbai and its inhabitants. This book will be of interest to architects, planners, architecture and planning students, for those thinking of starting an architecture, or planning, firm in India, as well as for anyone interested in Mumbai and Mumbais built environment. Supported by the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mumbai.