Towards a Sustainable Density
Fleur Melchers (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Harald Mooij – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Nelson Mota – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Hubert van der Meel – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Architectural Engineering)
Luisa Calabrese – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - OLD Urban Design)
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Abstract
This graduation project has the name 'Towards a Sustainable Density', and is part of the Global Housing Studio, which aims to rethink the current systems of affordable housing in the Global South. Today, nearly fifteen percent of the world's population lives in poverty in urban areas, of which the majority can be found in the Global South. This includes India, which has the second largest urban population in the world. Mumbai is India's largest city and the most densely settled city in the world, with around 21.000 people per square kilometer. An on-going process of urbanization has led to an increasing urban population of 1,8 million in 1812, to 18,4 million in 2010. Unfortunately, only 5 percent of the population can afford a house in the city of Mumbai, causing more than half of its population living in informal settlements, such as slums and chawls, covering only 6 percent of the city's land. The inability of the government to provide sufficient formal, affordable housing has emerged as a serious crisis. With a still increasing urban population, the housing shortage is expected to reach 34,1 million units by 2022. Current densification developments to provide more dwelling units to deal with the increasing demand for affordable housing is only focused on efficiency. In other words: building as much, as quickly and as cheaply as possible. It totally ignores the aspects that improve the quality of life and disregards the understanding of how the built environment affects social sustainability. For this graduation project, the core challenge has been to find a good-working ratio between urban density, urban form and social sustainability.