urbz : user-generated cities

SMEs are the key drivers of economic growth in the country and they need to start selling online in order to scale up and receive the true wage and value for their products. This presents a unique opportunity for local businesses in Dharavi to tap into the digital market to sell their products and grow with the existing social and business community.

urbz founders Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove reflect on community-driven placemaking in the Indian metropolis.

Read on Azure magazine

We have come to an end with our series on Makers of Homegrown cities and the Vithal Bhaskar graphic novel. This post presents one finale to both.

In the latest issue, we take a trip with urbz interns as they visit the Vithal Bhaskar site.

In this article, we travel to Cape Town in the western capes of South Africa. The homegrown settlements in Cape town have emerged from occupations of underutilized buildings and vacant lands in peripheries of the city. ‘Occupations’ in Cape Town act as points of contact and interaction between homegrown communities, grassroots housing movements, and the city’s planning institutions.

 How can social and digital empowerment fuel positive growth for Dharavi's SMEs?

In issue 8 of the Vithal Bhaskar graphic novel, we are tearing things down and building them again!

urbz is invited to host a workshop at Archipelago: Architectures for the Multiverse, a bilingual and hybrid event taking place in Geneva on May 6-8. We explore the city as a collection of fragmented left-over spaces, which need to be reassembled and given new meaning.

In this article, we go across the border to Orangi, a town in the western district of Karachi, Pakistan, a city that was once part of the colonial Bombay Presidency. Bombay and Karachi used to be referred to as twin cities. In this article, we will look at the Katchi Abadis of Orangi, where residents have built not only their homes but also streets, lanes, and sanitation systems for the neighborhood.

A year after the first lockdown, in light of the second, deadlier Covid-19 wave, we talk to residents of Dharavi to understand how it is impacting them.

In Issue 7 we take a look at how the team resumed work after a long pause.

Dharavi is a prime real estate location due to its closeness to public transport systems, business districts, as well as ecological hotspots. The proximity of living quarters to where individuals work, often from within households, brings both benefits and challenges to households and businesses.

We continue across the border to Karail, a basti (neighbourhood) in Dhaka, Bangladesh to understand homegrown settlements and their formation. 

In the 6th Issue, we do what we do best - workshops! Take a peek into the one we organized with the residents of Vithal Bhaskar to discuss the design.

Dharavi is a frenetic engine of entrepreneurship characterized by variety, innovation, recycling, and reuse. While the Indian economy is in a historic slump that is predicted to take years to recover, residents and workers in Dharavi are starting to return to the city as industries and their allied supply chains are beginning to open up.

As a continuation of the Makers of Homegrown cities series, we come closer to home and take a look across our borders. Homegrown settlements in Kathmandu Valley are dotted along the highly revered Bagmati river. This article delves into the establishment and lives of the Paurakhi Basti.

Dharavi embodies an efficient pre-industrial live-work paradigm. This is now desired and interpreted in post-industrial societies, and more so in the Covid-19 era, as a sustainable lifestyle.

In Issue 5 we follow the urbz team as they negotiate the site and ensure that all residents needs are met through the design.

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.

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. 

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. 

Issue 3 is out now! We open Pandora's box to discover the residents concerns.

In this article, we situate ourselves in Chile and examine homegrown neighbourhoods in various terrains.

The second issue of the graphic novel will take you through the history of building and rebuilding of the Vithal Bhaskar Chawl.

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.

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 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.

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.

We at urbz researched the circumstances in Dharavi from April to November. We now present a collection of four pandemic-focused articles, fifteen Dharavi Weekly issues, and five Dharavi Fortnightly issues.