The waste of a resource that could help India cope

This text explores some reflections Andreas Ruby started to develop when participating in the workshop "Limites x Limites", organised by Aidec and ConstructLab, which questioned the uses and design of a future park in Geneva's iconic neighbourhood "Jonction".

Koliwada's are fishing hamlets in Mumbai city and unlike most settlements, they extend beyond terrestrial boundaries. The waters of rivers, creeks and seas, all form part of an amphibious habitat that is integral and deeply familiar to the Kolis.  

Our project with the Koli community of Dharavi - Sacred Waters/ Águas Sagradas - made it all the way from Mumbai to São Paulo, for the @14th International Architecture Biennale at the Oca, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo!

The competition for land, rather than the traditional competition for tenants, was especially exacerbated in sites of growing industrialization and development like Bombay. 

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.

The Breaking Ground Workshop in Geneva involved some interesting comparisons with density levels in Mumbai. Learnings from one space were strong inputs in discussions at another.

Drooging around the informal economy, exploring the city’s streets that are dedicated to the production of goods and objects

This animation presents what Dharavi could look like if it was allowed to continue develop incrementally. All designs in the video were conceived by contractors living and working in Dharavi, Mumbai, as part of the Design Comes as We Build project.

This series of articles seeks to shed light on the origin of the unplanned settlements that are home to more than half of Caracas’s population, but whose stories have never been told. Multiple inhabitants were interviewed and shared their stories of struggles, overcoming hardships, constant improvement and self governance that are the origin of unplanned settlements in Venezuela.