This article presents the Koliwada in Dharavi through the evolution of its built and natural environment, tracing the Koli's fight for their land, how the community is leading the development of their neighbourhood and our role in it. 

Following up on the biggest news we had in our yearly update, we want to share more about how we got to kickstart our dream project in Dharavi Koliwada. Here we go. 

We take a moment to reflect on urbz's achievements in 2023 and our objectives for 2024. We started in Mumbai in 2008 where we are busier than ever. Over the years we expanded our activities to Goa, Bogota, Geneva and now Paris. For 2024, we make the good resolution of communicating better and more frequently with our friends and followers!

Revisiting the recently redeveloped Vithal Bhaskar chawl (a traditional residential tenement) in Dharavi Koliwada, Mumbai, to examine the impact of changes on daily life. 

These projects have been re-developed by the residents in collaboration with local contractors and the urbz team. 

Artisans collaborate with contractors, residents and the urbz team, to create models in wood, clay, steel, acrylic and brass to produce model homes in Sangam Gully, Dharavi, Mumbai, as part of the Homegrown Street Project.

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.

Inviting contractors from all over Mumbai to collaborate on designs for homes in Dharavi with residents, architects, and artisans.

In this issue of the Dharavi Fortnightly, we aim to understand the experiences of people now returning or seeking to return to Dharavi, the connections they have to their hometowns, and ways in which they are keeping these connections alive in the fast-paced world today. 
 

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Dharavi has received much attention from the media, first for a steep increase in the number of Covid-19 cases and then for it’s commendable strategies to control and deal with its spread. In this issue of the Dharavi Fortnightly, we interviewed 30 people that included NGOs and beneficiaries to understand people’s strategies to deal with in-migration, unlock process and the new rise in Covid-19 cases.

While public transport is slowly resuming in the city, it is still inadequate to meet user needs. This issue of the Dharavi Fortnightly seeks to explore how restricted mobility due to the lockdown has affected the movement of people and goods within and around Dharavi.

One month after the extended lockdown ended on August 31st, we speak to our respondents to know how they are coping. Based on their responses, and first-hand observations of our very own team member in Dharavi, it seemed like life had bounced back to normal. We explore how the Tool-house, a live-work housing typology, may have contributed to this. 

As the new normal sets in, and Dharavi gears up to resume business as usual, its vital workforce is on their way back or have been here for some time now. With various discourses about India’s lockdown policy claiming an exodus of workers from cities, our first issue of Dharavi fortnightly attempts to present a parallel narrative through the lens of circulatory urbanism. 

This issue of the Dharavi Weekly takes you through 11 personal accounts of religious and cultural celebrations from the people themselves, as a culmination of our now, 15-week long endeavour to document their lives. Moving forward, The Dharavi Weekly will transition into a fortnightly issue wherein we hope to give to you, our readers, a much more in depth ethnographic representation of these communities. 

For this week’s update, we spoke to 27 young adults from Dharavi, aged 18-25 years, about their experience in the lockdown and how they deal with it.

This week we take a look at water-related issues and uneven distribution systems across neighborhoods. 

In this 12th weekly report, respondents spoke about the importance that phones and devices have taken in their everyday life.

This is the 11th weekly report which shows how the children have adapted to the conditions in the last four months, an understanding of the various ways in which the pandemic has impacted them could pave the way for holistic policies integrating their input.

This is the 10th weekly report in which we try to understand how the non-COVID health issues pose a concern as important, if not more, than the COVID pandemic. 

This is the 9th weekly in which we have conducted 19 interviews with community leaders and civil society organisations of various scales who have worked tirelessly during the last 4 months of the lockdown to provide relief to those worst affected by the pandemic in Dharavi. 

This is the 8th weekly report in which we try to understand how the myriad forms of businesses and individuals have been impacted during the lockdown, how they have coped with the situation, and how they are preparing to resume their economic activities. 

This is the seventh weekly report on how Dharavi is recovering against all odds.

This is the sixth weekly report on how women in Dharavi are coping with the pandemic and the lockdown. 

This is the fifth weekly report on how Dharavi workers and families are faring away from Mumbai. This report highlights their journey and life back home in the time of Covid-19. 

This is the fourth weekly report on how Dharavi's schools are coping. This qualitative study is based on 41 in-depth phone interviews with teachers, headmasters, parents, and students.

This is the third weekly report on how Dharavi is coping with Covid-19. We concentrate on the food distribution effort initiated at community level. 

This is the second weekly report on how Dharavi is dealing with the pandemic and the government's response to it.

This is the first of a weekly report of how Dharavi is coping with Covid-19

 Social distancing in a participatory process

The waste of a resource that could help India cope

March 24th, India went into a 21 day lock down to maintain social distancing. People were asked to work from home, only step out for essentials and wash their hands frequently. Prior to this announcement, the inter and intra state transportation was restricted. These were part of ‘crucial’ efforts to curb the spread of the novel Covid-19. 

Local knowledge may be the best response to natural disaster and bureaucratic inefficiency (The Hindu 17.08.2019)

urbz is designing a new building in Dharavi for the Koliwada Jamat.

Revisiting a familiar typology 

The work of urbz was honoured by the Swiss President, Doris Leuthard, through an award given to Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava

urbz is honored by Curry Stone Foundation, which selected it as one of 100 innovators in the field of social design.

80 students design their own vision of one-day workshop where participants had to plan and design their own architecture studios/living space in a homegrown settlement of their choice. 

urbz invited local builders from Dharavi with a vast experience in construction, to design the best possible house they could imagine.