Co-creator of the urbz collective living and working in between Mumbai and Geneva.
Articles
Form follows Process
We must recognize our collective strength and resources: every locality has human capital (skills), existing constructions (assets) and a rich natural ecosystem. This article is based on a keynote presentation at PlaceMaking Switzerland on the impact of participation on urban form.
Visual Narratives for Participatory Urbanism: Documentation as Intervention
urbz has started initiatives in Europe, that combine ethnographic participation with visual storytelling to accompany, facilitate, or initiate urban planning, heritage, and transformation projects.
A Koliwada in Dharavi
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.
re:arc selects urbz!
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.
2024 - Here we are !
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!
John Turner - From Lima to Mumbai
Latin America and India share a common history of experimentation in slum-upgrading and incremental housing strategies. The ideas of John Turner, who was informed by years of work in Lima, in particular have inspired some of the most progressive schemes and projects in Mumbai and other parts of India.
Signs from the Street
Catalogue essay for the exhibition on street art presented by the Dominican Republic Embassy in India held between April 5th to May 5th 2023, at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
Documenting Process: The IFRC Project
This article narrates the entire participatory process organized for the IFRC Park Project through a series of videos.
A Conceptual Framework for the Red Cross Park , Geneva.
Through the series of participatory events with the IFRC staff members, and its neighbours, urbz drafted a conceptual framework for the park which reflects the most common sentiments among its users.
User-Choices - Themes for the Red Cross Park, Geneva
The participatory events planned for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Geneva, brought out specific concerns, and focus areas to convert the park into a shared space.
Events and Action: The Red Cross Park, Geneva
Over six months, several events were planned for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Geneva. The process promotes discussion, brainstorming, ideas and aspirations of the IFRC staff members, and their neighbours for the future park.
A Participatory Park for the Red Cross
urbz is leading a participatory landscaping process for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) through a series of workshops, walks, talks and exhibition. The end result will be a publicly accessible IFRC Park in the center of Geneva.
Hospitality - a fundamental principle
On why we should consider Hospitality as a fundamental principle in urban planning and design
Tokyo - Mess is More
Long dismissed as an urban mess, a weird by-product of Japan’s fantastic rise to economic prominence in the postwar period, Tokyo is gaining renewed attention as a model of urban development and management.
Mess is More: Beyond modernism
There is more to mess than meets the eye. What seems disorderly at first sight is often order in disguise.
India and Jugaad: The Design Comes As We Build
This essay discusses urbz' "The Design Comes As We Build" project which recognizes local builders in homegrown settlements by providing them a space to showcase their design imagination. You can access it here.
A Shared Vision for the ICRC in Geneva
urbz is working with the employees, directorate and assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum to imagine the future of their HQ
Porteous - from squat to cooperative
urbz is helping a cultural squat to formalize it's relationship to the city of Geneva
Anthropology as Urban Practice: Notes from Mumbai’s Sangam Gully
urbz founders Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove reflect on community-driven placemaking in the Indian metropolis.
Unmasking prejudice
The waste of a resource that could help India cope
Urban Exodus / Another Journey Home?
How a public health emergency prompted a man-made disaster
One Space Two Places
Based on a multi-year research with the Mobile Lives Forum on the linkages between Mumbai and Konkan villages this essay, first published in the magazine FuturArc, describes an Indian model of urbanization.
Flooding ourselves
Local knowledge may be the best response to natural disaster and bureaucratic inefficiency (The Hindu 17.08.2019)
Why city planners need to add “recognition” to their lexicon
Neighbourhoods such as Paraisópolis in Sao Paulo, Cazuca in Bogota, or Dharavi in Mumbai are generically referred to as slums, even though they represent a more nuanced reality to their inhabitants. (The Hindu 20.07.19)
Competition or co-creation?
How design competitions waste time, money and potential. (The Hindu 23.06.19)
Broken nature — reassembling the urban
Connecting humans to each other and the environment is the 21st century’s biggest challenge. (The Hindu 25.05.2019)
Rebellious engineers needed
India’s most loved profession needs a reality check (The Hindu 27.04.2019)
The Space of the Public
A Swiss city re-imagines public space and experiments with direct democracy in the process (The Hindu 16.03.2019)
Lessons in planning from Fort Kochi
Why Fort Kochi is a lesson that urban planners can integrate into a larger vision for India (The Hindu 02.03.2019)
Learning from Tokyo
What the world’s largest city can teach us about local development (The Hindu 16.02.2019)
How cities emerge from the relationship between land and water
All habitats are made up of the sounds of water, as they flow in and out of people, kitchens, bathrooms and sewers (The Hindu 20.01.19)
Hacking the Cyborg
Can collective intelligence save us from self-destruction? (The Hindu 06.01.2019)
An Italian tale of humanity and modernity
A town which has roots in the Neolithic Age struggles with the ups and downs of modernity. (The Hindu 09.12.2018)
Delta V: Neighbourhood project
This innovative plan for a new neighbourhood in the town of Versoix in Geneva will be presented at
the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel (S AM).
The Making of the Koli Jamat Community Hall
urbz was involved in the design of a new community building in Dharavi.
Delta V: Le plan intermédiaire
Le 11 juin 2018, urbz présente ses travaux sur la forme du futur quartier Lachenal-Dégallier (dit Delta V) aux habitants de Versoix. Un résumé en texte et image.
The Mumbai Ensemble
Stylistic confusion and the great Mumbai mashup tradition. (The Hindu 08.07.2018)
Delta V : Introduction
Un projet de quartier participatif à Versoix!
A participatory urban planning project in Geneva, Switzerland!
Delta V in the News
Articles de journaux sur le projet Delta V
News articles on the Delta V project in Geneva
The limit of collective intelligence
Groupthink dominates social networks and participatory projects (The Hindu 18/4/18)
Weaving an urban fabric
How did we lose the thread of context-driven architecture and planning? (The Hindu 31/3/18)
Where Gandhi meets Ambedkar
Two powerful archetypes — the village and the city — are resolved in a third one: the slum (The Hindu 18/3/2018)
The kind of data we mine will determine the kind of city we live in
The more diversified a neighbourhood, in terms of its uses, its composition and its physical expressions, the more efficient it is in terms of economic and cultural dynamism. (The Hindu 4/3/2018)
Can urban villages ever be planned?
A global trend may be more fantasy than substance. (The Hindu 17/02/2018)
Use-value vs Exchange value
The overlooked importance of local construction activity. (The Hindu 21/1/2018)
Spirit of the forest
A traditional drink made from wild flowers can become a strong local economy for tribal India (The Hindu 6/1/2018)
New practices for rural development in South Korea
An account of urbz Seoul's strategic planning for the island of Ulleung, in the East Sea
Child's Play
Listening to children could help us plan better cities for all (The Hindu 16.12.2017)
New States, New Possibilities
Emerging political boundaries can help us rethink other categories. (The Hindu 3/12/2017)
The laborious journey from hell to paradise
How one of Sao Paulo’s largest favelas became a nice neighbourhood
The road to the city
How renewed attention to urban-rural linkages may reshape the urbanisation debate. (The Hindu 5/11/2017)
Constructive Resistance
One small indomitable neighbourhood holds out against the planners (and changes the plan). (The Hindu 22.10.2017)
A Humane City
Anyone who has commuted on trains during rush hour knows there’s something deeply tolerant about the Mumbaikar (The Hindu 07.10.2017)
Exporting Indian Urbanism
Not all is worthy of the bin! Our latest column in The Hindu explores features of Indian urbanism that could inspire cities around the world. (The Hindu 24.09.2017)
Mining the forests
Nature holds something far more precious than wood, coal and minerals — something which industrial practices have been destroying in their crude quest for cheap bucks. (The Hindu, 10.09.17)
Towards an alternative development for Ulleung-do
A 5 day workshop on the remote Ulleung island generates ideas and discussion for an alternative to the traditional fast paced development in South Korea.
Letter from a globalised island of Ulleung-do
On how nature and economy share a common destiny (The Hindu, 27.08.17)
Planning without colonizing
Lessons from a century-old plan for Indore by Scottish planner Patrick Geddes (The Hindu, 14.08.17)
Why India should reject China's obsession with bigger, denser megacities
In the urbanisation race, India seems desperate to catch up with China. Yet this highly networked country can build a future where cities do not rule supreme.
Mess is more
Recent research in Dhaka show that accommodation and housing are related but distinct needs. (The Hindu, 30.07.17)
Hamburg: between the medieval and the global
The organisation of the G20 reflects its democratic deficit.
Accommodating an Indigenous History
India’s financial capital does infantilise its own indigenous history. But it also celebrates the past.
Why Mumbai extends far beyond its metropolitan limits
Transcript of interview in the Hindustan Times.
More smart, less city
Reviewing Sondgo and its functioning residential and work places, thirteen years after the initial plans were drafted. (The Hindu, 19.06.17)
Goa's Homegrown Commons
Privatisation, if seen as an exclusive way to regularise settlements, increases the risk of political manipulation and real-estate speculation. (The Hindu, 29.03.17)
Culture for a World in Flux
How global cities can reinvent themselves by going local. (The Hindu, 03.05.17)
A Thousand Plateaus
A community struggling with water and identity finds hope in nature and culture. (The Hindu, 11.04.17)
‘Our lives are 50-50’
With one foot in the village and the other in the city, migrants have done more to urbanise India than any development scheme (The Hindu, 12.03.17)
Whatsapp Dharavi?
This is the first of our fortnightly column in The Hindu Sunday Magazine. This week we explore how the rapid absorption of smart technologies is transforming how business is done in Dharavi and all over India. (The Hindu, 26.02.17)
Soap
Producing clothes in high quantity is one thing, washing them all is another. An insight into Mumbai's famous Dhobi Ghat.
Welcome to the Edge: Mira Road, Mumbai
Instead of squeezing oneself in chawls (tiny tenements with shared bathrooms), the idea of a one-bedroom hall kitchen (or two or three) appealed to the city’s upwardly mobile population.
Abundance
The idea of waste is probably a misconception. In Dharavi virtually everything is reused. The contribution of the recycling industry to the economy is thus big that words like residue and leftover might be trashed themselves. The recycling business provides three major components of economic activities. First, the processing of waste, secondly the supply of raw materials, and third a lot of labour, thus creating livelihood for very many people.
Photography from the Shelter at Dharavi
Local children have produced stunning photographs through the Shelter photography activities.
Dukaan Workshop: Part 1
Weeks of conversing with street vendors of all kinds, documenting and networking with them translated into a most unusual workshop series inaugurated last week in Dharavi.
urbz Mashup Istanbul: July 26 - Aug 1
Fortunately, not all forces brought about by globalization are synonymous with cultural and economic homogenization.
Bio-Topical Goa
Can Goa show the way for the rest of the country in a transformation from a rural to an urban economy, thereby offering a convincing urban alternative to the mega-cities?
Istanbul: Here we are!
Challenging all misconceptions, the atmosphere of cultural liberalism in the streets of this neighbourhoud is so much more prevalent than that of any American city and most European cities.
Battlestar Galata Takes Off
Whether in fantasy – like the sci-fi TV series Battlestar Galactica or in real life – ‘aliens’ who are just like ‘us’ and who become threatening because they are a natural part of the landscape
Urbz Mashup Presentation Tonight
An event to preset all the processes and output from our mashup workshop in Istanbul.
Mumbai Monsoons
A common and expected reoccurrence every year, Dharavi has its own strategies to cope with the relentless monsoon
Small Things
"Walking around the streets of Dharavi and Mumbai I have noticed how small things can make a big difference to lives and the image of a neighborhood”
The Not So Simple Question: Where Are You From? (And I Don't Mean The Grammar)
When coming into a community for the first time, neighborhoods can be akin to lines drawn in invisible ink.
The Sound of Galata
A poetic introduction to the daily movements and sounds of an incredibly diverse neighbourhood, which is being transformed in fast-forward mode.
Save the Date
The Urban Typhoon workshop invites artists, architects, activists and academics from all over the world to ideate with residents, grassroots groups and other users of Khirkee Village, New Delhi.
Le Shelter de Dharavi in Geneva and Fribourg
A little bit of the Dharavi Shelter goes to Switzerland!
SCL2110 Mac Quinta Normal
Un evento en donde confluyen Arquitectura, Arte y Performance y que tiene como objetivo repensar Chile de cara al tricentenario.
Urbz develops new website for PUKAR
Urbz has developed a new website for PUKAR, a Mumbai-based urban research and action collective.
Notes On The Urban Typhoon Workshop
Participation can happen anywhere, when people feel the need to get involved with their social and physical environment.
Khirki Unauthorised?
Residents of Khirki Extension want the city to recognize their neighborhood and provide services such as paving their main road to facilitate easier transport and prevent flooding.
On The Road
Khirkee, being an “unauthorized colony”, the authorities are not taking any responsibility regarding the water system.
On Art and Collective Agency
In order to achieve a creation in the truest sense of the term, the artist must generate new beginnings or devices that will prevent mere reproduction.
Urban Typhoon Khirkee: Street Presentations
From tackling various problems from street structure, to water and many different activities let by theaters groups, cookbook specialists and much more, the Khirkee workshop presentation was in full swing.
Khotachiwadi's Heritage To Be Saved!
Mr. Lodha and members of the Khotachiwadi Welfare and Heritage Trust delivered a letter to the municipal commissioner calling for a heritage law to be enacted.
New Roof For The Dharavi Shelter
It is slightly more expensive but healthier as it doesn't contain asbestos.
Khotachiwadi all over the news
For reasons more than one, Khotachiwadi is across various Bombay newspapers.
Khotachiwadi resists destruction of heritage bungalow
“While we don’t want to commercialise the locality, we want to create a cultural space for Mumbaikars, who don’t have many neighborhoods such as this”
Locals protest Khotachiwadi demolition
The unique protest, titled ‘Requim for Khotachiwadi’, was initiated by the village residents to protest against the breaking down of the 150-year-old structure, which had been sold to builders.
Galeria Sessions
Galería Sessions is a Talk, discussion and debate Space around latinamerican cities.
Re-opening Party At The Shelter
The Dharavi Shelter reopened on Sunday with a new roof, new windows and back door, and an exhibition of the kids’ photos.
New Roof For The Dharavi Shelter
It is slightly more expensive but healthier as it doesn't contain asbestos.
Khotachiwadi all over the news
For reasons more than one, Khotachiwadi is across various Bombay newspapers.
Re-opening Party at The Shelter
The Dharavi Shelter reopened on Sunday with a new roof, new windows and back door, and an exhibition of the kids’ photos.
Goa: A threatened Ecosystem
The people of Goa are looking for ways to organize Goa’s growth and future in a manner that does justice to its special cultural and historical distinctiveness.
Unsettling Delhi
Micro homes which integrate spaces of work and are well connected to the street economy seem to be far more viable on the longer run at all levels.
Ahmedabad's affordable futures
Ahmedabad in the race of developing cities of India where inspite large availability of land the property prices are shooting up.
The Vanishing Public of the 'World class city'
The coming together of speculation-driven real estate development and the idea of “public space” has produced weird urban species.
The Chawls of Khotachiwadi
While Khotachiwadi is well known for its Konkan-Portuguese-style bungalows, its chawls and their residents have often been left out of the picture.
The 2.5 Lakh Rupee House
Local contractor Amar Madhukar Nirjankar constructs the most affordable house for one of his clients in Bhandup's homegrown neighbourhood.
Paraisopolis Institute of Urbanology
A Paraisopolis-Dharavi Institute of Urbanology to be held next year, where architects and public servants come and learn from residents.
Homegrown Affordable Housing
The so-called slums of the city are in many ways attempts at increasing affordable housing units through a different construction and financial system.
Paraisopolis-Dharavi News Update
The connections we evoke between our work in Dharavi, Mumbai and Paraisopolis, Sao Paulo seem to have became a distinct new arc in this multi-city story.
Tool-House Case Study: The urbz Office
The urbz office located in a building on M.G. Road, Dharavi, demonstrates how the conviviality of the live-work dialectic actualizes itself in this particular case.
From the News stand
An architectural and design practice that works with local builders and residents to create projects embedded in neighbourhoods’ cultural and economic fabric.
Konkan Diaries: Chiplun
Chiplun’s residents today speak of their connections with Mumbai against this history – which reveals a relationship that is really deep. Chiplun became a gateway for us not just into the Konkan region and its tryst with the railways – but a paradoxical gateway into Mumbai’s heart – back again.
Circulating Urbanism
The Konkan connection to Mumbai is only part of a larger universe in which the city’s force of gravity pulls together many other such regions.
URBZ Chile present Citycamp!!!
urbz Chile presents Citycamp (Only proceed if you can read and understand Spanish)
Infusing and Confusing India's Urbanness
What began as a regular jostling and tugging of the idea in a brainstorm soon took off as an imaginative exercise that encouraged creative and personal readings of the concept and the making of its visual expressions.
Mumbai's Kinetic Exhaustion
What does the mutation of colonial Bombay into global Mumbai mean for architectural forms and public life?
The Village Outside
Behind the famed Renaissance hotel by the Powai lake is a small, homegrown village called Paspoli which is home to the workforce of the hotel.
Warli in Dharavi
While Warli art has become as gentrified as an art gallery in a heritage urban precinct, the reality it represents is hugely significant.
Update on Shivaji Nagar's Masjid Project
The new mosque will be built on the site of a 30 years old mosque nestled in the dense middle section of the neighbourhood.
The Homegrown Cities Project
How local, community owned and managed housing co-operatives, can be a vital step towards improving the neighbourhoods, bringing good quality civic infrastructure and making the city genuinely ’slum-free’.
Designing from Something (When Tabula Rasa is Not an Option)
The tool-house as starting point for designers to learn from local skills, practices and aspirations.
Complex is Beautiful
In Rio “pacification” is a code word to describe the invasion of neighborhoods by squads of policemen walking around their guns pulled out, ready to shoot.
Shivaji Nagar M Ward
While residents may live here and work elsewhere, this neighbourhood also shows a high level of its own economic activities.
Shivaji Nagar After the Handstorm Workshop
The Handstorm workshop brought together various actors from all around the world to build things that could improve the neighbourhood based on discussions with residents and with the help of local artisans
Morden Mumbai: Revisiting BDD Chawls.
Tracing the history of the BDD chawls and what its location and typology mean for future development of the city.
The Homegrown Cities Initiative: Update
After a handstorm workshop to make a variety of user-oriented objects and with a pilot house on its way, a report about the updates of the Homegrown Cities Initiative
An Igloo in Mumbai
Experiments with EPS to build our new office in Shivaji Nagar.
To Make Housing Affordable, Keep it Local
The official target of producing millions of quality homes for all can be re-imagined, as one in which the process of construction itself becomes a transformative moment.
Homegrown Things
Conceptualised by designers in collaboration with users and local artisans, the Handstorm workshop takes objects used in everyday life and gives them a spin to be more functional to the users.
Dharavi Mashup
A series of collages juxtapose Dharavi's landscape with other international scenarios to question if Dharavi's context is actually omnipresent.
Dharavi: Reclaim Growth
Many people involved in urban issues in Mumbai (and elsewhere) have tried their hand at making the definitive proposal for Dharavi. Read more about ours in collaboration with sP+a
What lies beneath: Shivaji Nagar's liquid underground
People who developed their own engineering skills without the help of any formal education to come up with a floating neighbourhood.
The Future of Khotachiwadi
An urban village trying to safeguard its heritage value in the sprawling metropolis.
Circulatory Urbanism: The misunderstood paradigm
The biggest growth in urbanisation is not taking place in the metropolis but in small towns that are networked with villages.
Mumbai-Ratnagiri Express
Many families live in between two households: one in the village and another in the city.
Young, Urban, Mobile
What do young Mumbaikars have to say about their family's rootedness to villages on the Konkan?
Konkan Dairies; Traditions that move
Dry hard data on circulatory migration in India hides vibrant, lively stories.
Preserving Urban Transformation
Residents keep intervening and changing their homes in the process of living, and this contributes to conservation
Live Architecture For Homegrown Settlements
Every kaccha house transforming into a pukka house is a story worth telling – one which is extremely significant to residents and the development of the city at large.
Khotachiwadi Strikes Back
What do spray painted cats on walls, masked motorbikes and a pop-up staircase have in common? The Khotachiwadi Imaginaries workshop.
The Future of Architecture
The future in architecture starts with a good hard look at the world as it is.
Handstorming (and more) in Dharavi
Handstorming is the alter-ego of its more cerebral version and geared towards a collective hands-on experience that makes and constructs in real time and space. It was the main mode of operation in our workshop with NYU AD students and produced some impressive and practical tools and objects.
The Story Of A Lane In Dharavi
Why is there a Bareilly street in Dharavi when Bareilly is infact in Uttar Pradesh?
Works
Cali Calling !
urbz está trabajando en el desarrollo de un conjunto de herramientas y metodologías para la planificación participativa de la ciudad de Cali en Colombia.
Cali Calling !
urbz is working on the development of a set of tools and methodologies for participatory planning for the city of Cali in Colombia. french
Cali Calling !
urbz is working on the development of a set of tools and methodologies for participatory planning for the city of Cali in Colombia.
Les futurs de l’Hôtel-Dieu
Hôtel-Dieu, Nantes. Automne 2024.
urbz travaille sur le processus d'inspiration citoyenne pour les avenirs de l'Hôtel-Dieu à Nantes.
urbz is working on the participatory reprogramming for the futures of the Hôtel-Dieu in Nantes.
ICRC Campus
urbz is working on a comprehensive plan for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) HQ in Geneva. About 1200 people work in Geneva and another 20,000 work in over 100 conflict zones around the world.
IFRC Park
The urbz team is working with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies (IFRC) in Geneva on a participatory landscape design involving staff, neighbors and partners.
Entekochi Urban Design Competition
Remember the Urban Typhoon workshops in Kochi? These workshops were part of the EnteKochi citylab. We are now back with the Entekochi competition. This is a national level Urban Design Competition, aiming to jointly ‘design the future city’ of Kochi. It is envisaged to plan and then facilitate the implementation of an integrated civic project.
The Kochi Municipal Corporation calls all creative minds to participate!
Click here to know more
Homegrown Street
We are taking the Design Comes as We Build project to the next level - the Homegrown Street!
Project Étoile
urbz has been mandated by the State of Geneva to develop a concept that integrates living, working and culture for a 60,000 m2 mixed used development in the city’s new downtown. We are inviting innovative actors from various fields to co-create and co-construct the project.
Riponne-Tunnel
urbz is carrying a 18 month long participatory process to redefine the two largest public squares in Lausanne (Switzerland). / urbz conduit une démarche participative de 18 mois visant à réimaginer les deux plus grands espaces publics de Lausanne.
Point-du-Jour
Public consultation for a densification project in Geneva / Démarche de concertation pour un projet de densification au Petit-Saconnex, Genève.
Cultura Fertilis
Étude d’opportunité pour un équipement culture d'importance majeur à future place de l'Étoie (PAV).
Opportunity study for a major cultural center in the planned neighbourhood of PAV in Geneva.
Ecoparc Meyrin
Concertation pour faire émerger un nouveau concept d’EcoParc pour la zone industrielle de Meyrin.
Delta V
Project de quartier participatif à Versoix, Genève (09.2017 - 02.2019)
Participation planning project in Geneva, Switzerland.
Make in Dharavi
This series of interviews portrays the economic life of Dharavi in Mumbai through the activities of its inhabitants.
Breaking Ground
A 5 day long workshop in Geneva which produced strategies for gradual urban densification.
Homegrown Things
We produced everyday-life objects based on the specific needs of residents and the skills available in the Shivaji Nagar area in Mumbai.
Homegrown cities
This experiment in affordable housing led to the co-designing and construction of a small house in Shivaji Nagar, in Govandi. A neighbourhood in Mumbai that is struggling against all odds to keep growing and improving.
Khotachiwadi
urbz has been involved with the heritage precinct of Khotachiwadi for nearly a decade. We have organized many events workshops there and produced a strategic plan for the area among other things.
The Design Comes as We Build
urbz invited local builders from Dharavi to design the best possible house they could imagine. These designs were translated into physical models by artisans.
Place, Work, Folk
Place, Work, Folk is a fortnightly column in The Hindu Sunday Magazine by Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava, which is inspired by Patrick Geddes and analyzes current urban issues in India and beyond.
No Future
As part of the Future Architecture Platform, urbz was part of a series of exhibitions and lectures at the MAXXI in Rome, the House of Architecture in Graz, Oris House of Architecture in Zagreb and the Future of Architecture symposium in Ljubljana.
The Shelter at Dharavi: Documenting Transformations
Our mission is to continue to facilitate the development of creative initiatives in this space and collaborate in the connections of people to places – in this case a vibrant neighbourhood that is currently being planned without its residents’ participation.
Circulatory Urbanism
For the past 5 years, urbz has been following families who's lives are spread between Mumbai and their ancestral villages in the Konkan (Western India).