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 with a variety of skills.
Projects
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.
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 im
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.
Circulatory Lives
For the past 5 years, urbz has been following families who's lives is spread between Mumbai and their ancestral villages in the Konkan (Western India).
Bareilly Street
Studies, workshops, street exhibition and plans towards making a small square in Dharavi children friendly
CASA DO ATAIDE
Workshop da construção civil / Civil construction Workshop
50 houses 1 Territory | 50 CASAS 1 TERRITÓRIO
A record book of 20 houses built by the mason Ataide Caetite in the Paraisopolis favela, which reflects on how the economic and cultural dynamics are reflected in home construction and design.
Letter from a globalised island of Ulleung-do
On how nature and economy share a common destiny (The Hindu, 27.08.17)
Mumbai Return exhibition
urbz's exhibition at the Bhau Daji Lad City Museum allows those who make up the city's fabric to put themselves on the map
The Design Comes as We Build - Exhibition
A project that started early in the year with local contractors and carpenters to design ideal Dharavi Homes opens to the public.
"The Design Comes As We Build" project
urbz invited local builders from Dharavi with a vast experience in construction, to design the best possible house they could imagine.
The Story Of A Lane In Dharavi
Why is there a Bareilly street in Dharavi when Bareilly is infact in Uttar Pradesh?
Young, Urban, Mobile
What do young Mumbaikars have to say about their family's rootedness to villages on the Konkan?
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.
Mumbai-Ratnagiri Express
Many families live in between two households: one in the village and another in the city.
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.
The Future of Khotachiwadi
An urban village trying to safeguard its heritage value in the sprawling metropolis.
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
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
Handstorm in Shivaji Nagar!
All you need to bring along are your hands, a desire to produce something useful and beautiful which you feel the residents would love to use and loads of enthusiasm.
Handstorm Workshop: Mumbai 2014
The Handstorm Workshop will draw on energies that flow from creative manual involvement, acknowledging that it is always wired to the brain, to form a collective of power that attracts attention from the rest of the city.
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’.
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.
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.
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.