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 neighbourhood.  I am not thinking in terms of the slogans of charities stating that small changes can make a world of difference; of course water, electricity, drainage and other amenities essential to modern living should be seen as basic requirements.   Rather I have been looking at the minute changes or additions to buildings and shop stalls that just make things easier and more pleasant.

Overhangs create an extended and sheltered external space (left) Makeshift canopies line the streets (right)

Such a simple design feature as an overhang or porch roof over the front door can make a huge difference.  You barely see a self built house in Dharavi without an overhang over the ground floor or a small porch roof over the front door, and all along the street are makeshift covers where one has not been incorporated.  It provides protection from the sun and the rain to make a day outside in the elements easier to bear, or simply a sheltered place to sit and watch the world go by.

Metal bars over the windows offer an extension to small living spaces

One of the first things I noticed around Mumbai was the bars on a lot of the windows.  To me these conjure up images of high security against the fearful outside world.  But in fact they offer an extended living space, a place to dry clothes in an apartment lacking outdoor space, or a windowsill to keep plants on to offer a speck of greenery.  A look at a row of houses like this offers a glimpse into the lives of its inhabitants.

An umbrella fixer sits under his makeshift shelter (left). A metal hoop provides tension for the shelter (right)

Another minute addition that allows street sellers shelter from the sun and rain, and to create a defined shop space, are metal hoops hammered into the pavement.  These provide a source of tension to attach rope to which provides the structure of a temporary shelter.  Other street sellers have opted for a brick or heavy piece of rubble to tension the rope, but a small metal hoop is a far more elegant solution, with less potential for a domino effect fall along the crowded streets.

Colourful streets of Dharavi.(left) Street art in Khotachiwadi (right)

Colour can totally change the feel of a street.  Whether the walls of a house have been washed a bright blue or an artist has added to their touch with a mural, it brightens an otherwise dull concrete and metal street and has the added bonus of hiding the dirt!  There is a series of murals along the walls of Khotachiwadi in South Mumbai, left over from an Urbz mashup event a few years ago, and on my first walk through I noticed them and immediately warmed to the area.

A row of trees along New Transit Camp planted by one of the residents.(left) Greenery brightening a street of Dharavi(right)

Adding plants or greenery to an area also lifts it.  Along the main street of New Transit Camp are a row of trees planted by a guy who has lived there for nearly 50 years.  He has watched them grow up and now they contain stories of the past and the development of NTC.  A row of plant pots outside a house shows that someone thinks about their neighbourhood and has put time and a bit of tender loving care into making it look nice.

Finally, a street lamp.  Which, as Nabeel Hamdi has shown, can induce a whole host of changes.

The Dukaan Workshop took place in Dharavi, Mumbai on June 13, 2010. The article below was published in the Mumbai Mirror on June 16, 2010

Have you ever looked carefully at the little fruit shop jutting impossibly out of the corner down your street? Or the paan wala perching precariously on a tiny piece of real estate sandwiched between a bus-stop and a compound wall? Or the condensed universe of a cobbler in a tiny crevice in an invisible part of the city seemingly impossible to inhabit? What unifies them all are the most astonishing design elements that have evolved over practice by the concerned artisans or street traders, who have managed to sculpt space for from thin air. As often happens we take these things for granted – unless you are part of the design and architecture world in which learning from these practices makes you watch carefully. However few allow themselves to learn from these moments – because prejudices come in the way. Instead of appreciating the creative modes of survival we dismiss them in a larger story of encroachment. Even though everyone knows that the real culprit are often the extortionists who collect hafta and keep the hawkers on a tight leash of uncertainty.

Once when you are driving down the empty roads (relatively speaking) late at night to the airport or railway station, pay some attention to these spaces – tiny cupboards hanging from walls and trees, tool-boxes tucked away between street corners and buildings and plastic bags containing entire worlds.

When Llorenc Boyer and George Carothers – urban practitioners working in the city – decided to follow up on suggestions about these amazing spaces and learn more from them, one was not quite sure where this would lead. But 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. Christened the DIY Dukaan –( Do It Yourself) the series saw residents like Shaukat Ali and other traders from the neighbourhood to improvise existing design needs responding to new ideas and suggestions. What followed was a most intriguing day in which steel pallet racks, bamboos, pieces of plywood, wire meshes, nuts and bolts were brought together to morph into the most unexpected models for street vendors to use. What seemed to be in great demand were portable structures that could fold up so they could escape the municipal vans harassing their perfectly legal activity. Or ones they could store their stuff and take home in. Participants got to know that there are legally permitted structures measuring 2 by 3 feet which the BMC allows anyone to use to trade goods, provided the space is proportionate to public use of pavements.

Eventually the very act of taking that little structure seriously opened up many questions about trading on the street, balancing needs of public spaces and the creation of legitimate networks free from state extortion so that the city’s millions of entrepreneurs can do their thing in a way that helps the city at large.

At the end of that hot, humid but exhilarating day two neat little models emerged – one that was a simple foldable table that could be hung on shoulder straps and the other a box that could store material, open up into a structure to sell goods and which could grow into taller spaces allowing for protection from rain and sun.

The sheer explosion of ideas and energy that preceded and followed the creation of these little artisanal wonders convinced all observers that this could well be the start of a new journey to make the city and its special needs the basis for practical and effective interventions. There are certainly many waiting for the next session in the workshop series.

Click here for another article on the Dukaan Workshop by Malvika Tegta published in DNA on Saturday 12, 2010.

On Sunday June 13, URBZ organizes the Dukaan Workshop. Students, Architects, Engineers, Craftsmen, Handymen, will come together to build an evolutionary, flexible and light dukaan or streetshop, which can support an economic activity and be incrementally developed.

The materials used will be those available on the spot: pallet racks, bamboo, recycled, etc….

Bring ideas, skills, material, tools, contribution and motivation. Innovation will be there for sure!

For directions: urbz.net/map

The roof is the most essential architectural feature.  The need for shelter, being the most basic need in building, is expressed explicitly by the roof. In relief programs after disasters, provisional shelter is created with a tent – by far the best temporary building – which is purely and essentially just a roof.

In dense built-up areas, such as the unplanned settlements of Dharavi, one sees an incredible phenomenon. Not only are individual buildings protected by roofs, made up with the overlapping tile principle, but the roofs themselves are in a similar cohesion with the neighboring structures. Actually, a whole area is protected by putting the roofs in an order that drains the rainwater all the way down to the outside rim.  Such an intricate system is not only achieved through meticulous planning as we see how informal settlements, considered unplanned, are often more capable of generating such accreted structures.

Proposal for Dharavi (Mumbai) by a student of the Urban Design Program at Columbia University.

URBZ organizes architectural studios, visits and seminars in partnership with higher education institutions. Since 2009 partners and clients have included Columbia University’s Urban Design Program at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), the Department of Architecture of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), the Royal University College of Fine Arts (KKH) in Stockholm, Leibniz University in Hannover, the University of Ferrara (Italy), the Center for Experimental Media Art (CEMA) at Shriti School of Arts in Bangalore,  Sir JJ School of Architecture in Mumbai and the School of Habitat Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) in Mumbai. The studios locations included Dharavi (Mumbai), Mumbai’s Eastern Waterfront and Fontainhas in Goa. In addition to organizing the studio, URBZ provides Web tools to that allow students to archive and disseminate their data and proposals. Please use the side menu to navigate the studios’ pages.

Anuradha Mathur with her students (UPenn) in company of Rahul Srivastava in a field visit on Mumbai’s Eastern Waterfront.