Mumbai Contra-CT: 
Techniques and Tactics of Local Affordable Housing Production

@ Sir JJ College of Architecture, Mumbai

SEMINAR & FIELDWORK Dec 5th 2011  Jan 22nd 2012
EXHIBITION & WORKSHOP Jan 23rd, 24th, 25th, 2012
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION March 30th – 31st 2012

Affordable housing is seen as both, a high social priority by the government and NGOs as well as an unprecedented financial opportunity by developers. The result is the large-scale production of low-cost housing blocks which quickly turn into vertical slums. In the meanwhile, local contractors and end-users are building far more numerous housing units of better quality at lower prices in Mumbai’s many unplanned settlements. Often dismissed as slums, locally developed neighbourhoods produce a powerful counter-narrative to the mass production of low-cost housing. This program brings together architects, engineers, contractors and end-users to explore this dynamic sector and innovate in the field of affordable housing.

Curated by URBZ/Urbanology
Faculty: Mustansir Dalvi, Yashwant Pitkar, Ayaz Rajgara, Ashley Fiahlo Supriyo Bhattacharya, Jal Arya, Matias Echanove, Rahul Srivastava, Poonam Mulchandani.
+ Guest Experts TBA

For more info, contact us.

Dates: Oct 29 – Nov 1, 2009

Workshop Starts: Thursday Oct 29 at 10AM at JJ-School of Architecture

Exhibition & Party: Sunday Nov 1, 6-10PM at the Girgaum Catholic Club in Khotachiwadi

Sites: Girgaum (Khotachiwadi, Chowpatty Beach, Wilson College neighbourhood), Crawford Market and Chor Bazaar.

Objective: URBZ MASHUP Mumbai explores, challenges, subverts, questions and celebrates Mumbai’s ideas and practices of heritage enshrined in its colonial (pre and post included) architecture, arts, culture and politics.

The MASHUP activities cover the oldest neighbourhoods of the city. Girgaum, where Khotachiwadi – the much threatened and celebrated trophy heritage habitat – exists  just a stone’s throw away from Chowpatty beach, one of  the city’s most popular for social dissent and free expression. A fifteen minute walk from there takes you to Crawford Market – Mumbai’s oldest and favourite shopping destination. In between lies a maze of dense streets and bazaars that testify to the city’s numerous communities who made the city what it is, a city of shops, markets, dreams and collective aspirations.

In this maze lie stories, images and ideas of a city that provide newer definitions of what it means to be a Mumbaikar, through the many languages the city speaks in, the many cultural practices it invents, its changing and evolving built forms, its bazaars and markets that are as vital and dense as the air the city breathes – making the question of its identity richer than anything the city officially celebrates. Way richer than the imagination of its political leaders and much deeper than the possibilities framed by its most conscientious citizens.

The URBZ MASHUP welcomes participants from Mumbai, India and the rest of the world to use their skills and imaginations and dive into streets, walk into homes, converse, make images, play, then reinterpret, examine, and recreate newer imaginative frameworks that do justice to the city’s layered, dense and complex life.

Anyone is welcome to register. High motivation, initiative and creative mindset are essential qualities for all participants. The registration fee are Rs 300 for Indian students, Rs 500 for other Indian participants. $150 for international students, $300 for other international participants. Fees can be reduced or waved under special circumstances. Please do let us know if you would like to participate but cannot afford the fee.

Invited Team Advisers and Proposed Topics:

Art India Magazine (Abhay Sardesai & crew)
Topic: The art and craft of everyday life: JSS Road to the world

Stephanie Carlisle,  graduate student in Architecture and Urban Ecology at Yale University
Topic: Under the Flyover: a sectional exploration of contested spaces hidden beneath the map

Mustansir Dalvi, Poet, Architect, Teacher at the JJ College of Architecture, Mumbai
Topic: Taking the Inner-City Out of the Box – Girgaum, Nana Chowk and other areas.

James Ferreira, Fashion Designer, Khotachiwadi activist and life-long resident.
Topic: Preservation through change: Design strategies for an ever-young Khotachiwadi

Ranjit Kandangoankar: Visual Artist & Research Fellow-Urban Design Research Institute, Studying buildings owned by Charitable Trusts
Topic: Re-imagining collages through inner-city perspectives: Null Bazaar and other sites.

Geeta Mehta: Urban designer and faculty at Columbia University
Topic: Bazaarchitecture & historical preservation in Crawford Market & Chor Bazaar. How do you preserve a bazaar?

Kaiwan Mehta: Architect and writer (author of the book “Alice in Bhuleshwar“)
Topic: Real-time history of Bhuleshwar

Amit S. Rai: Professor of English Literature at Florida State University
Topic: Contemporary Movie going in an ancient Movie Theatre: Edward Cinema, Dhobhi Talao

Alison Reeves: Artist, Fullbright Scholar
Topic: Street-vendors of Girgaum: Portraits and stories of Mumbai’s most perennial population: the itinerants

Himanshu S.: Artist & crew
Topic: Dreamality and playful interventions: Girgaum seen from kids eyes

Yehuda Safran: Professor of philosophy of architecture at Columbia University & Harvard
Topic: Poetics of street life & moving habitats. 12 Scenarios for the mashed-up city

Sachin Yardi: Screenplay Writer and Film Director. (Wrote the screenplay of the movie “Traffic Signal“)
Topic: Street-life as fiction. Collective screen-play writing

Schedule:

Thursday 29: Workshop starts at 10AM at JJ-School of Architecture, close to Crawford Market (Entrance in front of JJ flyover). All the participants meet and form small teams of 2 to 5 people max. They decide on a location and an approach they want to pursue, with the help of the organizers if needed. After lunch the teams go to their chosen location(s) and start gathering data in the form of photos, videos, interviews, sketches, etc.

Friday 30: Data hunting-gathering in different locations.

Saturday 31: Participants gather at the workshop site and decide what they want to produce with their data and how it should be presented. Final output could be anything ranging from in situ interventions to design proposals and manifestos to video clips and art works. This day work until the output is ready (may mean an all-nighter). From Saturday 12-noon to Sunday 12-noon all the material produced is uploaded on the URBZ website (with the help of URBZ staff).

Sunday 1: The MASHUP Exhibition starts at 6PM. From 12-noon to 6PM, Participants prepare stalls with print-outs, models, performances, videos to showcase their creative production. Locally cooked food will be available. Party follows. This will take place at the Girgaum Catholic Club in Khotachiwadi. All are welcome.

Locations:

MUMBAI MASHUP View in a larger map

A locality is not simply a site, place or neighbourhood. It is a process that involves the inhabitant, the life-long resident and the passer-by who make it what it is through their active engagement, give it shape through social history, enrich it with meaning and symbols and argue and conflict over its future. This understanding is integral to URBZ’s vision of a user-generated city, since that is the only kind of city we know. Localities are central to our work.

We get invited to new places, we travel to them just to spend a few days, we choose to live in them at different points of time, but either way, we get  involved deeply. Since the people who connect with us and the worlds they live in are often so organically joined ,  that bonds form with both, through each other. URBZ sees itself as carrying places with it wherever  it goes -  through its ideas, concerns and practices.

We see localities, places and neighbourhoods in terms of the scale of our particular activity. We work in various parts of Mumbai, including Dharavi, Khotachiwadi and Crawford Market. We are also doing work in Goa, Tokyo and Geneva. Our team members and friends illuminate their locations and flag us to get involved, periodically. Our site geotags all that is done in the process and allows everyone to navigate across the board, get involved with places, no matter where they are presently located.

As more cities, towns and villages become part of URBZ’s sphere of infleunce through different perspectives, practices and concerns, the more exchanges take place across them, through workshops and online communication. Since locations are indeed all about making them, they have their own identities, but they also change and morph, look alike, become vastly different and keep feeding off each other’s experiences all the time. User generated cities are what places already are. For URBZ, the thrill is in working with users as they go about their business of generating them.

Please use the left side menu for more information about the localities we are involved with.

The URBZ MASHUP workshop facilitates creative explorations and cultural exchanges between cities and people.

Dreams, myths and personal stories influence the destiny of cities as much as political choices and economic opportunities. They inspire architects and artists, stimulate activists and residents, and broaden the vision of the public and decision-makers.

This workshop provides a space of expression for practicioners in architecture, planning, design, art, media, creative writing and other creative fields. It is based on the idea that the best way to make genuine breakthroughs in the way we understand, experience and create our cities is to stimulate collective imagination, by bringing together people from all over the world and all ways of life. The workshop provides a space to produce new images, narratives and insights about cities and urban life, using online tools, digital technology, personal experiences and professional skills.

Cities

The first URBZ MASHUP took place in Tokyo, hosted by Temple University Japan, in the first week of July 2009. The second one will be held at Istanbul Technical University, followed by Mumbai in November. Other workshops are planned in Rio, New York and Amsterdam in 2010. Each workshop will remix and mashup the material produced in other cities.The dates are as follows:

Tokyo: July 1-5, 2009

Mumbai: Oct. 29 – Nov 1, 2009

Istanbul: July 26 – August 1, 2010

New Delhi: (See Urban Typhoon New Delhi)

New York/Toronto: June 2010

Rio: TBA

Amsterdam: TBA

Organization

The URBZ MASHUP workshop invites artists, designers, architects, urbanists and creative people who share an interest in cities and urban life to explore a city, debate, ideate, create fictions, photo-collages, music and videos. Each workshop lasts 3 to 5 days and can be followed by a seminar and an exhibition.

The mashup comprises a mix of international and local participants. The participants form small teams of 3 to 5 people and explore the city for the first 2 or 3 days.

Each group chooses a street or neighborhood and documents it using various media including drawing, photo, audio, video and text.On the third day, all participants get back to the workshop space and remix the material they have gathered in a free and creative way.

On the last day, the material produced is uploaded in an online gallery A selected number of pieces will be printed and exhibited at the workshop space itself. URBZ provides a virtual environment to exhibit what has been produced.

Click here to register!

Dharavi Mashup by Colé

MUMBAI MASHUP