Pallet racks structure for the social club project in Dharavi.

The problem with architects is that they think too much. That works well in a context where planning is a prerequisite to any construction project. Investors want to know what they are getting into and regulators must ensure that the project complies with all rules and regulations. But as we recently found out, in Dharavi things function differently. In a context where ownership is not always clearly defined and with some of the highest physical and population density levels in the world, any little piece of land is highly prized and immediately preyed upon by dozens of people.

As regular visitors to urbz.net know, we are currently involved with a social club project just down the street where our office is located, in New Transit Camp, Dharavi. Paul, our landlord is a local community leader. He “inherited” a plot of land from a neighbour who had no family to give it to. The plot is technically  not privately owned and can only be used for charity work as it belongs to a trust. Paul decided to use the space to build a shelter for street kids and elderly residents. He asked us in what way we could help.

We immediately responded by saying that we could help design a structure for it and maybe even find ways to finance it. URBZ Fellows Francesco and Alberto, from Torino Politecnico in Italy flew into to Mumbai and spent a month studying the space and produced several drawings. Freeman Murray, a Bangalore based social entrepreneur agreed to finance the structure as long as it was built with pallet racks, a long-time interest of his. Everything seemed to be rolling, except that we were disconnected from the ground realities of New Transit Camp.

A wall being built in a few hours time on the site of the Social Club in Dharavi

The space could not wait that long to be occupied. Other neighbours were making claims on it and shad started ‘encroaching’. So while we were scratching our heads, producing concepts, designs and business plans, Paul built a structure on the site. This meant that for our project to be implemented we would have had to destroy the structure Paul had just built. This didn’t feel right. The structure is sound and Paul invested money into it. Plus we are strong believers in incremental development.

It is far more challenging for academically trained architects to use a piecemeal approach but we believe that if we can somehow become a good interface between improvised construction methods and a design-orientated approach, it would be a soft of magic formula for meaningful interaction between residents/users and professionals in urban development. The trickiest part of the formula is finance: as we also just found out, it is easier to find money for big projects than smaller ones.

In any case, after talking to Paul we decided that whatever we would build on the site would  be in addition to what he has already built. The pallet rack system we had been working on initially is after all perfectly adaptable to the process. The buena vista tower for instance can be built on a smaller plot. In addition, the incremental approach requires a more adaptive type of creativity. We are now thinking about consolidating the existing structure and turning the roof into a terrace.

This is the site where we want to build a bookstore and cafe. The roof of the building behind can become a large terrace.

One idea that emerged from our recent conversations is that of a library/bookstore with books in all the languages of Dharavi and a deadly selection of architecture, urbanism, anthropology, philosophy books that would attract people from all over Mumbai. On top of the bookstore, we also visualized a small Irani-style cafe! More on that later. We are now finding out if it makes sense to build it with pallet racks or if we should just do it with bricks.

Meanwhile conversation is going on about our work in Dharavi. Below is a photo of Stefano Boeri discussing  the social club project and airoots’s 22 learning from Dharavi to which he contributed. This happened in his class at the Politecnico de Milano, following a presentation of the Social Club project by URBZ’s Francesco and Alberto. Also present were Urban Typhoon participant and Studio Marc founders Subhash Mukerjee and Michele Bonito, and URBZ mentor Yehuda Safran, from Columbia University (that’s his foot in the picture!).

URBZ Fellows Francesco and Alberto getting feedback on social club project from Stefano Boeri at his class in Politecnico de Milano. On the bottom-left corner, Yehuda Safran’s foot!

This is the latest update to the New Transit Camp Social Club project in Dharavi. We have worked mainly on the interior space and on the exterior walls. The newly designed interior space now functions like a huge staircase, with different shelves (3×4 meters)  built with plywood, which goes up and up, creating many different  spaces in the same building.

It was really difficult to keep the existing structure so we decided to create  a “free” pallet racks structure. We added an “experimental cube”, which is a part of the building. It serves to investigate the use of different materials. This will help in finding new ways of using pallet racks system for houses construction. It’s like an independent cube, where each of the three floors has 24 sqm area. That’s a enough surface for housing units.

For the exterior walls we propose to recycle plastic sheets from street advertisements and trucks. That allows us to create a space open to daylight and air. It gives  the feeling of being outside even from inside  the building.

We are now working on bioclimatic issues by finding new solutions for keeping the interior as cool as possible.

Images of the improved design:

Buena Vista Tower seen from the Dharavi URBZ office. Click to enlarge.

When we moved to Dharavi, we hoped that some projects would come to us from its residents. There is nothing more exciting than the idea of doing architectural and planning projects in Dharavi and other improvised settlements in Mumbai (and the rest of the world). After all, if Mike Davis is right, this is the new urban condition for an increasing number of people everywhere. We never believed that wholesale clearing and redeveloping was the way ahead for improving the life of people living in so-called slums. Instead incremental development, informed by the way people live and relate to space seemed to be more sensible, less costly, sustainable and respectful of the neighborhoods and their history.

We didn’t have to wait for long before an architectural project came to us from within Dharavi. Paul Zacharia, our landlord and a local leader in New Transit Camp, where the office is located, was given management of a charitable trust which has a plot in need of development. The plot is 30 meters away from our office. He asked us to help with design, construction and financing and added that everything needs to be done really fast because if the land remained empty for too long, some sharks would just take it over. Paul wants to build a social club for street children and elderly residents that will be run by the trust.

The plot with the structure built by Paul in gray.

This happened just as Francesco Strocchio and Alberto Bottero, came to work with us for a month. They are final year architecture students at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy who started a research group called Hindustry. We immediately put them on the project. All construction you see here happened within the space of a week, but a week is a lot of time in Dharavi. Paul had already cleaned up the ground (sort of) and built a sturdy brick structure on it. He told us that if we find money to do better we can destroy it and do whatever we wanted. We thought it would be more practical to incorporate what is there into our design. We are still looking for financing, while the design is going on.

The structure was built by Paul in less than a week.

The building will be a symbol of how Dharavi could be redeveloped in a different way: no high-rise building, no masterplans coming from above our heads, but projects that can improve the quality of life in Dharavi. To us, developing Dharavi means taking into consideration what is already there. This must be done in a way that is economically sustainable. So the basic concept of the project is: 1) Develop don’t destroy, 2) make a small architectural landmark that will act as a statement showing that an alternative model of development in possible, 3) make it work within the economic dynamic of Dharavi.

Base map of the plot. Click here to download a large PDF version.

Dharavi is not a junkyard that can be bulldozed.  The tabula rasa approach is not an option. As we know people live here, they work and play like everywhere in Mumbai. This is a normal neighborhood confronted with special challenges. Several parts of Dharavi don’t look different from so many other areas of Mumbai, which are not referred as slums. Any (re)development project should start by evaluating the strength and the potential of Dharavi and consider the people living there as the main users and stakeholders.

Francesco and Alberto want to call the tower “Buena Vista.” The idea is to let people go up to see the view of Dharavi from above. The tower could also broadcast free wireless Internet for Dharavi residents.

The building we designed should be a new facility for the community. In the initial phase we are considering the use of  pallet racks system, which is a relatively cheap, fast, adaptable and modern way of building inside Dharavi.

The preliminary project proposes two different spaces: a large space on the ground floor for elderly residents (using the structure that has just been built) and  a space for street children on the first floor. A tower provides vertical circulation. It also functions as a landmark for the area.  The top of the tower is used to broadcast free internet wireless to New Transit Camp Nagar (and may be to the whole Dharavi), and diffuse Dharavi’s very own dharavi.organic wiki website.  Two open spaces are planned: a patio on the backside of the plot and an open terrace on the roof.

The pallet racks system allows us to build the tower and the first floor in a flexible and adaptable way. A second floor can be easily added in the future. For the ground floor we are simply keeping the existing brick structure.

The project moves quickly and many things keep changing. These are just preliminary ideas for the buildings. We will continue working on them. We also aim at using inputs from other architects and builders coming to the URBZ office. If you are interested in helping this project in any way, please contact URBZ. What we need the most at the moment is funding. Anything would help. We can already go a long way with $20,000 to 30,000.

Images of the site:

Images of the design:

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URBZ / Urbanology
Block No. 4/6/12
New Transit Camp, Dharavi
Mumbai 400-017, INDIA

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URBZ / Urbanology office