The centre itself shows how such cities do not have to be oases in a desert or isolated worlds. Through new kinds of research suggestions it feeds back ideas and technologies that can be integrated into local markets and become part of the regular technologies. This is of course no easy task. It is one thing to evolve ideas and solutions in a controlled condition and quite another to integrate it in an economy and world of practice that work at a different scale. The research process is often long  and expensive and as a result inventors like Tency are interested in collaborations with larger groups that can help them with both research and application. However, in this process the question of integrating these innovative technologies to the contexts in which a majority of the people already live gets defeated. They end up being used only in masterplan type situations where they can be integrated to the project from the outset. Not bad but not enough.

Earth-brick house in Auroville

Fountain/water purifying system

We got into an interesting conversation with Tency and our Alexis of Lafarge’s Affordable Housing unit regarding a local water purifying system that creates a bonsai tornado effect in sewage water and uses the chemical reaction as a basis for exorcising smell and purifying the water to a degree that in can be used successfully for non-potable uses. This experimental system has already been picked up by large housing projects in Bangalore. Our interest was seeing if this technology can help conserve and recycle sewage water in water-scarce neighbourhoods that have been incrementally built. It would be mandatory for the process to be financially viable at a local level in these neighbourhoods. Given the government’s antagonistic stance towards self-built neighbourhoods, the market seems to be the only viable entry point. Tency felt that it would well be worth a try and looks forward to doing a joint project.

Our second stop at CSR was at another founder member of Auroville, Satprem Maini of the Auroville Earth Institute. Satprem is a soft-spoken French architect dedicated to the magic of mud. He too warmed up to the possibilities of making mud-based architectural solutions more commercially viable by working with large companies as long as they promoted this substance-use. Our own concern tends towards mixed-media – to borrow a term from artistic endeavours – but we are genuinely enthusiastic of a range of materials, mud too, which has huge advantages in terms of weather and cost. What we came across was this observation by these stalwarts of mud-use; in India the cultural resistance to mud, reflective of low-status, is extremely strong. At the end of the day, it will be up to residents and contractors in self-built neighbourhoods to decide what works best for them. The answer is likely to be a remix of whatever materials are locally available. Improving the distribution of high-quality and sustainable materials is a way to positively influence local development without disturbing existing dynamics.

Starting in September 2010, URBZ/Urbanology will begin a 9 months long study of Goa’s unique brand of urbanism with the Royal Institute of Fine Art in Stockholm. Excerpts from the studio’s brochure.

An Urban System

Goa is the state in India that has most clearly cultivated its own identity despite almost 500 years of colonialism. Goa has an almost mythical reputation for being Paradise on earth, with a biological diversity only exceeded by the Amazonian jungle. What was once a refuge for western wanderers; today Goa has become a weekend playground for Mumbai’s burgeoning middleclass and a destination for Indians and charter tourists alike. At the same time Goa is in the midst of an intense debate concerning its urban future. Here we find engaged activists battling market-driven building development and the consequent decimation of biological systems. Instead, these activists envision an urban system in which villages and towns intersperse with wild as well as managed landscapes, all growing into an economic, and physical whole. Included in this vision is a shift from the present major sources of income – including rice-fields and a devastating mining industry – to diversified agricultural production, I.T., biotechnology and eco-tourism. 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? Could Goa’s biological and cultural diversity contribute to a resilient urban complex? Would such a hybrid be another way of understanding Urban life? Is the »forest city« a distant cousin of the mega-city’s urban jungle?

The course is structured in sections each with a specific theme. We will find a foundation in relevant architectural and urban planning theories, as well as biology, philosophy, resource- and economic theory. We will discuss the term biodiversity and its urban implications. We will study current Indian architects who are shaping a national architectural agenda, as well as international names that are developing alternative perspectives on urban planning. We will explore some of modernism’s lesser-traveled paths, ones in which the tropical climate informed another kind of architecture. We will investigate lifestyle patterns, innovation, food production in a local and global perspective, biomimicry and radical mapping. We meet architects, urban planners, systems thinkers, natural and social scientists, journalists, economists, anthropologists and artists in a cross-disciplinary discourse. The previous three-year program, Cities and Energy will provide a basis for further study. Underlying all aspects of the course is a focus on visualization and communication.

Download the brochure

Great news… URBZ just acquired an office space in Dharavi! We will be running most of our operations from this space, including developing this website, planning our workshops, our architectural and design work. The office will also house the Dharavi School of Urbanology. This will be a space of urban research of the most grounded kind.

The Dharavi School of Urbanology uses its base here to understand and comment on urban processes everywhere. It invites researchers to understand Dharavi’s intricate history and functioning so as to gain insights on how urban space emerges to create multiple possibilities city life in other parts of the world. You can see a compressed history of urban processes here that unfolds into a multi-dimensional explanation of the inner workings of several global cities. Workings that go beyond the landscape of favelas and informal settlements and into the streets of glitzy new townships in Shanghai, along the gridded avenues of Manhattan, through the labyrinthine streets of Tokyo and the deceptively sparse urban energies of small townships every where.

We invite scholars from all over the world to come to Dharavi and compare the knowledge embedded in its intricate networks with their own experiences from other cities. This alchemy of ideas and insights will fuel it’s grounded intellectual agendas.  The Dharavi School of Urbanology makes a tentative start through our tool-house office in in this locality – as small as the tiny post industrial tenements  that  neighbour it  – and as bristling with potential and energy!

Our team includes residents who possess an intimate understanding of the place, besides being passionately involved in its issues. We also have international urban experts who provide advice on research projects as and when needed.

Do look up our section on pedagogy for related activities.

We have always felt that Dharavi is a living laboratory of urban practices that we should learn from rather than “redevelop”. This neighbourhood, wrongly known as the largest slum in Asia, is in fact a user-generated city of the most elaborate kind. What really turned it into a slum is the attitude of the authorities, who have refused to provide it with the same infrastructure and public services as any regular neighbourhood in Mumbai (water, sewage, electricity, garbage collection). Despite all this, or in spite of it, Dharavi has come up with its own solutions and processes. It is by no means a perfect place, but we feel that it has a lot of potential -if allowed to develop on its own terms. In any case, we are not here to develop Dharavi, but merely to learn from it and work in its spirit. In plus of being one of the most interesting parts of Mumbai, it is also one of the few places where we could afford to rent an office space. The real-estate market in Mumbai shows no sign of getting anywhere close to affordability, even in these times of a global financial meltdown.

It will take us about a month to get the space ready. We want to create a security exit and somehow replace the asbestos roof. We also need to paint it and add a toilet. Once this is all done, we will be welcoming visitors, artists, interns and Urbanology fellows. We are planning on organizing monthly events in the community space in front of the office, which has a stage and is used regularly by the community for public functions and weddings. These will include movie screenings and parties.

To send us postcards and visit us, use this address:

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

Here are more images of the office and the street:

Image: URBZ team members and interns with the South Dandy Squad and DJ Paul Devro (Mad Decent) at the dharavi.organic party organized in January 2009 in Dharavi.

The URBZ Internship program has been running successfully for the last two years with interns coming from all over the world. We invite interns who are self-motivated and independent. The contexts in which we work are far removed from the worlds where most of our interns come from – within India or abroad, which means challenging and dynamic in unexpected ways.

URBZ is not funded by any organization, institution or patron. All its team members see themselves as engaged with urban issues through their specific interests and passions. We invite interns who clearly understand this and do not see the programme the way they would a certified course in an academic context. They are free to use the internship for their own academic agendas, as long as we understand that the program is driven by concerns beyond academia.

Interns have to contribute towards the running cost of the program, which includes accommodation, office space and other infrastructure. URBZ provides them access to the communities, networks and supervision as and when required. URBZ has facilities of accommodation for a maximum of two interns at a time.

The idea is that interns join us in learning, doing and working together so that our goals of user-generated cities becomes a reality. URBZ interns must have an open mind and genuine political commitment. The internship program is not a consumerist space that can be reduced to provision of services. Nor is it a corporate internship with a rigid structure and top-down supervision. It is up to the intern to make the most out of it.

If you feel our work, concerns and passions coincides with yours, write to us for further details and join us on an exciting journey.

Past Interns:

George Carothers Carothers trained as an urban planner at the University of Waterloo and later worked as a researcher of urban studies at the University of Toronto, exploring issues of urban design, community development, and participatory planning. His research and interests in urbanism have taken him to numerous cities, villages and huts around the globe, as a participant in international conversations on development and urbanization. George holds a masters degree from The Bartlett, UCL, where he investigated dialogues of participatory planning and development in Dharavi. George is currently involved in the Dharavi Shelter and the Adaptable Structures projects. He is a contributor to thepolisblog.org, a blog about cities.

Dipti Hingorani studied structural engineering and architecture at Sheffield University and completed her diploma in architecture from Oxford Brookes. She practiced in Spain and the UK and also worked in Pune working with women self-help savings groups. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Development and Emergency Practice at CENDEP, Oxford Brookes University, investigating case studies on alternative participatory and inclusive processes for slum-upgrading and rehabilitation in Mumbai and Pune. She is also actively involved with the Dharavi Shelter project in Mumbai.

Julia Siedle studied urban design at Columbia University in New York, and architecture at PBSA Duesseldorf and ESA Paris. She has been involved with the design of water management systems in both the academic and professional realms, and is interested in the interweaving and organic growth of physical with social infrastructures. With Mumbai experiencing a severe water crisis, she is currently researching the potential of micro scale water management strategies.

Sytse de Maat graduated in architecture at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Parallel to his career as a professional architect he works on his fascination for the human habitat. He gave lectures in Amsterdam, Tokyo, and Mumbai. His aim is to open the eyes of students, professionals and his clients for the aliveness of their environment and help them participate in its evolution. Observing and sharing his observations is his most important strategy. Photography, blogging, and lecturing are his tools. Christopher Alexander’s “The Nature of Order” is his current inspiration.

Francesco Strocchio Recenlty graduated from Turin Polytechnic with the degree thesis New Transit Camp – An informal design process in Dharavi, Mumbai. He studied architecture and building restoration in Italy and Finland (Turku University of Applied Sciences,) and worked in Finland and Spain at Stenman Oy and PO2 Arquitectos firms. Presently he is working in the OfficinaTre in Alba (Piedmont, Italy) and is taking part in the project SITUA.TO inside the program of Turin’10 European Youth Capital. SITUATO proposes different practices and tools to read the complex social and urban changes in Turin through concrete actions to improve the quality of public space through the inputs of city-users and their practices in urban planning. He was part of the HINDUSTRY URBAN RESEARCH GROUP working on urban design and studies of Indian mega cities with a special focus on the relationship of social and architectural issues. With this group he participated in 2009 at the 4th International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam through the project ‘Coesistance as survival: Enhancing the existing synergies in the Koli community, Dharavi, Mumbai. He is involved in the work of the cultural association L’ARVANGIA, that tries to bring attention to the identity of the Langhe territory and culture in Piedmont, Italy

Alberto Botterois enrolled in the master’s degree in architecture at the Turin Polytechnic, He participated in the Erasmus European mobility project in Belgium, where he learnt about the International panorama of architecture on different scales. In Feb’08, he graduated from Turin Polytecnic with a thesis about reciprocal frame systems inspired from “BuckministerFuller”. During the last years he attended some international workshops (”A new Lingotto’s railway Bridge-Station ” in Turin with the RPI (USA); “Abandoned Sacred Spaces” in Bruxelles and “Canelli Planning” in Italy with MIT). In Sep’09, He participated in the HINDUSTRY URBAN RESEARCH GROUP at the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam through the project Coesistance as survival: Enhancing the existing synergies in the Koli community, Dharavi, Mumbai. In Oct’09, he was in Mumbai working on his thesis degree about an informal design process in Dharavi. Presently he is working for the CarloRatti office in Turin, taking part in the international competition for the Olympic Games 2012 in London through ‘TheCloud proposal’.

Guillaume Folliot, Caen, France: PhD Candidate in History at the Caen Basse-Normandie. He graduated in History, studying the production of Memory and the political use of history in media. He is now finishing a second graduation in Social Geography and Urban Issues. During his internship with URBZ he has mainly worked on two historical precincts linked with the Portuguese colonisation, Khotachiwadi in Mumbai and Fontainhas in Panaji – Goa. The aim of his work is to create databases with historical, cultural, urban and architectural information. He interned with URBZ from April 1 to August 1, 2009.

Swathi Shivanand, Bangalore, India: She is a student of Masters of Development Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Worked previously with The Hindu, Bangalore as a city reporter for two years. Post graduate diploma from Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. She interned with URBZ from April 6- April 30 and June 1 – June 23, 2009.

Tilak Pattnaik, Mumbai, India: Tilak is a fifth year undergraduate from Metallurgical Engineering& Material Sciences at IIT Bombay. His interests include reading, playing, watching movies & anime and meeting & interacting with new people. He was a core group member of Techfest, IIT Bombay’s annual science & technology festival and Asia’s largest of its kind. He is also the chief editor of Pulse, IIT Bombay’s science & technology magazine. He interned from June 1 2009 onwards.

Namrata Mehta, Bangalore, India: Namrata is a post-graduate student at CEMA, Centre for Experimental Media Art, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, interned with URBZ during the months of January and February 2009, for a two month project in Mumbai and Bangalore. The internship explored and sought to bring together the areas of participatory planning, community informatics, community media and web development. Internship period: January 2009 – March 2009.

Internship Programme:

URBZ Internships are integral to all our activities. At present we have two streams of activities around which the internship programmes take place. One is based in Mumbai and the other in Goa, six hundred kilometers south of Mumbai citty.  Our internships have a strong pedagogical component to them in the sense that we encourage interns to develop their own projects in partnership with us. At the same time they have an option of working directly on our ongoing projects as well.  Interns  can thus bring in their own research, action, project-based, creative agendas and use the expertise of the URBZ team and the facilities of URBZ to develop them.  Or they can learn through our own projects and subsequently develop their agendas from here. Our own projects include the following:

A. Mumbai-based

1) Understanding and Documenting the Diversity of Mumbai’s Built-forms.

2) Engaging with Dharavi, Mumbai’s context in terms of architectural, planning and socio-economic projects.

3) Working with Shelter – a charitable trust in Dharavi which works with children and elderly residents from the neighbourhood.

4) Mapping resources and materials for auto-construction of structures and civic amenities in Mumbai.

5) Creativity and Art projects in Mumbai’s informal neighbourhoods.

B. Goa-based

1)  Looking at urban policy in India.

2) Exploring the idea of urban systems and networks outside the metropolitan map.

3) Local involvement in environmentally sound coastal tourism.

4) Comparing the impact of colonial histories on urban formations.

5) Exploring the relationship of fiction with architecture and urban spaces.

Since the internships form an integral part of our activities they also contribute to URBZ’ sustainability and are therefore paid programmes.

The internship fee  covers residential rent (in Dharavi/ Panjim), cost of internet, use of office space and the support provided by the URBZ team in community involvement as well as research and intellectual mentorship.

For further information please contact us.