urbz Paris: Visual narratives for participatory urbanism
urbz combines ethnographic participation with visual storytelling to accompany, facilitate, or initiate urban planning, heritage, and transformation projects.
Homegrown Street
We are taking the Design Comes as We Build project to the next level - the Homegrown Street!
Marginality, Climate Crisis, and the Right to the City: The future of participatory urbanism in the US
In a global context, populations marginalized because of race, class, gender, creed, etc. are those most incessantly stripped of this right to design the city in their own image within formalized constraints. In this way, the “informal” urban process of self-construction is inherently a product of this same marginality that excludes these groups from “formalized” city-making.
Goa - Beyond the Urban-Rural Binary
The first of two posts looking at how Goa represents a distinctive pattern of urbanization, representing a coevolution of its countryside and urban centers.
Hyperlocal: Travelling without moving
This text explores some reflections Andreas Ruby started to develop when participating in the workshop "Limites x Limites", organised by Aidec and ConstructLab, which questioned the uses and design of a future park in Geneva's iconic neighbourhood "Jonction".
Spatial synergies in urban villages
In continuation to the last article on place making in an urban village, we explore Diwale goan to understand various collaborations.
Anthropology as Urban Practice: Notes from Mumbai’s Sangam Gully
urbz founders Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove reflect on community-driven placemaking in the Indian metropolis.
Barrios of Bogota
More than a third of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, is estimated to be self-built by the inhabitants, mainly in the periphery of the city. In this article, we learn from Andrés Sánchez of urbz Colombia about the emerging forms of organisation and constant transformation in these self-built neighborhoods.
Vithal Bhaskar Chawl - The Residents
Issue 3 is out now! We open Pandora's box to discover the residents concerns.
Makers of Campamentos in Chile
In this article, we situate ourselves in Chile and examine homegrown neighbourhoods in various terrains.
Makers of Ciudad de Barrios
The second article in the Makers of the Homegrown series takes a look at Ciudad de Barrios (City of Barrios) in Caracas, Venezuela. It is a compact and clustered neighborhood with a multitude of residents engaged in producing homes, urban space, and the city.
Vithal Bhaskar Chawl - Prologue
We are excited to present the first issue of a graphic novel about the Vithal- Bhaskar Chawl in Dharavi Koliwada. This issue sets the historical context for the issues to follow - where we draw and tell you more about the participatory redevelopment project initiated by the residents.
The makers of the homegrown city
The homegrown neighbourhood is an expression of local organizational skills and maximum optimization of resources in the creation of built environments. In this series we attempt to understand its chief personnel, their tools and the processes involved in the making of such settlements.
Local hands and homes
In this article, published in The Architectural Review, Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava discuss the significance of local builders and contractors in preserving the functionality of the neighbourhood. It takes a simple shift in perspective to uncover the driving forces behind the vibrant growth of homegrown settlements such as Dharavi.
Dharavi 2020: The Covid-19 challenge
We at urbz researched the circumstances in Dharavi from April to November. We now present a collection of four pandemic-focused articles, fifteen Dharavi Weekly issues, and five Dharavi Fortnightly issues.
EnteKochi Review 2020
The urban design competition EnteKochi 2020 focused on integrating a participatory approach within the planning process for the city of Kochi. The competition was planned for, announced and conducted during the pandemic induced nation wide lockdown. This article provides a glimpse of the process.
Contractor's Confluence at Sangam Gully
Inviting contractors from all over Mumbai to collaborate on designs for homes in Dharavi with residents, architects, and artisans.