March 24th, India went into a 21 day lock down to maintain social distancing. People were asked to work from home, only step out for essentials and wash their hands frequently. Prior to this announcement, the inter and intra state transportation was restricted. These were part of ‘crucial’ efforts to curb the spread of the novel Covid-19. 

urbz founders Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove reflect on community-driven placemaking in the Indian metropolis.

Read on Azure magazine

The Handstorm workshop in Dharavi, with the Engineers for Social Impact from NYU, Abu Dhabi took place for the second time this year in October, 2025. We walked through the lanes of Dharavi Koliwada, observing Water in the diverse and unexpected paths that it took to and from people’s homes. Students diligently followed the water, listening carefully to the stories it had to tell.

Housing must be seen as a process rather than a product: its values lie in the relationship and inter-action between the actors, their activities and the produced house.

In this article, we situate ourselves in Chile and examine homegrown neighbourhoods in various terrains.

Every kaccha house transforming into a pukka house is a story worth telling – one which is extremely significant to residents and the development of the city at large.

Local newspapers doubled, tripled and eventually quadrupled with classifieds about the shiny, affordable, chic new buildings with swimming pools coming up in every empty corner.

Not all is worthy of the bin! Our latest column in The Hindu explores features of Indian urbanism that could inspire cities around the world. (The Hindu 24.09.2017)

Cities around the world are acknowledging that local expertise, knowledge and skills are an effective mechanism to generate ideas, plans and strategies that can be implemented by themselves or by civic authorities and planning agencies. Earlier this year, urbz was part of such an endeavour where we conducted Urban Typhoon workshops in Kochi, India. It was an enriching process working with local people to generate programmes and plans for the improvement , transformation and preservation of neighbourhoods. People’s energies and collective capacities came together to become a powerful force that is promising for the future of Kochi.