Dharavi is a prime real estate location due to its closeness to public transport systems, business districts, as well as ecological hotspots. The proximity of living quarters to where individuals work, often from within households, brings both benefits and challenges to households and businesses.

We continue across the border to Karail, a basti (neighbourhood) in Dhaka, Bangladesh to understand homegrown settlements and their formation. 

In the 6th Issue, we do what we do best - workshops! Take a peek into the one we organized with the residents of Vithal Bhaskar to discuss the design.

Dharavi is a frenetic engine of entrepreneurship characterized by variety, innovation, recycling, and reuse. While the Indian economy is in a historic slump that is predicted to take years to recover, residents and workers in Dharavi are starting to return to the city as industries and their allied supply chains are beginning to open up.

As a continuation of the Makers of Homegrown cities series, we come closer to home and take a look across our borders. Homegrown settlements in Kathmandu Valley are dotted along the highly revered Bagmati river. This article delves into the establishment and lives of the Paurakhi Basti.

Dharavi embodies an efficient pre-industrial live-work paradigm. This is now desired and interpreted in post-industrial societies, and more so in the Covid-19 era, as a sustainable lifestyle.

In Issue 5 we follow the urbz team as they negotiate the site and ensure that all residents needs are met through the design.

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.

Issue 04 - The Brief, illustrates all the preliminary steps taken by urbz and residents of Vithal Bhaskar Chawl to ensure that the design meets their social and spatial needs.