Two brothers behind a pharmacy counter tell us a story of resilience and adaptability, ranging from spreading wares in Bandra to spinning rakhis on an umbrella in the rains. 

Joseph Koli is a man with 68 years behind him and innumerable kilometres of roads beneath his name, having worked in the Public Service Department of Mumbai for four decades.

In Dharavi’s Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Khurshid Bhai has his leather shop. From learning the trade alongside his brother to becoming a key supplier for brands like Royal Enfield, Khurshid Bhai built his business through perseverance. He is not just a craftsman, but also a committed community leader, standing firm against eviction threats and fighting for the rights of his neighbours. His story reflects the strength of Dharavi: grounded, proud, and unyielding in the face of adversity.

Dharavi's young fashion entrepreneur, Rohan Mane, shares his challenging yet exciting journey of building a streetwear brand. Dharavi became the perfect ecosystem for his creative experimentation, offering everything from design and stitching to manufacturing, branding, and shipping, all in one place. 

On May 9 - 10 urbz brought together collectives and institutions in Cali, Colombia. This is part of a 6 months project to develop a system to promote locally driven initiatives. 

As part of the ABCD project, street lighting emerged as an urgent need for the residents of Dharavi Koliwada. A need that was addressed through a year-long collaboration between urbz, the Dharavi Koli Jamat, local electricians and residents. Read about how the process unfolded and what comes next. 

An afternoon rendezvous with Vasu Mama, as he narrates about his long-lived and rich life in Dharavi, his current routine post retirement, his values, ideas and opinions about Dharavi and its future.

Koliwada in Dharavi, connected to the Mithi River, embodies a unique amphibious landscape shaped by traditional practices,ecological stewardship, and community resilience amidst urban challenges. The Garden of Festivities project highlights thesettlement’s fight for sustainable coexistence with Mumbai’s shifting coastal terrain.

The Langer Tisch is an art installation by Uschi Huber and Boris Sieverts in Cologne, Germany: a long wooden table placed on a very long strip of grass. It embodies everything a successful public artwork should be—practical and inclusive, yet also utopian and provocative. Like a lot of public art, it strives for survival. The six GDI students who worked on this site (Samuel, Nathan, Roy, Ninji, Satoka, Lucy) grasped these qualities and expanded upon them, building on the idea of length as the central motif. They unlocked the project's full potential by imagining an even more ambitious…

Spaces have inner and outer lives that inevitably make for a multi-dimensional experience. We just need to observe, listen and map all their layers with dimensions and care. This is especially true in a place like Ebertplatz – a complex square and transport hub in Cologne whose future has been in the spotlight of a polarizing public debate for years. The six students of the GDI workshop who worked on this space (Cen, Samreetha, Hwain, Ryan, Reona, Febi) did precisely that, to eventually conclude that empathy is the force that holds Ebertplatz together - despite the perennial threat of closure…