pramada jagtap - a Walkable city, Dharavi

This project addresses the complex issue of affordable housing through the case of sector 4 dharavi, mumbai.

How do we understand Informality?

Informality in urban settings, and how to approach it has been an important issue for decades. It presents several challenges ranging from the imagery that it provides along with living and infrastructural concerns. The initial phase involves mapping various aspects of the settlement through a set of parameters that were used as lens to look at the fabric. These parameters addressing the issues of density, topography, typography, communities and governance, amenities, and psycho-geography, urban morphology, economic basis, and ownership patterns allow us to understand the livelihoods and economy so as to challenge existing notions of redevelopment.

CLUSTER REDEVELOPMENT: Testing a part of the masterplan through built form. The lower floor is a tubular unit consisting of a live + work unit with multiple courtyards determined by their work type; with the commercial units on the streetfront and the studios spilling out on the central open space.The thoroughfare cutting across the central open space connects the two major commercial streets and subsequently the adjacent open space. The Pedestrian thoroughfare cutting across the site has been developed around the existing religious amenities; new social and educational infrastructure like the balwadi, vocational centres and others has been built around these to strengthen the open spaces created.The social or communal spaces happen at multiple levels, starting from the ground which is an extension of the live work units, and an important part of the urban life, the intermediate floor, creating a semi public space for people to gather and communicate, terraces at multiple levels offering views of the outside, and pockets adjoining circulation cores offering opportunities of engagement during the journey from the street to the house.

SCHEME B HOUSING: : This scheme tests two different types of housing. one is tower type, which lines the external edge of the cluster and is a singly loaded typology. The other is the mat type, which covers the ground plane with 3-4 storey low maintenance structures. Multiple unit layouts have been worked out, to line the singly loaded corridor, to provide maximum community interaction. Different sizes of the units have been provided, each having a smaller living room inside, providing a larger combined “Otla” outside the unit, which is linked to the corridor. The Different unit layouts allow variations in the volume of the “Otla”s. Buildings are placed parallel to the wind direction on site, and have niches (that double up as refuge or amenity) to allow maximum wind permeability. Courtyards on the ground floor are oriented in a way to allow cross ventilation. The terraced roof top is imagined to be densely vegetated. These roofs along with bioswales are connected to water retention areas proposed near the open spaces in masterplan to control flooding, which is common in the area.

The masterplan has been made under the constraints of the current DRP(Dharavi redevelopment plan), and DCR(Development control regulations), while also critically analysing the policies. The project looks at the National Cooperative housing Federation of India and the idea of the cooperative, as a means to collaborate and develop the area. Cooperatives between the owners and the rentals, who live together creating a certain social structure in Dharavi todayis emphasised on. The idea is to look at an economically self sufficient system for the tenants, building a sense of collective belonging and still providing them with a better quality of life. The cooperative is formed by the owners and the rentals. The owners will own their own houses, whereas the cooperative builds their house for them. The cooperative holds the share of ownership of the rentals, whose rent is used as a way to fund the cost of construction. The rentals have a right to occupancy, and the right to be co-owners.

Multiple cooperatives collectively form a sector, as per existing sector boundaries.the cost of construction can be funded through loans by the state as per the NCHFI.