Why is it useful that Western architects work on places like Dharavi?

After the conference we had in Milan with Yehuda Safran we asked him to focus about the meaning of our work (an generally about western architects work) in places like Dharavi.

Here we post his answer as a starting point for us to direct our work throught the next experiences.

Q:

Why is it useful that Western architects work on places like Dharavi? Which side is the one taking bigger advantage of this relationship?

A:

Architecture is not unlike the idea of a just world.
Just as a just world can be divided but has to be observed universally, so is architecture.

If we can not provide for the super poor we will not be able to provide for the less poor.

Most people live in the ignorance of the interdependence of one group on another.

The relative wealth of Milano and Boston is closely related to the relative poverty in Mumbai and Lagos. If we could help set up a model of conduct in Mumbai, much else every where would effected.

There is a world wide reciprocity which if we will ignore, it will be to our peril.

Yehuda Safran

New Transit Camp Social Club. An informal design process in Dharavi, Mumbai.

On the 13th of February has been presented the first degree thesis that concludes the work we did during the last months in Dharavi with URBZ and Pukar.

-ABSTRACT-

Designing in Dharavi is perhaps one of the most exciting proposal that could be offered us.

When we left Italy, the purpose to develop a masterplan appeared as tough challenge and, at the same time, as a risk of an academic project far from the informal dynamics.
Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava, founding members of Urbz, suggested us to work at a real project with a real client and a real budget on a small plot in New Transit Camp.
The situation to be in front of a small scale project, drastically constrained and limited by the boundary conditions, has catapulted us into a completely different perspective.
The challenge to face problems which need quick and clear outputs has become an advantage that removed us from the situation, not so desired, to propose a redevelopment plan.
Taking into account the arguments studied in the Rotterdam Biennale, we assumed the need to offer simple and low cost solutions in a really short time.

Thus, designing in Dharavi has revealed a completely different experience than designing in any other part of the world (at least if for world we mean the formally-built one). Being in a part of town where none of the surrounding buildings has been designed on paper raises interesting questions about what should be the role of the architect.

The process is actually the most interesting part of our thesis, even more interesting than the project itself. Our solution appears just as one of the infinite solutions that architecture can offer. They are not necessarily right or wrong in advance, but they take place from the conditions and the environment in which they arise.

At least two important legacy remain as a result of this academic work. On one hand the documentation of a process that is diametrically opposed to the ones you can find in the formal society, which pays no attention to building regulations and that is deeply connected to the needs of clients. The second legacy is the idea of a different approach to the theme of slum upgrading, starting from a bottom approach.

December 3rd 09_Milan Polytechinc_Conference, with Stefano Boeri, Yehuda Safran

On the 3rd of December 2009 Hindustry Urban Research Group has been invited in Milan Polytechnic to speak about his last works in Mumbai.

The conference has been an open conversation about the problems of slums in the Indian megalopolis in which intervened Stefano Boeri, as curator of the master degree that hosted the conference, and Yehuda Safran, who introduced the debate starting from the work he did in Dharavi with some of the students of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York.

The conference has been an useful occasion to speak about the utility of western architects work in slums and to discuss with important referents about the work we did during the last years.

Here is possible to download the presentation shown during the conference by Hindustry

Here is possible to check the work done by Yehuda Safran's students in 2009