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.