The very first idea for my work came to my mind while I was coming back home from my second travel in India. I was in a cab in Mumbai, going to the airport, and from my window I was looking at the very poor houses along the road, wandering about some little and cheap changes that could improve their conditions.

I didn’t know yet, but I was crossing Dharavi, the biggest slum of Asia, the second one in the world (as somebody says, but it’s difficult to give numbers in these cases). Dharavi is an incredible working reality, always moving and growing. More than 1 million people lives there, in a slum too near to the centre of Mumbai to be ignored by economical interests.

I came back to Dharavi after 2 years - in 2008 - and I lived in Mumbai for 3 weeks studying the reality of Indian slums, the bamboo scaffoldings system and trying to do my best for my thesis to be as real as possible (I studied Building Engineering and Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano).

“SHANTITOWN” is a play on the words “shantytown” (meaning slum) and “shanti” (sanskrit word for peace).

The idea is to create a multifunction building system for emergency applied to the case of shantytowns. The frame is made with bamboo simply tied, as the techniques of Asian scaffoldings. The claddings are made with different recycled materials, as typical in cases of necessity.

All the material and the techniques are local, nothing needs to be imported, and local Indian workers can teach people to create their home and to maintain it.

I followed the principles of slum (recycled and cheap material, simple systems, teaching of techniques, multifunctional buildings..) trying to obtain the best comfort possible.

Saturday 30 October, 2010

Awards

Tattarillo Award 2009

This study was born as my MSc thesis in Building Engineering-Architecture at Politecnico di Milano, Polo Territoriale di Lecco. The thesis was awarded the “Tattarillo Award 2009”, International prize for Bachelor, MSc and PhD theses covering themes related to “Appropriate Technologies for sustainable development in any South of the World contexts”, promoted by “Ingegneria Senza Frontiere – Firenze ONLUS” in cooperation with the “Environmental Councillor of the Municipality of Florence”. 



International Conference on Building Resilience 2011
My MSc thesis "Shantitown - Multifunction building system in bamboo for emergency applied to the case of shantytowns in Mumbai (India)" was admitted to the International Conference on Building Resilience 2011, Interdisciplinary approaches to disaster risk reduction, and the development of sustainable communities and cities.

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