Studying Dharavi

Dharavi is one of the largest slum in the world with more than 1 billion people living there. It is an extraordinaryexample of shantytown because it is mainly a working place (a lot of informal activities for big industries of Mumbai are here) and because it is a place so full of any kind of race, language, religion of the incredible Indian variety. 
To reach Dharavi, you just have to take a train and in 20 minutes you can get Mahim or sion stops, next to it. You will find never stopping people, always working, carrying, moving. 

Main roads and railway stations:

Dharavi is born on a marshy ground, unusable for anything, originally it was a simple village of fishermen called Koli, in years the village was fast surrounded by the poor shelters of people coming from the countryside to the city. Today Mumbai grew up and Dharavi is just in its heart (and in the heart of many urban planners..). 


 The district I studied (see the specific section for each):

 

The spaces of a slum, living units:

  

The spaces of a slum, living-working units:

Going on..?

In Summer 2009 I was in Tamil Nadu, in Pondicherry. Pondy is an ex French colony, a very quiet and clean placein just in front of the Ocean, inhabited by Indian people with Indian passport, Indian people with French passport, and people from all around the world just passing by or permanently living in a community called Auroville.


Auroville is an experimental town, an effort to create a place where people can live together in armony, sharing experiences and knowledge. Without a political or religious creed, Auroville today is inhabited by more than 2.000 people from all over the world.
It was created in 1964 on a dry ground, once full of tropical forests.


In Auroville there is a community of people - Sadhana Forest - who is trying to full this ground again with trees just like the firsts Aurovillians did (today Auroville's houses are to be found inside an amazing alive forest).
                                                                                  Auroville in 1964 and today:

I met the founder of Sadhana Forest community, Aviram Rozi, and I visited their homes, so amazingly similar to my thesis Shantitown. Aviram bought a new ground to build new guest housesfor the volunteers that come from all over the world to help them for free with their work. He found my Shantitown idea perfect for his necessities, but he needs help to realize it.
I keep on dreaming on a future realization...in the meantime, for more information on Sadhana Forest please visit: http://www.sadhanaforest.org                                                                   

Sadhana Forest buildings:

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.

Slums around the world

Almost 200.000 people every day, almost 1 million and half a week, 70 millions a year, choose to move next to the city to search for better conditions of life, for a place to live near to their working place. 

That means about 1 billion people in the world living as squatters, 1 every 6. The expectations for 2030 talk about 2 billions, that is 1 every 4. 

They escape from the countrysides where the governments aren't able to give them a work, and they arrive in the cities where the governments aren't able to give them a home.

Squatter reality has always been in our history, from Rome to USA to London, Paris..Different places and ages, same meterials, locations, reasons, reactions of the governments.

The same reality is called johpadpatti (India), favela (Brasil), kijiji (Kenia), gecekondu (Turkey), aashiwa'i (El Cairo), barriadas (Lima), kampung (Kuala Lumpur), mudukku (Colombo), penghu (Shanghai)...

How a slum borns:

A group of people, usually at night time, ivades a ground that can't be use for anything for different reasons (maybe it is a swamp, maybe it's too near to the railways..), they come and make up very quickly the poor skeleton of their future house with bamboo, wood, metal sheets, anything they can find. Then police arrives and they must leave the place. Then they invade again, the police comes, and so on until the police stops coming and the slum begins growing.

A new community is born. In the years, these communities drain the ground and build services for better living conditions, and then many times happens that the government turns the people away and gets back the new ground. 

The slums all around the world are ruled by strong communities that manage the law, the money, the services, anything. 

I strongly recommend the book "Shadow cities" by Robert Neuwirth to better understand the dynamics of the growing of a shantytown.

People of Dharavi

 

Searching for light

Housing + working place