Excerpt: ‘Shelter Dynamics: Expand, Extend, Self-Sustain And Grow’ is an architecture thesis on Urban Shelter by Ruheen Aijaz Chhapra from the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) that seeks to create a housing program that integrates a city’s social and commercial infrastructures, promoting hybridity and duality. It aims to address marginalized communities’ needs for subsistence and promote a more inclusive urban environment, transforming single-purpose structures into multifunctional components.
Introduction: Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, welcomes people with a variety of prospects. People from low-income groups prefer to settle in areas that can meet their basic needs since living expenses in Mumbai appear to be high. Taking into account various nomadic communities or groups that prefer to stay in the city for a certain period of time and depart after they complete their work, they begin to associate their basic needs with the city’s public realm, which can support their stay. This also applies to labourers and others who are visiting the city for medical services.
These communities are often seen using the city’s various infrastructures for purposes other than those for which they were intended. Observations include railway stations, the undersides of flyovers serving as shelter, streets serving as marketplaces or exhibition areas for their products, roadside learning serving as a permanent form of schooling, etc. Surprisingly, these communities not only pursue their self interests but also support the vitality of the city by providing services like informal recycling, entertainment, leisure, and the formation of commercial chains. Strategic livelihood linkages form a symbiotic relationship with Mumbai’s urban fabric.
As a result, the thesis explored these connections and relationships in greater detail, looking at the ways in which a built form can offer alternative infrastructure features that are suitable to these urban communities. This dual approach serves their needs while also improving Mumbai’s broader urban context. The thesis explores whether architecture could propose a housing programme that integrates the social and commercial infrastructures of the city while emphasizing hybridity and duality to challenge preconceived notions about shelters.
This approach seeks to address the needs of marginalized communities for a means of subsistence and promote a more inclusive urban environment in the face of land pressures in the city by converting single-purpose structures into multifunctional components that benefit the city in return. How can flexible design and adaptive architecture support the livelihood activities of marginalized communities, where hybridity and plugins become important in a city that is struggling with a shortage of space and escalating land pressure?
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