Squatter settlements in a large percentage of the city are due to growing population and urban migration. To tackle this problem in India, Upgrading and Redevelopment have been two broad approaches with their own advocates. Assuming in-situ redevelopment as the most relevant existing approach to face slum settlements, it has caused additional problems, which should be addressed. These problems have been revealed during site survey and archival research. Considering the architect as a design factor with a limited amount of authority to change existing policies, how can the architect redefine the existing solution of in-situ redevelopment schemes in order to contribute to major developments? To what extent/How can an in-situ redevelopment scheme be used to generate an inclusive urban space? The design hypothesis is tested on an area of slum settlements in close proximity with many low-rise, high-density blocks in the North of Mumbai.

The project itself work as a conclusion of the research and design balance. After several improvements, now it puts in discussion the outcomes of the housing redevelopment strategy. Instead of offering a different alternative to the existing redevelopment trend, it raises questions about what to do with the old redevelopments proposals. How to deal with the profitable outcomes? Should be the housing solutions considered as a commodity? If the answer is positive, how one should deal with the consequences? The thesis proposal offers a trade-off that more than focus on profit, tries to improve the current living conditions of the redevelopment outcomes.

Exhibition 2 February – 30 March 2018, Art Entrance Gallery, Mumbai, India@en

Charles Correa Over the course of his 50 year career, Charles Correa realized an impressive number of important and influential projects in and outside his native country India. However, alongside his cultural and other institutional work, housing, and especially housing for the poor, remained for him one of the key - if not the primary - responsibility of an architect. Correa’s oeuvre, especially in housing design, is remarkable for the consistency with which he addressed the various complex issues of generating habitat where forming intelligent responses to climate, culture and resources remained at the heart of all his work. Through both his built and un-built projects, deceptively simple ideas expressed with great clarity of thought help identify clear lineages between ideas and projects, whether they were for single-family homes or townships, built for the poor or for the rich. The exhibition It is the intention of the exhibition to pay tribute to Charles Correa’s legacy as one of the most prominent and inspiring authorities on housing design as well as highlight the main concerns and themes that guided his work. Through drawings, photographs and sketches from the Correa Archives, as well as models produced here at the faculty, the exhibition will chart the development of Correa’s ideas on housing, from his seminal Tube House linear model, based on the idea of a climate-responsive architecture, to the complex courtyard clusters of Belapur, focusing on the ideas of creating community and opportunities for growth and change in time. Through the exhibition, we hope to highlight these important paradigms and their development over time through a number of projects that remain key references for students and architects today.@en