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| 080321_13t |
Aftermath: it was gone. A group defended it from people taking it to sell the bottles. That group brought it into their factory, and later dismantled it and sold the plastic bottles for 140 R. They said if we gave them a real couch, they would have kept it, as they cant make money out of it. They liked the intervention and wished for more things like that…
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| 080320_13t |
Intervention: we made a couch from plastic bottles, string and tape (we sold the surplus bottles for 30R). At lunchtime, we placed it under a canopy in one of the compound streets, at a T-junction with a small lane, and recorded how people reacted. People were timid at first, then tested its durability, sat down and socialized with eachother.
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| 080319_13t |
13th Compound: another contact:
Met with a 100+ yr old woman who was the first one to arrive to the 13th Compound. She constructed her house after filling the marsh with sand and mud. She lives in the residential Kabba Walla Compound on the other side of the 60ft rd. Most of the people here collect waste from Mumbai, and store in the upstairs of their house.
13th Compound: more contacts:
Met with an owner of a plastic recycling factory, a doctor, and a former political leader today. All of these men have experienced decline in business in the wake of future development, and high electricity prices.
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| 080317_13t |
13th Compound:
We have noticed that EVERYTHING HAPPENS ON THE STREET: sorting, storing, hammering, assembling, washing, thoroughfare, trucks, carts, bags on head, gutters;
self-washing, clothes-washing, cooking, eating, buying, selling; socializing at corners, under a canopy, at unused space.
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| 080316_kas |
We had so many conversations with children, families, locals, drunk men on annual day out from Mumbai. They liked taking pictures of us…
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| 080315_kas |
Aaaaaaaaaaah…
Train taxi ferry bus rickshaw: 6 hrs – worth it. Sun, fresh air, cool breeze, T-shirts, coconuts, goan curry.
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| 080320_13t |
13th Compound: Introduction; periphery walk
The largest recycling centre in the world, and the biggest money-maker in Dharavi. Pressure and prime development zone: near to Bandra Kurla Complex and Mahim Railway Station. Pollution and space: won’t adjust to future development.
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| 080314_13t |
13th Compound:
Today we met with the leader of the 13th Compound, who was just elected president of ‘Dharavi Businessmen’s Welfare Association.’ Then we got a tour of the area and got to see all sorts of industries: plastic sorting; plastic, tin can recycling; soap production. These raw materials are sold to companies from the outside.
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| 080312_Mum |
Tour of Mumbai: fishing village, Navi Mumbai, artist’s village &
Fishing village provided insight into what Dharavi might have been like 100 years ago.
Navi Mumbai suggested what future Dharavi might look like, with its corporate ‘Las Vegas’- like buildings.
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| 080311_Dha |
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| 080310_90f |
the task this week was to document key roads in Dharavi. 90 ft rd was our assignment. morning, day, and night. the night proved to be intimidating at one point...
90 ft rd is a very pedestrian, always energetic, retail orientated (90%) formal road that provides a vehicular link from the sion-mahim rd to the 60 ft road and beyond. very few residential elements can be seen (like tenement block gated entrances, or dark alleys/side-streets), until you cross the 60 ft road. business. delivery. thoroughfare. access.
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| 080309_ele |
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| 080308_Mum |
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| bandra to north. dharavi slum to south. mangroves and river in between. |
1950-2000: major pop. increase. 1996: govt: develop Dharavi as financial centre.
Mukesh Mehta scheduled to make $600m...
Spatial restructuring: relax zoning; transport and infrastructure; business; housing; amenities (malls, museums)
Prove tenancy in Mumbai pre 1995
225 sq ft / family in tower slum
schools, museums, clinics; infrastructure, services, higher quality housing
(currently 1 toilet / 700ppl: use toilet at work / railway)
Developer:
$3bn = Dharavi Redevelopment
INCENTIVES: 10% Dharavi land for sale; subsidised accom. for squatters; 1.333 FSI
1 school, welfare office, society office / 100 huts (currently 625 huts / ha)
Must house existing mosque/temple/school in new development (ie, in 5-star hotel)
If works w/ NGO: concessions
must know exactly how many families to rehouse (ID cards)
produce exported to rich areas; wants to cut out middle man and bring rich area to Dharavi...
internationally acclaimed buildings and architects
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| david harvey - capitolism and urbanisati |
mumbai history:
sultanates before british and portuguese
1600s: East India Trading Company;
1800s: land reclaimed; ppl shifted around;
hard to tell new from old...
organic form vs. grid city
building boom: 500 euro / sq. m
Dharavi: near airport and Bandra Kurla business complex; at centre of Mumbai bounded by east and west railways; beside rich jaya neighbourhood
Dharavi will be 'South Bandra Business Complex'
Dharavi = economic power - doesn't compare with land prices
v. important to working of city- integral part of Mumbai
urban sprawl: 1000ppl / 0.03 acre no open space…
densest on east and western railway to colaba
earthquake zone: max 70m tall building
informal sector = 68% employment of city (no tax)
globalization + urbanization = urban poverty
Mumbai = 15m ppl (60% in squatter settlements)
Dharavi = 6m ppl
no town planner in local government
slum growth rate = 8% (2% = other growth)
slum dweller wants:
1. job & skills
2. $
3. health
4. house |
| 080304_Dha |
our group walked east to west from sion station to mahim station, getting very lost along the way. this map is hopeless...
click above to see the visual documentation.
what struck me today was the calmer sense of the nagars with respect to the busy, noisy roads around the perimeter in yesterdays experience.
the density of the blocks of ppl living squashed together. the darkness and narrowness of tiny alleys with gutters and pipes on the ground, and electrical conduits at my head height. there is only enough space for 1 person to walk, but you manage 2 depending on how you can step over gutters...
the darkness of these alleys makes you appreciate the 'light at the end of the tunnel' and small spaces deep inside the community providing respite.
women seem to be in these small alleys, monitoring their nagar and socialising with eachother.
we came across 1 large public space (cricket and parking) and some small public niches today (water well, toilet, washing).
main streets are busy, ppl selling everything, ppl going through rubbish, children following us everywhere. it feels very safe.
strong contrast between the established, clean, legal community of the Koli Wada and its dirty, industrial surroundings. women making poppadoms in communal space, kids playing.
ppl asking us why we're here. now we have some contacts. political figures in areas. large vast areas of filth. ppl all doing something. kids everywhere, no supervision, follow us for ages. some important looking elderly men sit in shade at street corner. this is their turf. but we're welcome...
cross the bridge over the railway, out of dharavi now. this is much nicer. trees. hospital. nice residences.
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| bandra to north. dharavi slum to south. mangroves and river in between. |
1600s: Koli Wada
1880s: Leather tanning; muslims from south; entrepreneurs bring village
1950s: Land Reclamation
1970s: Garment business; muslims from north; export to Italian industries
Dharavi = place where any poor man can live and make a living. struggle. generations. growth.
diversity. density. harmony.
Christmas and New Year: all religions celebrate together
politicians: what i think...
1970: offer housing; 60-70 sq. m; politicians control area
internal community justice: come together to sort problems. dialogue. no police.
80% ppl already sold house. what do ppl need?
leave them be - no govt. help
just infrastructure - maybe rent spaces for small businesses (they will pay)
- not public space (they use prayer rooms, outdoor sq. etc)
if ppl sell for short term money and move out, travel 60km to work, no life. cycle restarts.
must let communities live together.
everyone earns in Dharavi. all working.
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| 080303_Dha |
kevin, dayo, stephan meet sonam and daksha from the JJ.
task to walk the whole periphery of dharavi with our gps, recording the 5 senses. see. touch/feel. hear. smell. collective experience.
we decided to record from -5 to +5 how intense your specific sense is at various moments. how will they relate to eachother?
click above to see the sight documented from medium range and some close-ups, and also our collective experiences.
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| 080302_Col |
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| Rough Guide to Marconi Beam |
This week we were put into groups to cover slum case studies in preparation for Mumbai this saturday. We were given
What makes it stand out against slums from other countries is its beginning during the apartheid era, and notably its growth under the weakness of the post-apartheid government. With so-called 'Coloured' and 'Black' communities relocated en masse in the apartheid era, social enequality, crime, unemployment breed under areas with little or no services. The post-apartheid government's policies regarding solving the squatter problem and social inequality in
The slum is exceptional because of it's proximity to an upper class South African white suburb and an ever encroaching economic power in the form of an industrial estate. The future is not secure for the inhabitants of Marconi Beam, and social inequality seems permanent despite government's hopes. With economic prosperity and an influx of capitol (in the form of the FIFA World Cup 2010), the context is changing. In this regard it is comparable to Dharavi.
Click on the link above to uncover Marconi Beam...
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| 080225_bio |
the task was to find a motivation of an urban area in delft and map it. scale-jumping was encouraged, as was technologies of the gps and 'lie detector' (that shows intensity of place).
movement and the emptiness of space is what we set out to explore in a suburban area of
our group decided to recorded the sensual experience of the place, with respect to intensity of place, in a low-tech way. 3 of this group documented the visual intensity and movement of 3 specific points in this area: de hoven entrance and tram stop; asian market and pedestrian thoroughfare; aldi entrance and car park.
Intensity was documented by the quantitative number of people entering the space, on foot, bicycle, car, bus and tram. The intensity of this was graphed like a heartbeat in these 3 specific areas.
It was agreed that this excercise would be useful to someone working for some number-crunching developer, but this is besides the point. The route taken suggests that people are the blood of the urban environment, and the heart the place where they are drawn to / powered from.
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| david harvey - capitolism and urbanisati |
In changing the world, we change ourselves.
capitolism: pruduct/surplus; competition; growth - urbanisation is key
social/economical/ideological repression to solve problems of employment (eg USA post WW2)
- Suburbanization: lifestyle, spatial, political, capitol
financial probs - capitolism and suburbanization: 1973 property market crisis - NY bankrupt
building boom - stabilize global capitolism
lending: global financial institutions 30% Chinese Central Bank - risk
1st and 2nd waves of investment don't pay off, debt grows - who loses? gap between higher and lower class grows
eg Mumbai: Bandra's impact on $2bn site of Dharavi slums
what kind of world do we want to create? is there control? markets are uncontrolled number machine. urbanisation: uncontrollable aspect - growth and capitolism
social inequality. 2008 mortgage property financial crisis: poor land value decreases, rich land increases
COLLECTIVE RIGHT TO THE CITY
"revolution must be urban" (Lefebvre)
capitolism: rhizomatic and horizontal; economy - local
get to heart of capitol surplus usage to deal with urbanization. unite anti-gentrifation movements - urban revolution
past-present-future:
feudalism - capitolism - next technology of capitolism?
= biotechnology and genetics...?
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| 080221_Urb |
thrownness - born into a context, then you make your meaning.
mind is part of world: patterns - habits
memory = patterns over time
cosmology: does the world have a brain? (its memory = culture, tradition, evolution)
mind, spirit, universe, god
world structure / our structure
technology: map - discover world; language - "we live in language, it is invisible to us" (Heidegger)
= tool of action in world
= frame for looking at world
horizons of attention: table-room-house-neighbourhood-city places-national-worldwide
"global is no bigger than what you have around you" (Bruno Letour)
we act on a local scale, through a technological frame, with a technological tool
what we project on the world is what we understand global to be
dharavi: no boundaries to understand it, multiple scales, connections, relations, horizons
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| Heterotopi |
what i disagreed with / disliked:
- the 'Peter Pan illusion' - "i never work a day in my life!" - get real... an existentialist criticism would be that you are creating an illusion to neglect the responsibilities of life. i agree that you must enjoy what you do and live happily, never enslaved to monetary things too much.
- the emphasis on 'defending' heterotopia
- the ambiguity and inability to get one's point across in a concise way
heterotopia = mythic and real contestation of how we live
='other place'; nowhere; good place
= perfect mirror of society (utopia is fictional, therefore imperfect)
= spaces that mirror (and contradict) other spaces (the reconstruction of a village in the slum; irish bar in amsterdam - more homely; the theatre and other theatrical representations of other spaces)
= extraordinary spaces and transcendance - interrupt everyday life, power to mirror the ordinary (eg sacred space like the Gesu above - heavens and us; birthdays in the house)
= space where other rules apply
= an experience - do you work/play? (no economic rationale: artists and footballers)
for me heterotopia = the blurring, undefinable, transcendant space that is phyisical and mental.
the slum itself is not a heterotopia, but there are heterotopias within it.
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| Chronotopo |
Today we 'dipped' into this notion of mapping. The task was to use an urban device that defines and promotes a social practice. Reconstruction, Analysis, Product.
Urbanity: chaos, complexity, movement, changing perspective.
Tools: car, pair of feet, walls, building.
Aspect: time
Urban Device: the watch
Everyone in an urban context is always moving from A to B, always concerned with time.
9-5 living.
Mankind invented time to gauge nature. In doing so have we become slaves of time.
does City Rhythm = Body/Nature Rhythm ???
Above shows the contrast of two different livelihoods. One is the 9-5 day of the average worker from
Conclusion: the less 'civilized' and 'globalised' society is more dependant on the Sun (and the seasons) for it's daily structure; the 'western' society is more dependant on the consistent order of it's context (eg bank opening hours).
This urban device shows how man's creations can enslave him.
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| 080218_Map |
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| Distance, Perspectiv |
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| Photograph |
This is a nice image, unfortunately one cannot capture an image like the way your eye perceives it at the time, especially when light is not abundant (eg indoors). I took the photo with no flash, and with all settings to normal (as if I had good lighting conditions), and it came out very dark (you probably can't see it on the screen of a computer very well, but it is a clear image of 2 faces. It's very natural and the 2 people don't know that there is a camera on them.
What are they looking at?
Photos capture an image and highlight a meaning (the purer and clearer the better), which may be external to the situation when the photo is taken. If the exposure is turned up, then the quality still won't be the same as from your eyes. The picture is darker and suggests a greater serenity than if it were brighter. The meaning is altered with the quality of the image.
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| Fantasy Saves Planning 2 |
We had to get off the cold damp ground (wood palettes); sturdy walls (construction fences); we could wrap it in cling film (unfortunately that turned out quite expensive, but we managed to keep under budget with yummy Aldi sandwiches and 2.99 sixpacks…); the roof would be the biggest problem. Luckily we found a large plastic cover (which added a calm blue tint and was quite insulating).
You designed properly as you constructed it: the fences set the parameters; the wood boards set the size of the floor. Plastic and metal poles would span from fence to fence to hold up the plastic sheet. On reflection after the construction, that roof sagged a little and was not slanted. So if there was rain, we’d have a problem. It was well sealed with the cling film and cardboard, so air infiltration would be through the unsealed floor. Also on such a cold night, it was a large room, and it was too cold for the people who slept the night.
There weren’t many materials, and everyone was building so close to eachother in a cramped condition. We shared fences for walls with our 2 neighbours. Then the guys next-door to us didn’t have a wall to separate our 2 ‘clans’, so we decided to make both our structures the one large room. They had boards and palettes for the floors that we needed. So our larger room became the bedroom, fit for the 10 of us, with an entrance space. Their structure was the living room, where we could sit, drink and chill out. Cooking was done communally outside with everyone. Marshmallows and beers were a fitting end around the campfire. Respect to those that stayed, because it was freezing that night.
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| Fantasy Saves Planning |
The shock of hearing that we are going to build a slum on the campus was nothing compared to the thought of staying there for one night, living on the (generous) 10 euro a day, including building materials.
Writing about such shock makes me feel spoilt, especially as we didn’t have to beg or find work as well. Also we had an abundance of material from the construction yard and the basement (not allowed, but that’s the nature of this experience).
The 10 euro a day thing was ok for 1 day (Aldi received good business), and scavenging for tit bits of food/building material makes you think laterally about everyday things. You begin thinking about how to exploit the weaknesses that the order of society displays to you. Although this sort of scavenging was enjoyable for one day, it takes up a lot of time that you would like to spend getting work done, or recreation (a luxury that a lot of people mightn’t have the time for).
Organization was a mess for the 37 people in the class, and the language barrier just made everything so slow. Not that any of this talking really got us anywhere in the end. Deciding the site, and the lengthy process of dividing people up into groups of 5 was the only useful outcome of a couple of hour’s work. Efficient discussion can never happen when 37 people are involved. It became easier, and calmer with 5 people. We agreed on things quicker, and our group seemed to always be on the same page.
The real work began when you set out scavenging for materials. After exploiting the lack of security of the construction site and experiencing ‘the man’ (a.k.a. the college security in the basement), our group sized up the members of our shelter (metal fences, wooden boards). It was then that we could have an idea about what we were going to build. Simple geometry and concept was what everybody had in mind.
Path = thinking
Babies discovering the world – journey/path – the city dweller - borders
Is there enough time to think nowadays? – globalisation blocks path of thinking?
Get lost – more meaning – the unfamiliar
Why do we think? – we are in a place – we question it
Here but not here
How do we experience time – when we think of past we put it in front of us
Past present future at once
Architecture = the in between / no place
'Building, Dwelling, Thinking'
dwelling as mortals: the fourfold = 'on the earth'
'under the sky'
'remaining before the divinities'
'man's being with one another'
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| Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs |
Slum = overcrowded; physical/legal aspect; poor/informal housing; unsafe water/sanitation; insecurity of tenure (UN description)
slum dwellers seek: optimising house COST; SECURITY; journey to WORK; quality of SHELTER; personal SAFETY
45sq.m room = 13ppl.
Materials of cities for the future: crude brick, cement blocks, recycled plastic, straw, bamboo, mud, tin, chains, scrap wood, scrap metal
sites: pavement; low-lying areas (flood); highway/railway lines; creeks
1/5 dwellings have toilet ; 1 tap per 200-8,000 ppl
slum typologies (formal ; informal)
metro core = 20% Mumbai:
formal: tenements (hand-me-downs/built for poor), public housing, hostels
informal: squatters (legal/illegal), pavement dwellers
periphery = 80% Mumbai
formal: private rental, public housing
informal: private subdivisions, squatters (legal/illegal), refugee camps
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| Mike Davis: Planet of Slums |
formal actions on slums:
oppressions/evictions
temporary, ineffective aid
improvements (street lamps)
census/right to land (2yrs)
slum upgrades
grants (redevelopment ; roads/water/sewers)
SRA (Sectoral Plan)
informal systems:
extortion=tax-deductable
police/judges work with mafia re. justice
industry
make-shift sewerage systems
Dharavi:
Reclaimed marshes – boom:
High real estate prices; next to economic power
Religions, languages, cultures (divisions: ’93 riots)
Geographical boundaries
SRA (Sectoral Plan) to compete with
will be larges slum redevelopment ever (600,000 – 1m ppl live there: ppl since 2000 get new apts)
not good for workers (size of apts / industry)
ppl will sell apts, and move elsewhere; who benefits? (votes: politics)
City=2/3 world pop.
2020: countryside pop. migrate to city
2030: developing city pop. x2,
eg. Mumbai: 13m to 33m ppl
2050: 10billion ppl in cities (95%=developing countries)
City-Countryside and the 'in between': dense web of systems
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| Choreograp |
a reminder of our spatial awareness: psychological space (we can be here but not here...); space in our body (content/container); the immediate space around our body (kinesphere - skin/context); wider general space
the relation of group meetings to when we all spontaneously entered that 'space' in the DSD, struck a pose in our bodily composition, and then the bell rings... then you depart...
This is an intangible feeling that we all felt at a given moment, and I wonder why we chose to decide it was 'time to move on'? Is it because of a collective demand for action in the space? Or maybe because the composition simply didn't look/feel right at the time?
eventually we will establish a choreographed working methodology, thus working more and more efficiently with eachother...
