Until recently, Vikas Gawali lived in a one-room shack with his wife, two daughters, his mother, his older brother and sister-in-law, their children, and another brother—12 people in a single room.
The neighborhood, called Sanjaynagar, has been in place for more than 40 years, with the same dire living conditions as other slums around the world. Residents have been living in homes made from metal scrap, with few openings for light or ventilation, in a place where the temperature in the summer can climb to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Hundreds of shacks are squeezed onto 2 acres of land. There are no sanitation facilities. Water is available only two hours a day through shared taps. There’s also a huge stigma attached to living there.
“Young, employable men and women do not reveal which neighborhood they are really from in order to even make the cut for a job interview,” says Janardhan, adding that when the redevelopment is completed, Sanjaynagar will no longer be classified as a slum by the government. “The new neighborhood will provide not just a safe, healthy, and vibrant place to live but provide an opportunity for future generations to flourish and thrive both socially and economically.”“Most of these take a top-down approach, where these marginalized communities do not have a seat at the table in envisioning what their homes and neighborhoods should look like,” Janardhan says. “This inadvertently destroys the social fabric of these communities and fails to instill a sense of ownership, which is critical for sustainable development.”
“It was important for them to see a direct outcome for themselves—that it was not possible to have a single-storied development—and this democratic process helped in trust building between us as well as in the mission of the project,” Janardhan says.
“The quality of the design and standard of construction that we are proposing further pushes the boundaries on what is acceptable as decent housing for communities living in poverty,” Janardhan says. “Our design intends to preserve the social fabric of the community, through thoughtful and purpose-driven planning and architecture.” She says consideration was given for a “higher factor of safety” that keeps climate change in mind, provides sufficient areas for circulation, corridors that also make space for social interactions, and sufficient open spaces “for a healthy and vibrant community.”
Families moved into the first 33 apartments in the new development in March. The other 265 apartments are slated to begin construction later this year. The design team says that informal communities in other parts of the world could use the design since it prioritizes the strong social fabric that residents have traditionally relied on for survival.
“What we seek to replicate is the process that we have applied in the redevelopment of Sanjaynagar,” Janardhan says, “[which is to] work with communities to provide [them] with a neighborhood that they aspire toward.”
This article originally said that the project received funding from the Curry Stone Design Collaborative, but it came from the Curry Stone Foundation. The article also misstated the number of homes in the original community. We regret the errors.
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