Micro Housing.

Cities in India are faced with the challenges of unprecedented migration of labor and workers in search for better livelihoods. Housing for such migrants along with the existing living densities in the slums requires the reassurance for the need of housing types that are based on households and existing livelihoods. The methodology for the studio was based on the understanding of these households and economic activities of the inhabitants. The other part of the studio was hinged on two types of case studies, one that looked at finding a relation between the household and the size of the house and the second one that examined the various sites and houses types. The latter part of the studio engaged with developing architectural typologies in a given site condition with optimum infrastructure.

The objective of the studio was to expose and explore academics related with emerging housing typologies that are necessary with changing times and as newer paradigms unfold in living and working relationships with the city. The idea of the house and housing is usually seen through typologies of sizes with respect to the family unit. However, in a city like Mumbai, such imaginations are far from reality where one has to negotiate constantly between minimum housing and optimum housing. The studio attempts to explore micro-housing based on households (situational), where the relationship between the house and the self is negotiated as a subsistence mode of living in the city.

The first phase of the studio was to locate the definitional understanding of the woThe first phase of the studio was to locate the definitional understanding of the word “Mirco Housing” and contextualize the term with a specific situation. The studio was divided into four main sub-themes based on the initial studio of housing issues and trends in the context of Mumbai, Co-Living + Co- Working | Social Sustainability in Housing | Migrant Housing | Housing Affordability. The second phase of the studio was to develop the appropriate brief that negotiated the boundaries between architectural functions and urban questions. The third phase was dedicated to addressing the urban question by locating urban issues and the quality of life that could be associated with micro housing. The last phase was to develop an individual architectural intervention based on collective decisions on the master plan with respect to density, ground cover, streets and buildings sections and lastly the FAR. 

Manoj Parmar 

Director