A Closer look at Self-built Cities within a City
Subject
Housing
,Urban Design
,Urban Planning
,Academic Year
2'nd Year
,3'rd Year
,Complexity Level
Advanced
,Intermediate
,Content tags
Affordable Housing
,Inclusive Development
,Informal Settlements
,Activity Type
Field Visit
,Activity duration
1 day
,Objective
To make the students sensitised and informed about how half of our city builds and lives. To understand and interact with the informal settlement and community.
Outcome
Students will be exposed and comfortable with the Informal, self-built housing in the cities, which is close to half the population of our cities and also assess their roles and responsibilities towards their issues.Â
Requirements
Site visit and observation, pen and paper.
Prerequisites
Selection of the informal settlement to be visited, fundamental knowledge of slum statistics, government programs and approaches towards them.
Procedure
Step 1: Visit the largest informal settlement in your city. Organize the class into different groups and disperse in different areas of the settlement to get a holistic sense and understanding of the settlement.
Step 2: Walk, observe, experience and interact with the residents.
Step 3: Make observations and understand the following:
- What are the kinds of houses? How diverse and dynamic are they? Observe the built-unbuilt dynamics and interface.
- What kind of work or livelihood the residents are into, understand the economics and income patterns.
- Water, waste, sewage, street lighting – infrastructural observations.
- Do they experience floods during monsoons and the water availability?
- What are their issues of housing, infrastructure, land and financial security and most importantly climate related stresses of heat, cold, floods, etc?
- Observe the kind of living spaces they inhabit and density per house.
- Observe how they organise and build itself with negligible support from the system.
- Understand the settlement’s growth patterns, inclusivity and the forces behind its growth.
- Are they included for Slum rehabilitation/redevelopment scheme or program? What is their perspective on the same?
Step 4: The groups will share their experience and learnings with each other, through presentation, sketches, etc.