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Dharavi - A Sustainable Appraoch
Asri Halis
Masters of Architecture - University of Technology Sydney
www.halis.com.au

Phillip Lim
Masters of Architecture - University of Technology Sydney
philip@philiplim.net

Kalyan Basetty
Masters of Architecture - University of Technology Sydney
www.infocusarchitecture.com


Being one of Asia’s largest slums ‘Dharavi’ could only be understood as a complex global issue which is tangled in a web of bureaucracy, politics and cultural conflicts
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Controversial redevelopment plans for Dharavi have been underway for well over a decade. With media attention from around the world, it is to set the example for slum redevelopments globally. While their livelihoods offer’s the world a unique occasion to reflect on their richness in diversity and chaotic density of its communities, it’s an ongoing struggle to identify and act on the challenges ahead
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‘Dharavi: A Sustainable Approach’ is an architectural group based project, which seeks to provide the essential guidelines in producing design options, based on efficiency and sustainability. The research conducted, examined 17 systems in total, in regards to environmental urbanism and the physical and social forms of city slums.

The response is a multi-layered system which aims at helping the community of the slums ‘self-develop’ the city from within, the fascination of bottom-up emerging urbanism, is essentially a community engagement project, to be able to change the economic disparity which is relevant to poverty.

It develops strategic mechanism that look at scale from the long-term relocation planning of Dharavi to localised phasing for individual Nagras and suitable models of development at the architectural scale. It all starts with the economic development, then surgically looking at the mid grain of each system, the key being, that the preservation of ‘Dharavi’s identity’, is essentially an alternative to top down master- planning.

Although the report may not be able to solve all of the existing problems of Dharavi, it hopes to contribute to the conversation, prioritising the unique intertwining of constructed and social systems that make Dharavi a vibrant community.


 
 
 
 
 
 
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