Mass Inhabitation

Based on the housing studies at SEA, it is apparent that the housing shortage question in India cannot be addressed through building new houses, since in the past 20 years, only 10% of the estimated shortage has been achieved in most cities and states and therefore it would take more than 100 years to deal only with the existing shortage. On the other hand, the actual problem established through the housing census is not the absence of housing, but the quality of housing being very low. This creates a clear context for the Repair and Retrofit studio. As against redevelopment, which is highly resource-intensive and transforms the lived experience, repair and retrofitting take place through slow, incremental, day-to-day negotiations.

The study involved, identifying housing contexts in Mumbai that require Repair and Retrofit  – these included the old villages, informal settlements, old housing stock or chawls, and the Co-operative Housing Societies of the 1960s-1980s.

Documented existing practices and existing networks of Repair and Retrofit within these contexts. Orienting to different contexts and types of settlements/housing types and existing practices, introducing various approaches in Repair and Retrofitting, articulating architectural questions in repair and retrofitting, and proposing strategies of intervention in existing fabrics.