The research area of the Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources focuses on an emergent area within the practice of architecture. It examines and extends knowledge of the physical and cultural influences on the built environment. It focuses on situations where resources are scarce and where both culture and technology are in a state of rapid change.

ASD Projects have been working with Diploma Studio 6 and Degree Unit 7 since 2007 enabling delivery and development of live projects.

Navi Mumbai: 10 Community Spaces

The stone quarry communities of Navi Mumbai are on the periphery of a booming industrial zone. Within the 6km stretch of the Thane-Belapur quarry belt there are 84 working, individually owned quarries. NGO ARPHEN has been working in these communities for over 20 years, successfully creating bridge classes enabling children of quarry workers to enrol in the mainstream government education system.

During Summer 2008, ASD students from Studio 6 and Unit 7 conducted a physical and cultural survey of the previously unmapped quarry settlements. Their comprehensive survey identified potential sites for developing centres for community-based activities within the colonies and highlighted the need to include an educational facility and meeting spaces for local groups.¬

In February 2009, two members of the ASD Projects Office, Bo Tang and Shamoon Patwari, spent four weeks in the quarries implementing the construction of the community building. Using local skills, techniques and materials, a permanent formalised community space and classroom for the quarry worker families was completed.

ASD Projects is currently planning to continue the process of designing and building 9 more spaces to service the entire network of quarry communities.

Savda Ghewra: micro-planning of a resettlement colony

The construction of Delhi’s mass transit system has increased exponentially over the past few years to link the south suburbs with the industrial north. The advent of the Commonwealth Games has spurred the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to ‘beautify’ the city and present Delhi as a city of parks and green spaces.

In direct contrast to this forward planning lies the rapid and dense urbanisation of the city, an inevitable product of a growing economy. These intricate illegal squatter settlements occupy the gaps between mainstream legal housing communities creating a hybrid landscape of old and new; planned and unplanned; legal and illegal. Lack of social housing provision by the local government means that the majority of these urban slums are test beds for innovative self building projects, which offer diverse solutions to the issues of living ‘on top’ of each other in cities. Unfortunately there are no government mechanisms for the improvement, upgrading and integration of these illegal settlements. The government’s policy is to resettle 'slum' dwellers in resettlement areas outside the city.

Savda Ghewra is a government planned 'slum' resettlement project; the largest ever planned. It aims to re-house 20,000 families from various illegal urban slums littered around the Delhi environs.

In summer 2008, ASD students spent 5 weeks in the colony documenting and surveying the 250-acre site. They mapped and identified severe issues regarding inefficient government infrastructures, and poor construction at neighbourhood and building scales.

ASD Projects is currently liaising with NGO CURE to look at potential proposals for a building resource centre to assist with self-build housing and a pilot housing cooperative scheme.

Agra: Kuchhpura Sanitation Upgrading Programme (KSUP)

Students from Studio 6 and Unit 7, collaborated with Indian NGO, CURE, to work on a live project during the summer of 2007, focused on hygiene awareness and low cost sanitation in the settlement of Kuchhpura in Agra, India. Ownership of private toilets was limited, and as there were no functional community toilets, the majority of residents had no option but to defecate in the open.

The students were involved with the design, implementation and construction of the toilets, in particular the manufacturing process of the pre-cast concrete septic tanks. They also conducted a hygiene awareness campaign involving school workshops, posters and leaflets for householders.

Meera Singh was the first householder to have a septic tank toilet system installed in her courtyard. A knock-on effect took place with several other residents in the street expressing interest for household toilets. These prototypes instigated the development of septic tank toilet systems in other areas of Kuchhpura. The formation of a Toilet Savings Group enabled an initial 35 householders to save up for toilet construction on a subsidised basis.

Following the success of Phase 1 of the implementation of household septic tank toilets, a further 30 toilets were installed in Kuchhpura and two other settlements in Agra - Nagla Devjeet and Katra Wazir Khan (Phase 2).

There is a serious issue with the main open sewer running through Kuchhpura and other settlements polluting the Yamuna River. Phase 3 of KSUP is a proposal for a de-centralised waste waster treatment system (DEWATS). This system will treat the wastewater from the main Kuchhpura drains, providing clean water for local farmers to irrigate their fields.

Construction of DEWATS is due to begin in May 2009.

Photos: Bo Tang and Shamoon Patwari