ASD Projects help build community buildings in Mumbai

Bo Tang and Shamoon Patwari from London Met’s ASD Projects travelled to Mumbai earlier this year to implement the construction of the first of 10 proposed community buildings in the region.

They spent six weeks in the Thane-Belapur stone quarries close to Mumbai implementing the construction of the community buildings. Using local skills, techniques and materials, a permanent formalised community space and classroom for the quarry worker families was completed in March 2009.

Expanding the scope of the work of the Water Trust, Bo and Shamoon recently returned from a two week exploratory field trip to Sierra Leone to investigate the possibility for future collaborations with local grass root NGOs in Freetown. This trip has resulted in two potential projects in peri-urban communities - a school in Kaningo, a settlement of displaced refugees formed during the Civil War, and a marketplace in Kamayama, a settlement south of Freetown.

ASD Projects is a live projects office and RIBA Chartered Practice which is embedded within the Department of Architecture and Spatial Design at London Met.

It provides a supportive professional environment that allows students and staff to undertake consultancy commissions and research projects as well as providing project management support to live projects carried out by students as part of their course work.

5 October 2009