Our world is losing permanence. The lifespan of the ground which supports the built environment is dwindling, and eventually property will no longer correspond exclusively to land. This design proposal for slum intervention on the tip of Worli Koliwada in Mumbai, India addresses the inevitable scenario of the peninsula slowly but entirely disappearing into the ocean. Sea level rise will overtake this land, and this is an architectural and urban solution that embraces the idea of kinetic permanence to ensure the survival of the people who have lived there informally since the settlement of Mumbai. When individuals are forced to sever ties to dry land, the architecture will exist in a constant state of motion on the surface of Earth’s water supply while maintaining the capacity to be grounded. The design utilizes building capabilities of native fishermen by providing them a means to architectural permanence, and as a network the individual floating units become an urban village in constant kinetics with the rhythm of the tides that have driven the lifestyle of the people for hundreds of years.
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The concrete barge acts as a built in foundation, giving each pod the capability to be grounded when tides are low. When flooding occurs, the pods float up and a flexible boardwalk is engaged that can then be tethered to other pods or lengths of additional boardwalk. This prevents the informal dwellings from being swept away during each flood season, and gives the architecture permanence reflective of the people in the place they have chosen.
Possible forms and frameworks that could be filled in on each concrete barge pod using local materials or even materials found and chosen by the fishermen that they are designed specifically for. These provide private and public open space, and when clustered together they create organic open space that corresponds to relationships between these different pods and different configurations. Because of the flexibility of the building material, there is potential for a different demographic to also take advantage of the application.
I studied house boat design as precedent for architectural applications that would provide permanence in flooding situations or in the event of sea level rise. Because of the craft that native fishermen are already capable of, it is not entirely necessary to design an architectural language for these people, however the challenge was to provide a foundation for what could potentially create an architectural permanence to their existing way of life. The slum dwellings they create are not designed to withstand the seasonal monsoon flooding that occurs on the site, but that does not mean that these dwellings aren't good.
By providing a concrete/floating barge foundation to these people, it gives them a platform to build their own dwelling off of a framework that would be more likely to withstand the effects of flooding and would be able to exist after sea level rise has misplaced them from the physical land on the site. In the search for an architectural solution to this program, I realized that I was looking entirely at land-based solutions, despite the fact that this peninsula will be submerged within my lifetime. Trying to create an architecture with a foundation in the land was not the solution to the problem these settlers were facing. If they are to remain permanent to this space, the architecture needs to work with the water and on the water.
How can architecture have a connection with land while maintaining the grounded nature of architecture? The Worli Koliwada inhabitants are descendants of the original fishermen settlers of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and their existing slum architecture is one of impermanence. Although these same people have been there from the beginning and have established their permanence within the peninsula, their architectural living situation does not reflect this. Every monsoon season presents these informal settlers with destruction of their inadequate dwellings and materials for fishing. The power of the sea overtakes the peninsula annually, but the people do not have the capacity to withstand it.
What happens when sea level permanently rises above the available land at the Koli tip? I just registered for a student design competition run by arch out loud to address informal settlements, open public space, and housing on a small peninsula in Mumbai, India. Mumbai has a shocking population density of 30,000 people per square kilometer with 55% of this population living in informal settlements, and the chaotic, organic formation and constant reformation of architecture and urban spaces makes Mumbai a challenging place to promote individuality and the human scale. Failed affordable housing attempts in the 90's show the importance of the individual in a city facing such intense urban density.
How do you design for 1 person in a city of 18.4 million (and growing)? |
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