India faces a high housing deficit, close to 47 million homes, according to data from Habitat for Humanity.
Additionally, more than 93 million people live in slums without access to clean water, sanitation or rental security.
As a consequence of the socioeconomic circumstances, many inhabitants of these areas are often discarded as beneficiaries.
initiatives, programs and government projects and need the help of independent professionals or volunteer entities to improve their housing conditions.
An interesting case is that of the urban settlement of Sanjaynagar, located in the city of Ahmednagar, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, where 298 families occupying two hectares of municipal land have been chosen to implement an ambitious housing program promoted by the Community Design Agency.
It is a pioneering initiative that was born in 2018, and consists of redeveloping part of the settlement with a vision focused on the local community.
Because, despite the fact that in its 40-year history many of the residents have been able to take advantage of various government housing programs, none have really met their needs.
Construction in Sanjaynagar of block 7.Currystone Foundation
As the architect Sandhya Naidu Janardhan, director and founder of the Community Design Agency, affirms, the
modus operandi
to intervene in this type of settlement has always followed the same pattern: a group of bureaucrats sitting in their offices dictating what to do.
However, the panorama changes radically when one closely observes the residents of the sector: the way in which shared spaces are created, how the conflicts that arise from these are resolved and how they are able to coexist, since it is discovered that these neighborhoods are very rich in resilience and social cohesion.
The biggest challenge of Indian cities is, without a doubt, space.
Although this is considered a limitation, the residents of Sanjaynagar have shown how designing out of the ordinary can help professionals open up new ways of understanding architecture and even rethink the meaning of the word inhabit.
From experience, when architects and urban planners work with these types of vulnerable communities, we tend to introduce inefficiencies in many aspects because we are conditioned to design what seems right to us.
For example, designing two rooms – the living room and the dining room – instead of proposing a single space for cooking, eating and studying;
or place the bathroom inside the house instead of outside.
The inhabitants of Sanjaynagar have shown how designing out of the ordinary can open up new ways of understanding architecture
In this case, this program works with the NGO Snehalaya and seeks to build flexible and safe housing for the residents of Sanjaynagar, demonstrating that the importance of participation and community life are vital in the development processes of this type of project.
This initiative is supported by the Curry Stone Foundation and is also subsidized by the government program Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).
In addition, the residents are represented by the Sanjaynagar Slum Committee, in coordination with the Ahmednagar Municipal Corporation.
To be part of this project, each family must contribute one lakh – which is equivalent to 100,000 rupees, or 1,231 euros – in the construction, and they have the option of paying more to build additional services in their homes.
Each house is 28.4 square meters and consists of a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom with an integrated bathroom and a balcony;
but as explained on the agency's website, it is possible to customize the home according to the individual circumstances of the owner.
As the architect in charge comments, “there is a specific case in which a mother and her three children met the requirements to access a house.
However, all the children had families.
We gave them the option to connect through an internal ladder, so we kept the family units together.
They only needed one kitchen for everyone, which meant that two of them could be reused for other functions.
The matriarch had a shop, and she asked that her kitchen be turned into a storefront, with a counter and storage section.
The second became a study room.”
This project may remind us of the Quinta Monroy social housing complex, designed by Alejandro Aravena in the city of Iquique (Chile), where each one started from 36 square meters built and could grow to 72. However, the fundamental difference is that this Indian initiative is entirely implemented and designed from within the community.
Although only 33 apartments have been delivered so far, the team has a major fundraising campaign ahead of them as costs have increased as a result of the pandemic and construction delays due to heavy rains. almost 40%.
However, while this project is being carried out, the whole process is being codified in order to convince governments to introduce severe changes in their policy, since the idea of designing from above does not work.
The project is particularly interesting because it rethinks the process of intervention in vulnerable neighborhoods in India, proposes a design from within, highlights the need for change by powerful entities and highlights the concern and political debate on how to live better in community.
