Hiromichi Kamiya - YTAA 2020 Asia Shortlist

Re-interpretation of informal spaces

There are a lot of informal spaces in Mumbai. The failing modern urban planning caused this situation, however, at the same time, do informal spaces play a role of compensating it? From this hypothesis, I researched and classified 40+1 informal spaces.

Now the population of Mumbai is 180,00,000 and it will reach 420,00,000 by 2050 which is the largest populated city in the world. However, 25% of them earn only 12,500 rupees (20,000yen) in a month and only 9% earns more than 60,000 rupees. There is no place for low-income people. Housing supplies are one of the biggest issue in Mumbai. 40% of the people are living in small slum whch is only 9% of the total land. Many informal work spaces can be seen in the town because they discovered their jobs by their own and understood the context in order to survive. I researched the informal work spaces to see how they have connections with the city.

There are countless informal workspaces in Mumbai. I extracted and analyzed the relationship between the existing, the program, and the composition. Sometimes I interviewed the workers about ownership and sales. The following texts, pictures and diagrams are the discriptions of the workspaces that shows the space configuration. Spaces become more complex in order of number, 1Isolation,2parasite, and 3cluster. From the reseach, I found several common rules although the presence of typologies of forms. I classify and apply the rules to the design phase. In this project, I will design housings for a low-income population in the remains of a textile factory that was used until the 18th century. This site has not been developed due to property problems with the government. But since the neighborhood is Mumbai’ s main developing area, a lot of changes are to come here. By modifying a law of ownership, I will reuse the mill’ s facade saved as a modern remains into housings, and use this inside space as an informal market based on my researches. Phase1. A facade that was once used as a warehouse of textile mills that supported modern growth is remaining. Phase2. Then, a reinforcement (buttress) is made to support the facade. Phase3. The housing units are arranged according to the structure. Phase4. The urban vegetation functions as a gentle buffer. At the same time, it creates hollows with small areas to be used as a market. Phase5. Residents will renovate according to their own program. Parts of the dwelling unit are divided into restaurants, and informal work spaces are created inside the courtyard.