From the bustling and crowded market of Dharavi’s 60 Feet Road, a lane between shops leads to a tiny opening and through to a little compound, one of the neighbourhood’s few open spaces. The lane itself is short — perhaps 50 metres in length — and like most of the bylanes of Dharavi, it is lined with small shops and lets little sunlight in. The street has no name, but residents write their address as Bareilly Compound, a name which reflects that many of the original dwellers hailed from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.
About eight years ago Matias Echanove, an urban planner who works for an institute called Urbz which studies urban cultures and participatory planning, studied this street’s housing typology. At that time, most residents would have work spaces on the ground floor and living quarters on the first, a common feature of Dharavi. In particular, he focussed on the property of Waqar Khan, a prominent community organiser who ran a workshop that made clothes. “I was looking at how Waqar used his unit as both a residential and commercial space as well as how his unit interacted with others in the street. There was a whole network of sub-contracting to other workshops and these connections were very localised around him the same street.”
Some years after Waqar Khan passed away (in 2010), Urbz decided to conduct a kind of architectural ethnography of Bareilly Street. Three architects spent around two months with shop owners, residents and workshop proprietors to understand how architectural patterns had changed and how each unit interacted with the other and the street as a whole.
“In speaking to the various people who worked there, we found that while earlier the units used to combine residential spaces with shops and workshops, now they were mostly either exclusively used for one or the other,” says Samidha Patil, one of the architects who was part of the study. “Many of the residents had moved out, and given out their space for offices or workshops. From about 30 families that originally lived here, now there were about five.”
Ms. Patil says that many of these units existed close to each other they were no longer interdependent. “The supplier for a workshop would not be from the same street and the ordering of materials is done online through other wholesalers,” she explains. Further, while a system of sub-contracting still exists, in order to accommodate growing businesses they are more spread out. “People from Dharavi may have gone to set up different units elsewhere. So the work may happen through one unit in Delhi, another in Bareilly etc. Technology has of course, played a large part in this.”
The architects note that the workshops on Bareilly Street double up as hostels at night. Groups of workers — mainly from Bihar now — come to the city for two or three months, and are then replaced by another set from the same village or locality. “Though these are commercial enterprises, the time system is informal,” Ms. Patil says. “The workers could ration out the time as they chose to complete the work and for many of them being in Mumbai for two or three months was an exciting prospect.” Mr. Echanove says that this it reflects a vibrant economy that is maturing and generating more work and more employment. “What is important to note here is that this is a system and a fabric that is improving over time.”
Among the important points to note for urban planners, Mr. Echanove says, is that even in this small location there is evidence that Dharavi can create better housing at a better rate, since residents actually have an involvement in it. When urban planners talk of redeveloping Dharavi, understanding this kind of economic dynamic is important to use an entry point, he says, rather than talk of knocking everything down and rebuilding.
Though they did not go in with the intent of making an intervention, the team from Urbz is currently working with residents of Bareilly Street to make some improvements to the physical layout, which could hopefully serve as a model to improve other areas. A lot of what is holding the area back, Mr. Echanove says, is a total lack of infrastructure provided by the government; and while uncertainty about redevelopment may continue, he argues that the process can be started incrementally with small changes.
In an exhibition held last month with residents, Urbz created a model of the street, with different blocks representing the units. The idea was to engage the community with the story of the street and how it has evolved, each block now being used as a different kind of workspace. The idea was also to encourage the community to take part in some proposed physical changes.
“What we had found for instance, is that some of the shop units in the street are now lying empty as people have moved out,” Ms. Patil says. “One idea is that these places could be used as community kitchens for the women. Since this is largely a Muslim neighbourhood women never come out of the house and a comfortable space like this could encourage them.” Other ideas proposed include creating a terrace play area for children above the public toilet, clearing up space in the compound and covering up the gutters that run through. “We have taken these ideas to the residents in the last exhibition,” Mr Echanove says, “and we are waiting on them to come back to us to see how can proceed.”
The architects note that the workshops on Bareilly Street double up as
hostels at night
