Upgrading Thakkar Bappa Colony : A Case of Live + Work + Sell

UPGRADING THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY: A CASE OF LIVE + WORK + SELL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

To Dalvi Ma’am, for her unconditional support and guidance , without whom I could not move even one step ahead ;to Neha Ma’am , Richa Ma’am, Abhijith Sir for their help and guidance; The residents of Thakkar Bappa Colony for their co-operation and making this study happen; to Achan and Amma for their love and encouragement; bearing all my tantrums ; to Dichu and all my friends for being just as crazy as she is with their quirky ideas.

INDEX

Chapter 01 Introduction

   

Locating Thakkar Bappa Colony Thakkar Bappa Colony - The Footwear Hub Footwear Manufacturing in India Tool House (Write Up by Matias E and Kapil G; published in the Mumbai Reader 2009)

Chapter 02 Classification and Typologies

 

Thakkar Bappa Colony - Typology Thakkar Bappa Colony - Activities, Processes and Interdependency Networks

Chapter 03 Towards a Redevelopment project ?

   

SRA vs ‘Slums’ Critiquing the Policy : A Case of Lallubhai Compound - Govandi Emerging Holistic Concepts : Reinventing Dharavi - An Open Ideas Competition Vigliecca & associates’ linear park and housing in a run-down quarter of são paulo

Chapter 04 Thakkar Bappa And site character

     

Thakkar Bappa Colony - Its Context Character Studies Edge conditions Spatial Typologies Current Situation : Analysis and Emergent Issues Summary of Analysis and Findings

INDEX

Chapter 05 Drawing links : In search of a Solution

      

Aims and Objective Scope - Limitation Strategy Development - Proposal Guidelines Demarcating Area of Action - Site Selection Space - Area Study Design Development

Chapter 01 Introduction

   

Locating Thakkar Bappa Colony Thakkar Bappa Colony - The Footwear Hub Footwear Manufacturing in India Tool House

LOCATING THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY Mumbai is a locus of economic activity that attracts an influx of global capital as well as migrants drawn from across the country in search of economy. Mumbai faces acute pressure of land, resulting in over half of the population of the city residing in in informal settlements.

Thakkar Bappa Colony is characterized by its strategic location connecting the major areas of the city and the satellite city.

The colony evolved from being a refugee area for the migrants, post independence and gradually settlede the marwadi chamar migrants who continued their profession of footwear making in the area.

Thakkar bappa colony reflects the radical socioeconomic changes in Mumbai The fact that it stands unnoticed signify the state of infrastructure and the poor living conditions. The spatial and the aspects namely the housing and the commercial structures, acute overcrowding, poor ventilation, the inadequate provision lighting, drainage, drinking water apart from the unavailability of basic social services form the static elements of the fabric. It is these static elements which prove the inadequate provision of services and the living conditions.

The thesis attempts to preserve the originality of the space keeping its vibrancy intact, where the user and the work culture form the driving forces of re configuration. The thesis also poses a question on the current perspectives of looking at remodelling urban settlements which squeezes out the vibrancy and the cultural context of the place

THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY – THE FOOTWEAR HUB FROM THE TOOL HOUSE TO THE MARKET……

The settlement today stands as a big game in the footwear market exporting them in India and abroad; with an meticulously worked network both within the settlement and outside in the market . The settlement attracts markets not only from the city but also markets in the country.

The settlement also has a large market base with respect to the raw materials such as ethyl flex , light weight sheets and buckles. It exports the material to other retail markets.

There is a lot of bad odour because of the chemicals…we want our families to live in a better surrounding

I am doing my third year B. Com….But I will join my family in our business ….

We have a family of 10.. It feels nice to see the family together… We need to adjust but its ok..

Market base of the Settelment reaches out to markets in the country, Paris and Nigeria

THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY – THE FOOTWEAR HUB THE SETTLEMENT IN THE PROCESS…..

Ethyl flex wedge /heel

Lace accessories

Light weight sheet

Raw materials brought from different parts of the country and sold in the wholesale market.

Processing/ Buffing of sole

Packaging / Storage

Assembly

Processing of materials and assembly of the materials managed by the manufacturer.

Hand made foot wear

The product is sold in wholesale and retail market to other parts of the city.

FOOTWEAR MANUFACTURING IN INDIA Indian Footwear Industry: A Perspective 27 Jan 2014 For the Indian footwear to explode and deliver, favorable government policies, infrastructure, removal of high doses of taxation, infrastructural support in capacity building, skill education and technology up gradation, brand building exercise should be initiated expeditiously no later than now.

India is the largest global producer of footwear after China, accounting to approx. 13% of world footwear production, which is close to 16 billion pairs.

This means that the average consumption globally is about 2-3 pairs/person.

India produces approximate 2,000 Million pairs annually in different categories of Footwear. India exports about 115 million pairs, thus nearly 95% of its produce meets its own domestic demand.

With an estimated global population of 7-8 billion, India constitutes a share of approx. 15%, which means 1.2 to 1.3 billion feet needs to be covered from heat, cold, injuries, protection etc. Footwear sector is a very significant segment of Leather and Non Leather products in India.

Size of Indian Domestic Footwear Industry is estimated to be worth 20-25,000 crores where leather and non-leather Footwear per capita consumption is estimated to be approx. 1.1 pairs. In addition to this, Slippers (Hawaii Chappals) segment is close to 10000 crores with per capita consumption are estimated to be 1 pair.

The challenge for Indian Footwear Industry is lit large but anticipating India to become amongst top 5 Superpowers in 2030, our consumption rates can reach as high as 7-8 Pairs. In such a scenario, India would need to produce anywhere between 8-10 billion pairs consider yearly population growth.

Consolidating mid-term status by 2020, the potential target for Indian Footwear Industry will equalize consumption pattern of 3-4 pairs. With six/seven years to go, we need to scale our production from current level of 2 billion pairs to nearly 5 billion pairs at a CAGR rate of 30-40%.

Favorably for us, India ranks No.1 in milk production & we have the largest resource of cattle population in the world. Additionally, on the strength of raw material available domestically, the large pool of skilled and unskilled manpower, we have all the capability to take this challenge head on.

Given this backdrop of homogeneous potential it would not be an exaggeration to say that Footwear Sector is today, on engine of incremental growth. With global integration of Indian Industry, rapid change in lifestyle, income growth at bottom of the wealth pyramid, Footwear industry is expected to grow leaps and bounds.

Sadly, overall industrial growth remains moderate and is struggling to take off due to lingering on infrastructural constraints. For the Indian footwear to explode and deliver, favorable government policies, infrastructure, removal of high doses of taxation, infrastructural support in capacity building, skill education and technology up gradation, brand building exercise should be initiated expeditiously no later than now.

Write - u p exp laining t h e p otential of Foot wear Prod uct ion an d market in India and also the need to reap the potential pumping in infrastructure, skill up gradation , technology and branding.

FOOTWEAR MANUFACTURING IN INDIA The Indian footwear industry has developed substantial links in the global production network. But, this industry is still dominated by firms that cater largely to the domestic market through the artisanal production system. Specific footwear centres and sections of firms in traditional footwear clusters have established strong relations with the export market. Still, there are only few firms (e.g., Lotus Footwear Ltd., Apache Footwear Ltd. Etc.) that are directly involved in the global production chain of multinational corporation (MNC) in the sports footwear category..

The process of technology adoption and technical change therein is influenced by the existing institutions with its specific incentive and disincentive structures which are embedded in the culture (caste specificity of traditional footwear production) There is apprehension particularly in workshops that the supply skilled artisan labour would dry up in future which is the basic strength of this cluster.

In home based units, domestic firms and small exporting firms’ workers are paid according to the piece rate. Only in large factories where assembly line operation takes place it becomes virtually impossible to determine piece wage rate in each small task and workers are paid weekly/monthly remuneration.

Even in firms that operate on perennial basis, there is large seasonal fluctuation of employment between peak and slack seasons.

SECTOR

TOTAL EMPLOYMENT

Flying, curing, caracass recovery

8,00,000

Tanning & finishing

1,25,000

Full shoe

1,75,000

Shoe uppers

75,000

Chappals sandals

4,50,000

Employment size group versus productivity differential

Percentage share in employment and Productivity differential clearly show the contrast in the productivity with respect to the large share of employment by the 5-9 size group. this differential can be brought down by upgrading technology , infrastructure and skill

Employment size group versus percentage share in employment

TOOL HOUSE - MATIAS E KAPIL G (PUBLISHED IN MUMBAI READER 2009) One of the most enduring artifacts of pre-industrial society in contemporary times is the tool-house; the habitat of the artisan where work and residence co-exist amicably. Conceptually located between Le Corbusier’s machine for living and Ivan Illich’s convivial tool, the tool-house is an apparatus fulfilling economic and sheltering purposes.

In the past, the production took place mostly in the artisanal homes of rural areas, while cities were political and trading centres. Today, in a post-industrial hyper-urbanized era, versions of the tool house can be found in an artist’s loft, a web-designers den, a hidden restaurant in an immigrant enclave or in an up-market artisanal shop front behind which an old family continues to perform a traditional occupation.

Tool-houses can be found across cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. Middle-class homes in housing colonies often double up as clothes stores over the weekend while the kitchens service huge clienteles.

Yet, as a structure epitomizing such dual use, the tool-house, does not have the legitimacy it deserves. In fact in many places it is considered outdated, or worse, an invalid urban form, thanks to strict zoning laws and rigid conceptions of urban order. With the universalizing principles of the industrial revolution becoming mainstream, homes and work spaces have been decisively cut off from each other.

The modern city emerged through an atomic division of functions which had for long cohabitated in space and time. As working and living became spatially segregated, they also started being regimented along temporal lines. When the self-employed artisan became a factory worker he splintered his workshop – home and his days. He would have to commute to a separate place and compartmentalize his time in strict schedules demarcating work and leisure time. Ever since the practice of separating residences from places of manufacture has shaped much of the way we think of cities, work, and time. In particular, the organizing of space according to these principles became the main purpose of urban planning.

In practice however, several parts of the urban world are littered by sprawling collections of built forms that do not reflect this neat divide. In fact informal settlements around the world are the best expressions of enduring presence of the tool house. The reason for its resilience is basic economics. In a context where more than 40% of people are self-employed, and urban development keeps pushing up the price of space, the home needs to double as a productive site. In low income neighbourhoods, it is not uncommon to find a small tool-house partially rented as storage space, used as a shop in the front and as a workshop space in the back in addition to serving as a shelter for an extended family. Interestingly, several economic commentaries these days talk of the return of the home-based work-space and the reemergence of the post-industrial artisan.

With a little bit of imagination, a walkthrough any Mumbai slum also becomes a trip through a moment in the dawn of the industrial revolution. When the economic regime had still not drawn the rules of how we should live, work and sleep. Several of Mumbai’s informal settlements are shaped by the contours of the tool-house. You can see every wall, nook and corner becoming an extension of the tools of the trade of its Inhabitants, where the furnace and the cooking health exchange roles and sleeping competes with warehouse space with eventually a cluster of tool-houses making for a thriving workshop-neighbourhood.

The movement from the home to the factory was mostly described as representing progress for humanity, and measured in terms of output increase. The discourse looked at the village as a counterpoint to the city, and as being culturally and economically backward..

TOOL HOUSE - MATIAS E KAPIL G (PUBLISHED IN MUMBAI READER 2009) Not surprisingly, over the last century, it is agriculture more than any other economic activity that has been scaled up to fit the requirements of the industrial age.

A look at the living conditions of contemporary rural India reveals that Gandhi’s vision is desperately lost.

Yet, if we turn our eye to our much decried dirty and messy cities. We actually see post-industrial versions of the village form flourishing in all kinds of ways. It would not be too much of a stretch to say that if the Gandhian village was the soul of his India, the tool-house was actually its heart. If we detach the village from its exclusive rural setting and accept it as a valid urban form, we soon realize that one of its most persistence features, the artisanal home, deserves much greater attention.

Through the twentieth century, the modernist urban imagination was firmly tied to the Industrial age, even though in actual experience, processes of living, production of goods and the evolution of structures were discontinuous and fragmentary. Formal and informal economic practices have co-existed in several ways. Manual energy has supported mechanical energy and vice versa. Yet, the idealized vision of this age was always one that saw human scale economic operations as redundant, or on the verge of disappearance. The reality is absolutely to the contrary. A lot more production takes place in informal settlements with a combination of manual and mechanical energy than we would like to acknowledge.

Cheap human labour is what energizes and subsidises such a gigantic economy as India. A substantial amount of that energy is located in informal settlements, slums and urban villages and a million tool houses The reason why urban landscapes formed by tool houses are so crucial for urbanists is that it makes explicit the relationship between production, livelihood and spaces that express the lives of more than half of humanity. Not to be able to see this dimension in slums reveals a terrible lack of imagination and aborts the complex and organic evolution of urban forms.

In reality – tool – house landscapes indicates a need for a sharp re-structuring of the way in which labour, work, and capital are understood in the post industrial city.

Where the new spatial-temporal order that internet-based a d mobile communication technologies have introduced in our lives are acknowledged, and the complex dialectic between the artisanal/organic and industrial mass-based product in the contemporary economy is recognized.

It might be time to acknowledge that for all its lack of infrastructure and overcrowding, several informal settlements reveal a trend that can be well integrated into a post-industrial landscape.

The Dharavi Redevelopment Project’s latest design produced by Mukesh Mehta – that accommodates that recommendations of a panel of experts –pretends to respect the living and working conditions as epitomized in the tool-house dominated landscape of the neighbourhood. Actually it only reinforces a segregation by superimposing economic and residential functions onto each other, in distinct layers.

The fact of the matter is that the logic of the tool-house is intimately linked to the larger economic context of informality, decentralized production and subsidizing of costs by using space in complex and layered ways. It is organically connected to the unit of the family, the community and the persistence of the village form in the modern metropolis. By ignoring these complexities, the attempts at making over Mumbai’s informal settlements will simply not hold water.

Chapter 02 Classification and Typologies

 

Thakkar Bappa Colony - Typology Thakkar Bappa Colony - Activities, Processes and Interdependency Networks

THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY - TYPOLOGY SETTLEMENT

THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY

Typology

Along major transit node

Nature

Mixed use Footwear manufacturing and selling Closer to transport facilities

Object level

Pukka structures, laadi by lanes, finished roads

Settlement level

Formal structures, informal structures

Neighbourhood Existing industry working at different levels level

LIVE / WORK

INDUSTRY

SELL

Live , work , industry and sell exist while industry acts separately

ONE COMMUNIT Y

Bigger one whole community makes the settlement

ONE ENTITY

One entity in one space

THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY – INTERDEPENDENCY WEB Stay in thakkar bappa

Sell raw material [lace ,light weight sheets, leather, buttons] Lives in different parts of the city Lives abroad

EXPORTER

Gets material from manufacturer

Owned by head

Gets & gives raw material cut

Workers stay with family in thakkar bappa

Gets raw material

Gives finished shoe to manufacturer

Sell to shoe seller Gives karkhana/house for assembly

ASSEMBLY KARKHANA

Gets process raw material & gives raw material Stays with family MANUFACTURER

Gives finished heels/ wedges to manufacturer Migrating from TKB for better lifestyle

Gets material from exporter Stay in thakkar bappa with family

Meager wages

Stores raw material

HEEL MAKER Buys raw material from seller

Processes raw material

Gets material from manufacturer

Lives in thakkar bappa without family

Gives material to manufacturer PROCESSOR

Gets shoe assembled from manufacturer

Sells shoe Stores shoe SHOE SELLER

Owns/rents house

RAW MATERIAL SELLER

Packs shoe

Assembles all material

stays in TKB with family

Collects rent from workers if migrated

Buys shoe from manufacturer

Migrating to nearby areas for better lifestyle

If migrated collects rent from workers staying

Sells raw material to shoe manufactu rer

Sends them to manufactur er Gets material

RESIDENCE ASSEMBLY

Stays in different parts of globe Buys shoe from seller

IMPORTER

THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY – ACTIVITIES AND PROCESS Ethyl flex

Delhi

Thakkar Bappa Colony

Wholesale + store Buffing

INFORMAL STREET MARKETS Linking road, Fashion street

Shop Shoe Wholesaler

Workshop Cutting + selling shop + workshop + store

Assembly Homes/Karkhana

Plastic heels Delhi

Thakkar Bappa Colony

Wholesale shop + store

Wedges Palghar

Thakkar Bappa Colony

Cutting + selling shop + workshop + store

Light weight sheets Palghar

Thakkar Bappa Colony

Wholesale shop + store

Buckle China

Thakkar Bappa Colony

Wholesale shop + store

Lace China

Thakkar Bappa Colony

Wholesale shop + store

THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY – ACTIVITIES AND PROCESS

Raw material

Buffing

Cutting

Raw material

Wood sale

Buffing

Heel making

Cutting

ENSOLE Stick and stitch

UPPER Stick and stitch

Stitching

Pressing

Heating

Drying

Packing

Chapter 03 Towards a Redevelopment project ?

   

SRA vs ‘Slums’ Critiquing the Policy : A Case of Lallubhai Compound - Govandi Emerging Holistic Concepts : Reinventing Dharavi - An Open Ideas Competition Vigliecca & associates’ linear park and housing in a run-down quarter of são paulo

SRA vs SLUM 17% of urban India lives in slums: Census Rukmini Shrinivasan, TNN | Mar 22, 2013, 02.47AM IST

Roughly 1.37 crore households, or 17.4% of urban Indian households lived in a slum in 2011, data released by the registrar general and census commissioner’s office showed.

NEW DELHI: Nearly one in every six urban Indian residents lives in a slum, newly released Census data shows. The new numbers are significantly lower than the slum growth that had been projected for India.

"Our own projections were that the all-India slum population would be 27.5% by 2011, so the new data comes as a pleasant surprise," Arun Kumar Misra, secretary in the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, said. The slum populations in individual cities like Mumbai was also lower than expected, Mishra said.

The census defines a slum as "residential areas where dwellings are unfit for human habitation" because they are dilapidated, cramped, poorly ventilated, unclean, or "any combination of these factors which are detrimental to the safety and health", registrar general of India C Chandramouli said.

There is no definition of "Slum" in the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance & Redevelopment) Act, 1971. However, Sec.2 (ga) defines "Slum Area" as; "Slum Area" means any area declared as such by the Competent Authority under sub-section (1) of section 4; As per the provisions of sub-section(i) of section 4 to declare an area as slum area, it must satisfy the following conditions:i) any area is or may be a source of danger to the health, safety or convenience of the public of that area or of its neighborhood, by reason of the area having inadequate or no basic amenities, or being insanitary, squalid, overcrowded or otherwise; ii) the buildings in any area, used or intended to be used for human habitation are in any respect, unfit for human habitation; or - by reasons of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangement and design of such building, narrowness or faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, light or sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors, detrimental to the health, safety or convenience of the public of that area. iii) To decide whether the buildings ore unfit for the purpose of human habitation, the following conditions should be fulfilled: (a) repairs; (b) stability; (c) freedom from damp (d) natural light and air; (c) provision for water-supply; (f) provision for drainage and sanitary conveniences; (g) facilities for the disposal of waste water.

CRITIQUING THE POLICY : A CASE OF LALLUBHAI COMPOUND , GOVANDI Critiquing the SRA redevelopment policies.

Negative case study Case : lallubhai compound , mankhurd The study is primarily on the 19 of the 72 buildings which were built by sv Patel. These buildings have a ground + 5 storey, with a terrace above the 5th floor.

Each building has 24 tenements on each floor.

Central shaft and two separate staircases.

Each tenement – 225 sq ft.

Area : 2hectare The pathways into which the central buildings open out are 3mt wide.

Because of the closeness of the buildings , the entire group of 19 buildings, the entire group can be viewed as a block.

Issues of vulnerability in the case: 1 ) physical safety and security: design layout Access • Widest access route is 3mt wide • No access of fire trucks in event of fire • No access to the min express way • All access are pedestrian • Minimal daylight 2) relocation , unemployment • No easy access to place of employment • Loss of livelihood 3) other vulnerabilities • Lost years of schooling • Unavailability of healthcare • Non cognizable crime • Breaking down of informal systems

The employment size group of 10-99 has highest productivity.

Scale economics is reached in the small size class. The labour productivity of largest size class is smaller than all size classes except for the informal sector. The reason lies in older footwear firms employing 1000 workers

EMERGING HOLISTIC CONCEPTS : OPEN IDEAS COMPETITION ; REINVENTING DHARAVI Scrap the plans and start again……

The clash of opinions on dharavi’s future triggered a decade-long stalemate. So, last year, Mumbai's urban design research institute (UDRI), an independent organisation advocating for more equitable development in its home city, put the problem to the global community.

Udri launched an international competition, called reinventing dharavi, to solicit the best ideas for this endlessly limboed issue. Twenty teams, with more than 150 members from 21 different countries, submitted proposals. The competition’s only requirement was that the teams were interdisciplinary, in order to address the complex housing, work, financing, health, sanitation, recreation and legal issues.

Their proposals ranged from bathroom towers that moonlight as public spaces, to an annual festival, to a collective brand that would increase marketing power and recognition of the area’s diverse products.

“We wanted to stimulate fresh thinking,” said Cyrus guzder, a member of the jury, at the competition’s awards ceremony in December. “Even though we’ve spent some time walking around dharavi, we must say the ideas were quite original, even from international participants.”

One proposal from a Dutch team, entitled the game is on!, Honed in on the vibrancy of dharavi’s street life – the children’s cricket matches, tea sellers, and fruit vendors – as the starting point for gradually improving living conditions. Their concept, which won an honourable mention, proposed to bring local stakeholders together to “co-create” a plan for the streets and squares that zigzag between the tightly knit neighbourhoods

VIGLIECCA & ASSOCIATES’ LINEAR PARK AND HOUSING IN A RUN-DOWN QUARTER OF SÃO PAULO Risk : Flooding Landslides Stream turned to open sewer Execution by: Government of Sao Paulo in partnership with the municipality.

Architect : Hector Vigilecca

The ambition for the project was to solve a range of social and civic problems. As Vigliecca explained, ‘This new building should serve as an urban infrastructure.’

The idea was to connect the neighborhood with clearly articulated routes through the buildings that also linked the different ground levels of the site, and provide a range of new collective facilities, including a skateboarding park, a playground, water features, commercial spaces, a community center and recreation areas. In a place with no infrastructure, this was intended to urbanize and trigger a transformation of the vicinity.

Site plan

The porous nature of the building allows connections between different parts of the neighborhood ‘The recreational area attracted people from other neighborhoods and the pancadão [illegal parties] started happening every weekend. The residents were not willing to tolerate this any longer, so they sealed the open area up and turned it into a garage for cars” Walking around, the quality of the public, space is notable with its small squares, walkways, trees, tables and benches.

The most successful public areas have some level of private management and income for upkeep. Those that are better maintained include the football field, which belongs to a club that receives a monthly rent from anyone who uses it; as well as the party room and the barbecue area, which are locked and require a reservation as well as a small fee.

The street level below the housing units was intended to accommodate small shops to be run by residents and some parking spaces, as well as providing a covered open space that would serve for community events.

VIGLIECCA & ASSOCIATES’ LINEAR PARK AND HOUSING IN A RUN-DOWN QUARTER OF SÃO PAULO Apartment floor plans

A – Type 1 two bedroom housing unit B – Type 2 two bedroom housing unit C – Type 3 two bedroom housing unit D – Three bedroom housing unit E – Type 1 duplex unit F – Type 2 duplex unit

Type 1 two bedroom housing unit

The three housing blocks range in height from three to seven storeys depending on the variation of the ground level and include six different types of two or three bedroom units, arranged as single storey or duplex flats which vary in size from 50 to 70 square meters. “We believed they should live near their former neighbors, people they already knew and had trustworthy relationships with’.

Type 2 two bedroom housing unit

Type 3 two bedroom housing unit

VIGLIECCA & ASSOCIATES’ LINEAR PARK AND HOUSING IN A RUN-DOWN QUARTER OF SÃO PAULO

The water feature, a long and thin pool designed to deliver clean spring water to the residents, was disabled when the insufficient flow from the spring led to stagnant water, causing outbreaks of insects and disease.

Type 2 duplex unit – upper floor

Three bedroom housing unit

Type 2 duplex unit – lower floor

Drawbacks So foreign was this kind of living, the prefect asked the architects to furnish one of the flats as a showroom, to show future residents how to inhabit the space. This highlights the architect’s difficulty in understanding the needs of this population and the informal repertoire of the self-built city.

Type 1 duplex unit – upper floor

Type 1 duplex unit – lower floor

Left: The inclined communal space on completion in 2012 incorporated the sunken blue bowl of a skateboard track, stepped terraces, restrained street furniture, judicious planting and water features. Right: In 2015, these spaces now show signs of neglect

Chapter 04 Thakkar Bappa and Site Character

    

Thakkar Bappa Colony- Context Character Studies Edge Conditions Spatial Typologies Current Situation : Analysis and Emergent issues

THAKKAR BAPPA COLONY : CONTEXT Kurla Railway station

Bandra Kurla Complex

Tilak Nagar Station

Site

SCLR

CONTEXT - HEIGHTS

Suman Nagar Junctn

Chembur Railway Station

CONTEXT - CIRCULATION

Thakkar Bappa Colony

Chembur Monorail Station

CHARACTER STUDIES : IMMEDIATE CONTEXT Recreational ground characterized by users of different age groups predominantly the male gender using the pace for recreational purposes

Wholesale raw material outlets with a few equipped with buffering machine Public toilets/ baths

Chowk punctured with multiple function

Residen tial units doublin g as the assembl y units of the settlem ent.

Raw material selling outlets , whole sale as well as retail in nature.

Residential units doubling as the assembly units of the settlement.

Footwear whole sale outlets.

Footwear whole sale and retail outlets, with the retail on the street fronts

Sales

FOOT WEAR HERIDITARY

FOOT WEAR NON HERIDITARY

EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION NO OF PEOPLE IN THE FAMILY 8%

SSC FAIL

8% 32% 12%

12%

1 to 2

SSC PASS

3 to 4

HSC PASS

32%

GRADUATE

POSTGRADUATE 40%

4% 8%

5 to 10 11 to 15

44%

15 to 20

CHARACTER STUDIES : ROADS AND BY LANES

Roads - truck access

Roads-cart access

Legend : Land use

Retail market Amenities Karkhanas Whole sale market Residence

` Legend : Road Network By lanes Tertiary road Secondary road Primary road Road network mapping Land use mapping The selected cluster in the settlement is broadly divided as karkhanas, whole sale and retail sale areas, amenities apart from the tool house. The peripheral character from the major roads is marked by sale area and karkhanas with the store and tool houses in the interiors.

NON HERIDITARY

TYPE OF OCCUPATION

HERIDITARY

40% 60%

NON HERIDITARY

HERIDITARY

WORKER ASSEMBLY KARKHANA RAW MATERIAL… FOOTWEAR SELLER 0

2 4 5 4 2

4

6

CHARACTER STUDIES : SALE

Lace whole sale outlet

Wedge workshop /sale area

Areas with road frontages

Sale areas broadly dominate the road peripheries. Majority of the sale areas exists in clusters. The whole sale clusters occupy the tertiary roads and the by lanes as accesses.

Legend : Sale area Footwear wholesale market Lace and accessories wholesale market Raw material Whole sale market

CHARACTER STUDIES : KARKHANA

Wedge workshop

Buffing karkhana

Assembly karkhana Storage units

Storage units footwear

Base map : land use

The karkhanas function as buffing karkhanas, assembly karkhanas, wedge making karkhanas and storage units.

Legend : Sale area Wedge and heel making karkhana Rexene buffing karkhana Assembly karkhana

Karkhana and storage

CHARACTER STUDIES : TOOL HOUSE

The houses double up as assembly units and are organized in chain network, where the entire family works together Base map : land use The base layer for the entire settlement of Thakkar Bappa, the tool house is where the family works together and assembles the footwear immaterial of the gender and age. The houses have also given way to the assembly units, sale areas, and a few storage units.

Legend : Sale area Assembly unit Tool house + sale area Tool house + karkhana Tool house + storage units

The tool house

OWNERSHIP STATUS

RELIGION

4%4%

16% ISLAM HINDU - REGAR HINDU - JAIN OTHER

76%

OWN

40%

TENANT 60%

CHARACTER STUDIES : AMENITIES

It is observed that the chowks double up as storage spaces, play grounds and religious spaces, sometimes creating chaos.

The chowks perform various functions throughout the day including parking

Base map : land use The public amenities range from public toilets to anganwadi to health dispensary in the cluster. It is observed that the ratio of the amenities to the living spaces is very meager.

It is also observed that the chowks double up as storage spaces, play grounds and religious spaces, sometimes creating chaos.

Legend : Sale area Religious General strores Municipal balwadi Public toilets/ bath Health dispensary

CHARACTER STUDIES : SOUND INTENSITY AND TRAFFIC CONGESTION

Sound intensity

The major access causes majority of the noise. This noise is created due to the public transport, the bottlenecks at the junction and majorly due to the loading and unloading of goods in the settlement. Thus the traffic congestion in the area causes the noise in the area.

Traffic congestion due to loading and unloading of goods apart from the pedestrian and vehicular traffic

Traffic congestion

CHARACTER STUDIES ASPIRATION INDEX

HEIRARCHY OF ROADS

23

EXHIBITION AREA

11

RECREATIONAL

18

PROVISION OF CRECHE / EDUCATIONAL

7

HEALTH

11

PARKING

23

SKILL DEVELOPMEMT

11

ELECTRICITY / SANITATION UPGRADATION

15

CONSOLIDATED AREA FOR SELLING AND OTHER PROCESS

17

SEGREGATION OF CHEMICAL PROCESS

19

LOADING UNLOADING

21

INSERTION OF SERVICE ROAD

16

0

10

20

30

EDGE CONDITIONS

This fringes on the southwestern fringe includes some retail shoe selling shops along with local hotels.

The western fringe is mostly deserted apart from being a spill out for the youngsters and the children. The fringe also has the office of the nagar sewak of the ward 145.

The eastern fringe proves as a service artery for the karkahnas and assembly units in the settlement.

The south western area comprises of tyre and steel hardware shops along with butcher shops.

The eastern fringe acts as a spill out for social interaction of various age groups especially the women and children. Theis fringe also proves as a local grocery market. It substitutes for a play ground for the settlement.

This fringes remains as a dead space in terms of transport

This fringes on the north shows a subtle transition in the character of the footwear engaging settlement to an informal settlement with diverse occupation and activities

SPATIAL TYPOLOGIES

COMMERCIAL UNIT

OWNER

TENANT

CURRENT SITUATION : ANALYSIS AND EMERGENT ISSUES

Lack of ventilation

Provide spaces with light and ventilation taking the building heights into consideration

Lack of daylight

Lack of space for loading / unloading

Provide separate spaces for the loading and parking of vehicles

Improper sanitation

Provide sanitation and public convenience with planned services

Poor working conditions

Provision of ergonomically designed working spaces with infrastructure

Flood prone

Provide plinths and laying of sewer drains and other services

No hierarchy of roads

Congestion

Planning spaces for loading , parking and pedestrian - vehicular traffic flow

Health risk

Segregation of the Rexene buffing area and infill of amenities for it

Lack of opportunities

Branding of the sector, opening the settlement to the retail market

Fluctuating risk Stabilizing and formalizing the footwear sector

Encroachment Dumping of waste

Provision for waste disposal and infrastructure

Lack of promotion

Provision of skill upgrading unit and design cell

Road widening , planning of open spaces

Remodelling of the block and increasing the heights

Decision making Formation of Co – operative association Taking care of the improvement of infrastructure

Lack of open spaces

Puncture additional open spaces and enhance the existing spaces

Overcrowding Lack of recreationa l spaces

Infill new amenities

Restructuring of the urban block

Chapter 05 DRAWING LINKS : IN SEARCH OF SOLUTION

      

Aims and Objectives Scope – Limitation Strategy Development - Proposal Guidelines Demarcating Area of Action – Site selection Space Area Study Design Development

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES Typology of Thesis The thesis revolves around the parameters of the changes in the urban scenario due to socio economic dynamics, culture and cross culture, and hence falls into the broad area of the reconfiguration of the an existing urban fabric.

The thesis thus revolves around the three factors:  Function  User Culture  Site Geography

Aim Reconfiguring the existing fabric of the Thakkar Bappa Colony with a user- site centric approach to propose a suitable design response to

.

the same

Objective      

To study an informal mixed use cluster in Mumbai city.

Creating a public interface between the city and Thakkar bappa colony in order to expose the colony thus encouraging economics thus creating a ‘Brand Thakkar Bappa’.

To initiate an appropriate response of reconfiguration of such settlements thus regaining their economic potential.

To study the existing typologies and consider in the design.

To provide infrastructure for holistic development such as sanitation, factory waste recycling units and green scapes.

To provide spaces for workers living on rental and lease.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION Background Of Study Thakkar bappa colony reflects the radical socio-economic changes in Mumbai the fact that it stands unnoticed signify the state of infrastructure and the poor living conditions. The spatial and the aspects namely the housing and the commercial structures, acute overcrowding, poor ventilation, the inadequate provision lighting, drainage, drinking water apart from the non-availability of basic social services form the static elements of the fabric. It is these static elements which prove the inadequate provision of services and the living conditions.

The thesis attempts to preserve the originality of the space keeping its vibrancy intact, where the user and the work culture form the driving forces of reconfiguration. The thesis also poses a question on the current perspectives of looking at remodelling urban settlements which squeezes out the vibrancy and the cultural context of the place.

Live With the aboriginal koli and the gujrathi community settled , moving out, the marwari community took over a major share in the population of the settlement. They have lived here for generations to come.

Work The marwari community expanded their occupation of footwear. The skilled workers who process the material and assemble them also live in the settlement. Many of the times the house functions like a tool house.

Strengths • • • • •

Limitation The project looks at a module ie a chowk and the common amenities as the area of design due to the limitation of time taken into consideration. The other areas of the settlement would be designed as per the framework of this pilot project.

The unavailability od a surveyed CTS map caused the mapping from the satellite image.

This provides as a base for the projects in the settlement thereafter.

Significant economic industry Strong internal web of interdependency Creates a mark in the national as well as global market.

Self developed system of building construction.

Distinct and well preserved culture and tradition.

Drawbacks The major drawback is the ignorance in the settlement which is fuelled by uneducated workers. The sanitation and cleanliness standards are very low and so is the participation of the authority in the settlement. There are very less opportunities to encourage community interaction.

Information and interpretation from a chat with Mr. Pavan jajoria Raw material manufacturer

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Back ground study History and culture study

Site study

User study Building typology and construction Correlation

Critiquing State construction laws and policies Category and perspective of remodelling

Tentative Proposal Tentative Programing

Proposal of Case studies

Case studies

SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The live and work environment in the settlement

Design research question  The category of the settlement (Why it is not a slum rather an informal urban settlement…) The perspective of looking at the remodelling(Why is it a reconfiguration sensitive to the user and the geography Why it is not a rehabilitation or redevelopment...) The need of the market(Need, user, user networks, infrastructure)

Possible Design Intervention The idea is to brand the industry securing and formalising the industry its people and the uplifting the economy.

Improve the infrastructure of the settlement and restructuring the yet untapped economic potential of the settlement.

The rental housing and the mass housing scheme is plugged to amenity, and public spaces.

This form is embraced in in its absolute chaos and worked upon on contrary to the of removal of such conditions to create space for Mumbai’s development.

There is a lot of bad odour because of the chemicals… we want our families to live in a better surrounding We have a family of 10.. It feels nice to see the family together… We need to adjust but its ok..

I am doing my third year B. Com….But I will join my family in our business ….

STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

CONFIGURATION KARKHANA COMMERCIAL + TOOL HOUSE

TOOL HOUSE

re CONFIGURATION KARKHANA

COMMERCIAL + TOOL HOUSE

TOOL HOUSE

GUIDELINES

GUIDELINES

DEMARCATING AREA OF ACTION : SITE SELECTION

Karkhana / tool houses punctured by chowks Play ground of the settlement

Commercial / transport spine .

Commercial edge of the site .

Limitation • The project looks at demonstrative model as the area of design due to the limitation of time taken into consideration. The other areas of the settlement would be designed as per the framework of this pilot project. • The unavailability od a surveyed CTS map caused the mapping from the satellite image. This provides as a base for the projects in the settlement thereafter.

TOTAL AREA : 15690 SQ MT

Demonstrative model The site is a demonstration site to be followed for the development of the other regions as well. The selected site takes care of the commercial edges as well as the commercial pine and chowk.

DEMARCATING AREA OF ACTION : SITE SELECTION

Ambiguous edge – edge characterizing tool houses , open spaces and informal service pathways to the adjacent road

Commercial edgecharacterized by footwear markets with low exposure.

Chowks – A peculiar physical character with mixed use around it. It proves to be the foci of social activities , two wheeler parking.

Major street market – face of the settlement

Fork area – provides maximum visibility.

Physical foci of the settlement punctured with the only green space and other religious amenities.

SPACE – AREA STUDY

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT : EMERGING A NEW TYPOLOGY…..

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT : EMERGING A NEW TYPOLOGY…..

REFERENCE