Unit 3 transient street layers
A transient care centre for street children in Mumbai situated at Victoria terminus railway station, the busiest in Mumbai with the highest population of street children residing there. The centre acts as a bridge between street children and the society that shuns them. It provides them with layers of informal platforms of activity, to discover what skills they wish to learn and helps them develop these. It gives them the chance to use and adapt their environment to learn to become self sufficient and enables them to use their time productively to make an income for which they can learn to save. With continu-
ous interaction with the public the centre acts as a extension of the street, the platforms of activities, act as the backbone of the building and are linked by ‘sleeping street connections’. Growing from these platforms are enclosed private ‘caves’, which can be closed and locked up so that the platforms and connections become a public urban frame. It is playful with contrasting between informal spaces for the children to have control over and are adaptable, as well as more formal spaces for the functioning of the building, this reflecting its setting in the diverse eclectic city of Mumbai.
Louise Armour
Research, development & transient care
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