Aranya low-cost Housing Indore By- Suryans Goyal, Kanchan Naik, Apurv Kashyap, Nischay Singh

Project details Location - 6km from the centre of Indore city, M.P. Client- Indore Development Authority. Principal Architect - Balkrishna Doshi. Total Built-up Area -100,000 m2. Project Cost - Rs. 100 Million. Year of completion – 1989.

Planning Stages Plans initially prepared by Indore development authority which Later stage of the development with rectified orientation to minimize heat gain and increase natural shading. Clear hierarchy to be obtained. sows a typical rubber stamping attitude without any concern for open spaces hierarchy, circulation or the built form. Basic grid pattern envisaged for simple layout. Proposed master plan with interlink open spaces, but from variations, distributed amenities, road network hierarchies and climate friendly orientation. Initial stage proposed plan with distributed open spaces and street hierarchies. Twists and staggers introduced to discourage through traffic.

Access to amenities

Division of spaces Lower income and economically weaker group 25% 7% 15% 60% 8% 9% 14% 11% 65% Lower income and economically weaker group

Analysis of the planning and housing units Houses have been clustered in groups of 10, separated by open space. Each sector has a main pedestrian street. Otta, a traditional zone, is provided in front of each house which is located between privet and public spaces. Otta are provided as a meeting place or interactive place. A septic tank is provided between 2 clusters. A housing plan included two rooms and a living area followed by a kitchen. Lavatory was constructed between the front extension and the melty use courtyard at the back. Most houses were provided with an a additional access at the back, which allowed for keeping animals, a vehicle or even renting out part of the house to provide income. For interaction of families an otta (an important feature of the Indian home) when completed will be sensitive to the lifestyle and daily needs of individuals with the freedom to integrate indoor and outdoor spaces with privacy within and from outside the homes, by designing optional plan.

Design principles Incrementality : as proposed Architect adopted a very objective approach towards the incrementality aspect of the units. Image to the left shows addition of spaces over time as expected by the designers in order to accommodate the increasing family sizes. One can trace the growth of spaces desired and understand the growth pattern in correspondence to increase in family’s spatial requirements. One of the reasons of the failure of this system were the fact that not many inhbitants chose to follow this pattern owing to its inappropriateness for their lifestyle. Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 1 room set on ground floor with toilet block protruding in the backyard. Addition of a hall transforming 1 room set into a 1BHK unit. Addition of a separate kitchen and another 1 room set on first floor. Transformation of first floor one room set into 1BHK making the whole unit a 2BHK.

Reasons for failure 1) Model template failed to inspire the inhabitants B.V. Doshi designed a 80 houses as design models for future inhabitants to follow as inspirations for development and extensions. Doshi’s design drew no inspiration from the Islamic heritage and its achievements and displayed no connection to the major ethnic group of Indore, Muslims. Except the originally developed 80 units rest of the 200 acre site was, though intricately planned, never designed and left dotted with lavatory blocks and plinth beams for future inhabitants to develop according to the model houses; which never happened. 2) Conceived merely as a one-time design project and no focussed efforts to create a thriving community Problems faced while creating a community were catered to purely by architectural interventions and apparently no dedicated efforts were made to humanise the design development. For instance, units were staggered along the street in order to create interaction spaces to gather and engage in dialogue and living spaces for inhabitants were created on different levels from terraces to courts keeping in mind the generic physical and social requirements of humans but the focus was not given to the ethnicity and economic background of their potential inhabitants. Images: (Left) the very few built units standing against empty parcel of land (right) empty parcel of land lies dotted with plinth beams and lavatory blocks for future inhabitants to develop

3) Undesirable site made worse for living through objective design approach Site for Aranya housing was chosen at the edge of Indore. This was a decision rising from an objective approach for slum redevelopment to push the slum dwellers to a fresh parcel of land away from the city congestion. The very basis of a thriving community can not be the architectural setting along and more so in case of a slum development built with an intention to promote incrementality and public participation. There have to be some mechanisms to support the living of the inhabitants in order to regulate their finances and support and improve their living standards. No arrangements for credit and mortgage were put in place to enable the slum dwellers to develop or hold their properties. 4) Unfavourable times challenged the fate of the society and repelled its potential inhabitants Soon after the development of the housing the long debated Barbari masjid got demolished by Hindu fundamentalists and created a hostile social setting. Majority of the property holders at Aranya were Muslims and were compelled to sell their property and move to Muslim dominant neighbourhoods in search of a sense of safety. This abrupt migration of inhabitants and as a result of hostile times the housing units were sold at inappropriate prices as neither Aranya housing could prove itself as a safe abode for the majority of the ethnic group nor could it keep up with facilities that are needed by a settlement to thrive. 5) Lack of mechanisms for sustenance Aranya housing saw no NGO activities to encourage community participation. The slum dwellers never received appropriate funding facilities to buy/develop these incremental units. No arrangements for alternate employment were created in or around the site. Water was made available only for half an hour a day. Potential dwellers were entrusted with a majority of development to be carried with no conditioning and little support provided by the government.

5) Inaccurate estimation of catchment area and unpredictable consequences Since the Aranya housing could never attract the intended inhabitants, most of its predicted consequences could never be realised. Slum dwellers never really turned in owing to no support and hostile conditions. Most buyers that did resort to buy plots, belonged to a different social and economic strata and chose to not develop the units on the basic framework of plinth beams provided and this resulted in either unpredicted and inappropiate development disrupting the planning mechanisms of the site as a whole or the buyers were left stuck with a housing unit that the ultiumate users could never develop as desired leaving large parcels of land barren and devoid of any community life as was desired by the designers. Images: (Left) the idealistic design proposed by the designers owing to their inaccurate and objective approch. (right) large parcels of land provided by the designers with just a framework of plinth beams that allowed a very rigid and limited scope of development that never matched the aspirations of ultimate buyers.

An Analysis of the town planning Vidyadhar Nagar An Analysis of the town planning “Vidyadhar Nagar: A city symbolic of permanence and order. Faith, safety, security and social, economic, technical opportunities.” The Sun and the Moon, the Purushas and the Mandalas

The city planning was inspired partly from Le Corbusier’s work in Chandigarh and partly from the study of Old Jaipur. Therefore, the resulting plan is a mix of wide central avenues like those in Chandigarh as well as tight secondary streets with protective approach roads that reflect the traditional street patterns. The settlement was projected as a satellite town for Jaipur and Doshi envisioned it as an energy conscious town that is regardful of wasting less of resources- natural, man-made and human alike. The housing development has been broken down into sectors and roads with a square perimeter around it.

THE PLAN The perimeter is square and there is a main axis running North-east to south-west, crossed by a secondary axis along the main transversal road. Orientation is determined by the path of the sun so as to minimize solar contact with built surfaces. Vidyadar Nagar is broken down into sectors and the road Pattern is designed to infiltrate traffic gradually. Buildings do not exceed four storey's and tallest face into larger roads. Doshi has interpreted the lessons of traditional desert towns with their tight clusters,courtyards,havelis and lanes of transition from public to private space. And also he has incorporated certain areas from the modern town planning tradition. The streets work in hierarchy: broad avenues there is a harmonious relationship between built form and open spaces. Central spine of the entire settlement

Hierarchy of open spaces Cluster level open spaces Community level open spaces Private level open spaces

References Vidyadhar Nagar: an Approach to Planning, Vastu Shilpa Foundation 1991 George Michell, The plan of Jaipur. A fusion of Islamic and Indian ideas, “Storia delle città”, http://www.slideshare.net/ankita224/aranya-low-cost-housing http://www.slideshare.net/khushboosood/aranya-community-housing http://web.mit.edu/incrementalhousing/articlesPhotographs/pdfs/aranya-1-Summary0025.pdf https://www.scribd.com/doc/173338165/VIDYADHAR-NAGAR-ppt-pptx https://identityhousing.wordpress.com/category/balkrishna-doshi/