Many neighbourhoods in Ahmedabad are informal... Loose collections of low-slung, mud-mortared brick houses capped with corrugated sheets, often occupying vulnerable land. Densely populated and poorly ventilated, its residents are vulnerable to increasing incidents of extreme heat, flooding, and disease. Settlements like this comprise a significant part of the Indian urban population, and much of the Global South. However, redevelopment has proven to be costly and inefficient, plagued by corruption, and mediocre outcomes.

Can a strategy of repair better address the challenges these places face?

At what scale should it operate? What is the potential of individual house retrofits relative to collective, decentralized, or municipal systems, to solve the challenges that cloudbursts, 50 degree days and rising vector diseases pose?

This project partners CEPT University faculty and students with SAATH Charitable Trust to develop design strategies for informal Ahmedabad that alleviate the stresses of climate change. Through design studios, research projects and workshops, we pair academic exploration with on ground prototyping and testing, in order to develop a responsive feedback loop with real world impact. Urban designers explore collective projects for public space, and examine potential alignments with existing private and municipal programs, while architects design, detail, test, and prototype the climatic performance of retrofit roof and wall strategies for individual units.
 

Led by Melissa Smith, Catherine Desai, Niyati Naik and Abid Hira with contributions from Tarjanee Soni, Teesta Singh, Vishal Chudgar, Mani Chauhan, Kruti Makwana, Prakruti Parsiya, Shrey Patel, Dainty Doe, Batul Sethwala, Trisha Karthik, Shrayana Ray, and Sneha Ramachandran

​

projects, workshops and studios supported by

CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India

SAATH Charitable Trust

Together, students bring their proposals to the community for feedback and implementation, as part of a movement toward cheap, scalable, collaborative, resilience.