New Intent

So everyone, in the name of honesty and updates, I’ll just talk about what happened last week. 

I had what was supposed to be my substantial performance review, basically marking the end of my research and design phase.  I presented, and it didn’t go as well as I thought.  Perhaps unclear presenting on my part, or perhaps, a critic that was trying to say her point of view more than paying attention to the work I had actually done.  Anyway, we all know that happens more often than any of us would like when we get to the end of our work. 

So, I’m off again to re-examine some of the work I’ve done.  I had moved in a direction of preserving the fabric, and basically inserting program into it.  I had created a building that met, wrapped over and extended past an existing building, plus connected to a re-considered street and to a bridge…

A bridge?  Yes.  Probably quite silly in retrospect.  Unfortunately there was the draw of bridging between the man-made infrastructure of the settlement with the original ecological fabric that sustained the settlement from the beginning.  It’s such a poetic idea, but was ultimately part of my downfall.

In the building, it was basically a diagram, of how to work with the fabric.  Now, I have to move forward from this, possibly considering methods of actually working with the fabric, and perhaps re-using components of it. 

I’ve come up with three scenarios to work with:

1.  Add: where, like before, I tack on to an existing building.

2.  Appropriate: an abandoned building is appropriated, and then redeveloped from the inside out.

3.  Replace: a series of building are replaced with new buildings. 

Each iteration would utilize the same components, but would ultimately finish in some sort of vision of a future for Dharavi.  Or any informal settlement for that matter.  Preserving the scale of the settlement, the inherent networks, and allowing families to remain in the urban core of their city. 

In this new iteration I’ll stay away from solving all problems of the settlement (something I was accused of, and rightfully so).  I’m only an architect, not a landscape architect, a civil engineer, or social worker.  I have to remember that.