PI: Prof. Ronita Bardhan, Centre for Urban Science & Engineering Department

Co-PIs: Prof. Leslie Noford, MIT, USA and Prof. Rishee Jain, Stanford University, USA

The Dharavi slum in Mumbai, by some, accounts for the largest slum in Asia as well as its largest small-scale industrial zone, is home to 700,000-1,000,000 people, most living in self-built shanties. Extraordinarily dense, the population density of ~280,000 persons/km2 is 13 times higher than the average of 21,000 persons/km2 for Mumbai as a whole. The current priority of the state-run Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) is to rehabilitate certain designated sectors in Dharavi. The state’s Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) is in charge of a plan that will incentivize developers of smaller parcels by deeding land for future commercial development in exchange for new residential buildings that the developers will construct. The central problem and opportunity in such development is to provide comfortable, efficient, healthy and affordable shelter and maintain a functioning community while making best use of scarce land. More universally, the goal expressed by the United Nations in its Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform is “making human settlement inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.

The ongoing and planned rehabilitation of Mumbai’s Dharavi slum has been geometrically described as creating a vertical rather than horizontal low-income (slum) community. To ensure that proposed high-rise residential buildings provide a higher standard of living as well as achieve the desired efficient use of land in a crowded city, it is important to base design decisions, from building massing and site location to façade design and room placement, on an evidence-driven consideration of indoor and outdoor environmental quality. In India, household air pollution (HAP) contributes to two-thirds burden of disease, stemming from the vicious cycle of fuel-poverty and ill designed indoor spaces.

We propose a measurement, simulation, and engagement campaign that focuses on one element of sustainable design: indoor concentrations of suspended particulates associated with cooking which is one of the primary causes of HAP. The research opportunity for this project is to develop and support an evidence-based design process that could, among other elements, include design guidelines and simulation workflows appropriate for climate, culture, technology and economics and suitable for use by practicing architects and engineers, that will improve the lives of Dharavi residents while remaining within business models acceptable to developers.