An innovative project backed by grassroots research, studies how individuals from bastis and chawls create space when faced with the lack of it
(From left) Swati Janu and Nishtha Kashyap
Creating solutions without understanding the parameters of a problem will mean little in terms of effectiveness. That’s why professionals from every field — doctors, policymakers or architects — are encouraged to initiate conversations with the people and communities at the heart of their work. Born of on-ground realities and fieldwork is Small Homes by Social Design Collaborative (SDC). The Delhi-based interdisciplinary practice works with under-represented Indian communities who are typically left out of planning processes and architectural services. Most of their projects are open source research that is free for use.
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The research-based project is a quick guide on understanding how space is utilised in compact homes. Small Homes came together within two months and was released on July 13. Architect Nishtha Kashyap, who interns at the Delhi-based practice and helmed the project, shares her observations from on-ground research which documented families of four-to-five members, who are tightly packed into homes as small as three-by-four square meters and how they come up with ways to use every inch of available space.
The online booklet details these, using collages to highlight the focus of the layout — bricks used to elevate beds creating storage underneath, curtains fashioned from saris as walls of temporary rooms and demarcations, and shelves in every nook. Another commonly seen arrangement, the 22-year-old shares, is the adjacent L-shaped placement of beds to maximise moving space.
Architect Swati Janu, founder of SDC, says, “When space is limited, multi-functionality automatically seeps in.” Kashyap serves an apt metaphor, “It’s like a very small box which can open up into a lot of things.” Such creative use of space is seen across the city when space is inaccessible due to cost or the lack of it. Think of the street vendors’ mobile box shops that close in on themselves at night.
Janu however, warns us not to romanticise this ingenuity, stating that the reason behind the project is for these solutions to be acknowledged and understood as coping strategies. A lack of such understanding results in “completely missing the stories and the strategies of how people have sculpted the spaces inside their own homes.”
Kashyap elaborates, “From my experience, architectural students like me come up with conventional designs that they feel will work without understanding how people are actually living — what is right for them, according to them.” This might be one of the reasons why we see rehabilitated basti dwellers moving back to bastis.
She continues that individuals from temporary settlements are often forced to build their own houses within a small space. “It’s a lot to learn from them [because] it’s a very different perspective altogether. And that’s why we decided to come up with Small Homes.” Thirty-seven-year-old Janu mentions that the next phase of the project will be making design iterations based on grassroots research and taking it back to the communities to see what works. “Making information accessible is the spirit of our work,” she signs off.
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