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Charles Correa (1 Sept 1930 – 16 June 2015)

Architect, Urban Planner and Activist.

PLANNING FOR BOMBAYBY CHARLES CORREA

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Bombay is the financial capital of India a giant metropolis Contributing almost half the total revenue collected by the GoI. Like many other cities, pressure from distress migration coming

in from the rural areas in its hinterland. Today office space in Bombay’s CBD costs twice as much as it

does in Manhattan despite the fact that the average Americanoffice worker earns thirty times more than his counterpart inIndia!

3Intro

Like many other seaports around the world, Bombay is locatedon a long and narrow breakwater, protecting the harbour fromopen Sea.

The American Civil war 1867 blocked the supply of cotton. Analternate source had to be found: Indian Cotton, to be shippedout through the port of Bombay.

Linear North-South Pattern

4Shape

Every time the city got moreovercrowded, the municipalityjust extended the city limitsfurther northward.

Like a rubber band, it is ready tosnap.

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Daily trigger off massive flowsof traffic

Southern in morning,Northward in the evening.

6Movement

7 To avoid this gruelling commuting people try to live as close as

possible to their work place. Hence the spiralling real estate prices in the CBD at the

southern end. Much of this area pre-empted by upper & middle income

groups, the poor are forced to live wherever they can. On city pavement, in squatter settlements, in overcrowded

slums, up to 10 people and more in a single room tenement.

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In 1964, the Bombay Municipality published their Draft Planmeant to deal with the city’s growth over the next two decades,and invited comments and suggestions from the Public.

We submitted a memorandum to the Municipality suggestingthat a better strategy for dealing with appalling pressures on thesouthern end of the city was to re-structure this North-southpattern. What we proposed, in essence, was to integrate theisland of Bombay with the mainland to the east, opening up newgrowth centres across the harbour, so that the primacy of theexisting CBD would be challenged and Bombay’s North-southlinear structure would metamorphose into a circular polycentricone, focusing around the harbour.

9Draft Dp

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Through public ownership of the land to help finance serviceinfrastructure, Public Transport & Housing Poor as well asgenerating a new pattern of jobs.

Trying to use this new growth itself to re-structure the city. The suggestions we made in 1964 surprisingly found public

support, finally in 1970, the state Govt. accepted the basicstrategies & notified 22,000 ha of land for acquisition.

CIDCO(The City & Industrial Development Corporation)

11CIDCO

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Working as Chief Architect to CIDCO(1970 to 1974) for taking amore comprehensive overview on many problems of which onehad seen only fragments.

Examine two most critical aspects: Housing(Poorer Sections of society) Mass Transport(Provides access to jobs)

15Arranging the Scenery

1. Courtyards & Terrace: For private activities(Cooking & Sleeping)

2. The Front doorstep: Children play, meet your Neighbour 3. Community places: Water tap or Village Well 4. The Principal urban area: Maidans used by the whole city

16System of Space

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Too many attempts at low cost housing perceive it only as many dwelling units as possible on a given site, without any concern for the other spaces involved in the system.

Result: The desperate effort of the poor trying to live in acontext totally unrelated to their needs.

18Low Cost Housing

In short, the issue of providing housing, especially for the urban

poor, is not so much a question of inventing new materials, but

rather one of re-adjusting land-use allocations across the city, so

that more space is available for residential use.

19Providing Housing

The problems of increasing city size means servicing the larger

area will increase travel time & cost of a mass transport system.

Now a mass transport system is, a linear element. It only

becomes viable in the context of a land use plan that develops

corridors of high density demand. (Chandigarh) is difficult to

service with public transport.

20Mobility & Jobs

This is how the system grows: Bus line generating a series of

sectors of approximately equalimportance.

Let’s call them type A. Location Grows Type B. Interchanges Generates new

activity type C.

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1. Incrementalism: Housing unit should be able to grow with the family’s requirements & earning capacity.

2. Identity: Can be colonised by the occupants and modified to their social/cultural/religious needs.

3. Pluralism: myriad elements that make up society itself.4. Income Generation: low rise built form generates jobs…5. Equity: Sq.ft of Dwelling Needed6. Open to sky space: additional living spaces7. Disaggregation: need to find demand & breaking them down

into many small supply

24Future House

Our cities are precious they produce the skills we

need for managing development. Our Government

must anticipate urban problems and not just begin

to re-act after the crises develops.

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27Planner Needs to Do…

There is no shortage of housing but there is a tragic

shortage of the urban context in which these solutions

are viable.

That then is our real responsibility to help generate

that urban context.

ULWE:NEW BOMBAY CITY CENTRE1991

BY CHARLES CORREA

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1580 ha.1. Preparing the Land-use Plan2. Planning the CBD & Formulating Urban Design Controls &

Documents for the building therein.3. Designing 1000 housing units for different income groups.

30Ulwe

1. Affordability: The Income profile to determine the budgetavailable for Housing

2. Options: the costs of available building materials & constructionTechnologies, Usability, Different weather condition, roadspecifications, water supply, sewerage, electricity, transport

3. The Site: Contours & soil Conditions etc.

31Parameters & Steps

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Second step involved comparing the pattern of affordability of thevarious Options so as to estimate the amount of land required foreach income group at various locations.Large Number of options available.Third step involved finding ways to deploy the transport network(of cycle paths, bus routes, tram lines, and commuter railway)This three steps clear the images.

33Steps

To avoid straight waste of monsoon water in the sea1. Retention Pond2. Balancing Pond(dry Season)

34Managing rainwater

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Sit out in the eveningTo catch the cool breezes at sunrise of morningToday, this coherence has been destroyed by massive set backsstipulated by municipal rules, which separate building from road.

36View

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1. The size of the building floor print is maximised, so thatsufficient floor area can be generated without going into high-rise construction.

2. Instead of Specifying a minimum front open space for each plot,a compulsory building line is delineated.

3. Curtain walling which runs through the street level4. Stepped sections which allows individual apartments to have

terraces with central garden over view.

41Coherent Urban Form

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BRITISH COUNCILDELHI1987-92

BY CHARLES CORREA

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1. A Library, an Auditorium, an Art gallery and the Headquarters oftheir offices in India.

2. Elements arranged in a series of layers, recalling the historicinterfaces.

47Diverse Functions

Placed along the length of the site, connecting the entrance gate torear boundary at the other end.1. Hinduism-the energy centre of the cosmos2. The Traditional Islamic Char Bagh (Garden of Paradise)3. European icon(in Marble & granite, Mythic values of Science

and Progress)

483 axes Mundi

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©Kenneth Frampton

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©Kenneth Frampton