TA: Rushabh SuchdevForm of Housing, Content of Life, and Landscape of Policy
Considering the changing dynamics of urbanization, economics, and policy landscapes in India, it appears that housing design is playing an important role in shaping the near future urban conditions. This studio looks at various urban sites where housing policies play an important role. Consider for example the affordable housing zone in Ahmedabad, or affordable housing projects being built outside the administrative boundaries, or areas ripe for large scale urban renewal in Mumbai, among others. The second aspect that the studio considers is the conceptual debates in housing design concerned with the aspect of urban form and city making. On the one hand the modernist idea of considering housing as both a provision and social condenser seems to have found a renewed interest in our times. That means the modernists in considering the ‘free plan’ acknowledged the gap between the form of housing and the content of life. The post-modern insight on housing was the paradoxical idea of a hyper-close relation between inhabitation and the forms of housing, while also acknowledging the loose relation between form and function. What does it mean to think about housing design if we acknowledge this disjunct between form, inhabitation, function, and policy landscapes?
