Rethinking Urban Housing Density – Enhancing Community Integration in Hyderabad’s Housing

Author: Sivani Dirisala
Site Location: Hyderabad, Telangana
Institute: Wadiyar Centre for Architecture
Advisor: Nelson Pais

Description

In contemporary urban environments, particularly in cities like Hyderabad, the adoption of standardized construction technologies, combined with bylaws such as an uncapped FSI, has fueled a surge in high-rise developments dominated by typical 3BHK and 4BHK layouts, regardless of actual demand. While these practices streamline construction and reduce timelines, they have also led to a homogenization of housing—prioritizing profit and maximizing returns. This market-driven approach creates a monopoly over centrally located land, making housing in the city center inaccessible to the working class and other family structures.

This project positions itself as a counterpoint to existing housing models in the city’s core. Instead of vertically repeating a single layout and multiplying it across the site, it introduces varied layouts that respond to diverse family structures. The design takes a different approach where the smallest parts also dictate how the overall project turns out. The relationships between these units are explored to create shared spaces and commonalities across multiple scales, reimagining density as a network of connected communities. The proposal aims for a context-sensitive density model—one that prioritizes livability and long-term community well-being over short-term commercial gain.

Drawings

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Portable Shelter for Temporary Settings

Posted on September 2, 2025September 5, 2025 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2025Tagged Adequate Housing GM, Ephemeral Architecture GM, HOUSING GM, Social Design GM, Temporary Architecture GMLeave a comment

Author: Azad Golakiya
Site Location: Rajkot, Gujarat
Institute: Indubhai Parekh School of Architecture (IPSA)
Advisor: Ar. Ronak Gangadev

Description

This thesis addresses the urgent need for dignified temporary shelters for construction workers in India, with a focus on Rajkot’s semi-arid climate. Migrant laborers, who form the backbone of the construction industry, often live in unsafe, overcrowded, and unhygienic conditions—spaces as small as 2–3 sqm per person, far below the NBC’s recommended 7–10 sqm. Their shelters typically lack privacy, sanitation, ventilation, and safety, forcing families to live in compromised conditions while they build permanent
homes for others.
The project proposes a modular, portable, and climate-responsive shelter system that is cost-effective, easy to assemble and dismantle, and adaptable to varying site conditions. Using locally available, lightweight, and recyclable materials, the design emphasizes sustainability while ensuring comfort. Passive strategies such as natural ventilation, shading, and insulated roofing respond to harsh climatic conditions, while thoughtful zoning provides spaces for sleeping, cooking, sanitation, and community interaction.
Shelters can be placed in linear, clustered, or courtyard formations, allowing flexibility across diverse construction sites. The system reduces waste through reusable components and promotes safety by minimizing reliance on heavy machinery during installation. More than housing, this project aspires to restore dignity, health, and equity to migrant workers, creating a replicable model for labor housing across
India.

Drawings

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Housing and Landscape Urbanisation: A Case in Kolhapur’s Extents

Posted on September 2, 2025September 5, 2025 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2025Tagged Adequate Housing GM, HOUSING GM, incremental housing GM, Neighbourhood GM, Residential GM, Social Design GM, Urban Design GM, Urbanism GMLeave a comment

Author: Aditya Mahajan
Site Location: Kolhapur, Maharashtra
Institute: School of Environment and Architecture (SEA)
Advisor: Prasad Shetty

Description

Complexities of land, caste-based segregation, people’s agency, agriculture, and industries give rise to a distinct urban and house form within city extents. These forces led to questions about life and space, intervening through diverse socio-political and environmental logics. The architectural inquiry is therefore about thinking of inhabitation forms where space emerges through fragmentation, accretion, and the ideas of permanence and impermanence.
Based on a thorough analysis of the biographies of resident families, the design imagines a housing and landscape urbanisation project driven by the community. It intervenes through planning, rethinking builtforms, and inserting infrastructural landscapes. By understanding ways of homemaking, it derives a proportioning system and stratifies the terrain into habitations.
Analysing land conditions, affordances, transformations, and intensification of homes, the project suggests a strategy for planning and rebuilding, estimated over the next 15 years, to improve living conditions. The proportioning system is developed into household modules, which can be permutated, appropriated, and grown over time by arranging them in various ways. Made with steel, reinforced fiber panels, and patra, they are meticulously designed with proportional sizes, proper ventilation, play of spatial syntax and volumes, ensuring costeffectiveness. Furthermore, the site systems can be configured to create varying degrees of publicness.

Drawings

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A Model for Spatial and Urban Regeneration of Lodging for Healthcare: The Case of CMC Vellore

Posted on September 2, 2025September 17, 2025 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2025Tagged Adequate Housing GM, HOUSING GM, Neighbourhood GM, Residential GM, Urban Design GMLeave a comment

Author: Sakthi Jeeva S
Site Location: Vellore, Tamil Nadu
Institute: CARE School of Architecture
Advisor: Kartikeya Chhaya

Description

Christian Medical College (CMC) in Vellore has been a key driver of the city’s growth and transformation. As one of India’s most prominent medical tourism hubs, it now serves more than 9,000 patients daily. Unlike most hospitals, the majority of users are not locals but people arriving from distant states such as West Bengal, Bihar, as well as countries like Nigeria and Bangladesh. Many of them stay in the city for extended periods—often three to four months—until their treatment is completed.
To meet this rising demand, the neighbourhood directly opposite the hospital has undergone a remarkable yet unplanned transformation. Almost every building has been converted into a lodge, with the ground floors packed with eateries, pharmacies, and travel agencies. The Bengali community, making up nearly 95% of visitors, has also left a strong cultural imprint on food and language.
While this ecosystem is highly adaptive and vibrant, it suffers from poor spatial quality, inadequate infrastructure, and issues of hygiene and comfort. These lodges, shaped by urgent needs and quick fixes, follow a consistent but fragile ownership and functional pattern.
This thesis takes the position that equitability should not only be considered for patients and their families as users, but also for owners whose buildings embody fragmented forms of investment and livelihood. Rather than pursuing demolition and wholesale redevelopment, the project adopts Patrick Geddes’ idea of “conservative surgery”—preserving existing cultural and ownership patterns while carefully introducing architectural upgrades, programmatic changes, and spatial guidelines. By reimagining both built and unbuilt environments, the project aims to evolve fragmented lodges into a resilient, equitable, and supportive urban system around the hospital.

Drawings

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Generative Design for Traditional Communities: From Roots to Resilience

Posted on September 2, 2025September 4, 2025 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2025Tagged Adequate Housing GM, Generative Design GM, HOUSING GM, incremental housing GM, Neighbourhood GM, Participatory Design GM, Participatory Planning GM, Residential GM, resilient architecture GM, Social Design GM, Urban Design GMLeave a comment

Author: Vidulla Ghodekar
Site Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra
Institute: Pillai College of Architecture
Advisor: Neha Sayed

Description

Chimbai is a quaint coastal village nestled in Bandra, Mumbai, home to diverse fishing communities, including Hindu, Kathiawadi and East Indian families. Once characterised by low-rise Koli houses and a close-knit fishing community, it has gradually transformed from single-storey dwellings to a mix of contemporary structures. This shift has altered the traditional fabric of the community and attracted a more diverse population.
In the recent years, the community has begun rebuilding their houses, resulting in haphazard development that lacks any character or identity. Such conditions may draw the attention of the authorities and risk rehabilitation of the community due to high land value.
The generatives design process empowers the community by letting them decide the development process. It supports them in rebuilding their homes through design guidelines that address existing issues while preserving the socio-cultural identity of the village. This process allows residents to develop their houses at their own pace, enabling Chimbai to evolve organically over time. It will also invite people from all walks of life to explore the seafront, its cuisine and culture, thereby boosting the local economy.
This approach presents a model for community-led regeneration in rapidly urbanising cities, where architecture is rooted in people, place and purpose.

Drawings

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Aasara: Threads of Shelter — Weaving Waste into Urban Renewal

Posted on September 2, 2025September 2, 2025 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2025Tagged Adequate Housing GM, incremental housing GM, Neighbourhood GM, Residential GMLeave a comment

Author: S. Aishwarrya Shre
Site Location: Deonar, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Institute: Acharya’s NRV School of Architecture
Advisor: Gracy H David

Description

Aasara is a human-centric design proposal that rethinks slum redevelopment beyond the conventional high-rise resettlements. Rooted in empathy and lived experience, the project draws from the social, cultural, and economic rhythms of informal communities—where the idea of home extends beyond shelter to livelihood, identity, and belonging.
Set within the dense fabric of Mumbai’s informal settlements, Aasara adopts a bottom-up, participatory approach that places people at the heart of the process. It addresses two pressing urban challenges—housing insecurity and solid waste—by upcycling materials like plastic-sand composites and construction debris into resilient, low-cost building components.
The design proposes modular housing clusters built around shaded courtyards to foster community interaction, safety, and microeconomics. Passive climate strategies and shared infrastructure promote comfort and inclusivity. Every detail—material, form, and spatial relationship—emerges from local context and need.
Aasara is not merely a housing solution but a call for systemic change—where architecture becomes a tool of empowerment. It envisions cities where waste is reimagined as opportunity, and the most marginalized are uplifted through dignified, climate-responsive design. Aasara stands as an assertion that true sustainability begins with compassion and context.

Drawings

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AABHAS – A Sense of Home: A Sustainable Model for Migrant Construction Workers

Posted on September 2, 2025September 2, 2025 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2025Tagged Adequate Housing GM, incremental housing GM, Residential GM, Social Design GM1 Comment

Author: Pranjal Prakash Tak
Site Location: Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra
Institute: Rachana Sansad’s Academy of Architecture
Advisor: Ar. Ashley Fialho

Description

They raise our skylines, yet sleep under tarps. Their homes are temporary, their futures uncertain. With no access to stable housing, education, or safe spaces, migrant construction workers and their families remain on the margins-building the nation while being denied a place within it.

This thesis is a response to that silence-a call to rebuild what’s been forgotten. It proposes modular, mobile housing units that are scalable, stackable, and site-adaptable. But it’s more than shelter, it’s an ecosystem that includes classrooms, medical rooms, and women-centric spaces, designed to empower and uplift.

A replicable solution that moves with the workers, grows with them, and offers not just homes, but hope.

This project envisions a future, where the hands that build our cities are finally given a foundation of their own.

Rooted in empathy and inspired by the diverse cultural and religious lives of migrant workers from Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, Odisha and beyond, the prototype re-imagines shelter as a shared ecosystem of identity, safety, and celebration. Co-creation with workers informed both private spaces, which respect family structures and rituals, and common areas like courtyards and street edges, which act as cultural bridges-hosting shared meals, celebrations, and conversations

By centering the needs of those most often ignored-women, children, the displaced-this is not just a model for housing, but a manifesto for justice. This is not just about building better homes. It’s about building a more adaptable and humane society.

Drawings

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In The Search of Light: A Case of Subhash Nagar, Andheri, Mumbai

Posted on September 1, 2025September 2, 2025 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2025Tagged Adequate Housing GM, Neighbourhood GM, Participatory Design GM, Participatory Planning GM, Residential GM, Urban Design GM1 Comment

Author: Akash Kamble
Site Location: Andheri, Mumbai
Institute: IES’s College of Architecture
Advisor: Manasi Chokshi

Description

This approach begins with a simple belief: architecture must serve those who have long been left out of the design conversation. In cities like Mumbai, where nearly half the population lives in informal settlements, these places are often reduced to symbols of neglect or urban disorder. Yet what is often overlooked is the social fabric, resilience, and cultural identity that hold these communities together.
The proposal reimagines redevelopment as an inclusive and respectful process that values people and the strength of their relationships. At its heart is the idea of equity, where every resident receives equal consideration in terms of housing, infrastructure, and shared spaces. Rather than fragmenting the settlement or isolating families, the design seeks to nurture connection within the community and with the wider city.
The process is guided by the ideas of listening, educating, and empowering. By engaging with residents, documenting their lives, and learning from their stories, the design responds to their needs and aspirations while also setting up long-term strategies for self-sustainability.

Drawings

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Rural X Governance Representation of Indigenous through architecture by decoding the Warli ontology

Posted on August 19, 2022October 1, 2022 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2022Tagged Adequate Housing GM, Landscape GM, Mapping GM, Mixed use GM

Author: Jainami Shah
Site Location: Dahanu, Maharashtra
Institute: Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies
Advisor: Jude Dsouza

description

The thesis intends to understand the distinctive identity formed by Indigenous communities by their
interconnected relationships with land and ecology.

Due to rapid urbanization, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) keeps extending its limits to the rurban peripheries. These forces have led to Industrial towns and supporting infrastructure for the metropolis being located on the outskirts of the cities leading to the depletion of the ecologies affecting the indigenous community. The tribal folklore is mainly oral and thus not valued and expressed in planning processes.

As of now the future identity of a landscape is purely hegemonic (ruling or dominant in a political context) and exploited for its resources. Participatory planning with the indigenous ideology can show a new model for a sustainable way of living – building – conserving. The dissertation attempts to address how to design and implement decision-making processes that enhance Indigenous lifeways (instead of gentrifying) and different aspects that would be instrumental in planning, governing, and developing the area.

It criticizes the nature of current development and tries to reimagine rural infrastructure and thus proposes smaller interventions that solves the lack of infrastructure while still preserving the ecology and the traditional way of life by improving the quality of common social spaces for political resistance. Here the thesis looks at the smallest form of governance the Gram Sabha (Pesa act) and how it can be activated. The site chosen for intervention was such that awareness would be activated within their daily routines.

The interventions spanned a series of scales- XS/S/M/L. From micro programmes such as rice mills, seating spaces and small infrastructures, to communal amenities for various activities and gatherings,
village level administrative programmes and festival spaces. The proposal is structured around the
imagination of Architecture as a catalyst managing Indigenous Knowledge through programmes of
dissemination, and expression, awareness building, vocational training and workshops

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Architecture with Uncertainty & Certainty : Change in wetness

Posted on August 19, 2022October 1, 2022 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2022Tagged Adequate Housing GM, Ecological Conservation GM, Ephemeral Architecture GM, Residential GM

Author: Jacob Babu Alappatt
Site Location: Alappuzha, Kerala
Institute: Avani Institute of design
Advisor: Ar. Aditya Nambissan

description

The project tries to reimagine a tropical monsoon architecture of a water landscape (wetlands) by providing the community with the infrastructure it needs and fostering a conversation between land and water to assist people in better adhering and adapting to change.

Are tropical architectural forms bound to evolve or adapt to the shift in wetness, considering architectural uncertainties and certainties related to the change in wetness? How can we develop structures that can assure a safer future by making them impervious to rain and flood?

Architectural design should change to accommodate the needs of the site and the environment by supporting duality in programming. It should be able to adjust to the transient states of the water landscape centered around the demands of the destroyed or missing public. So, the research and study must be located in a region where changing wetness conditions might cause natural disasters that can impact people’s lives and livelihoods. Here the Wetlands in Kuttanad are taken as a broader context, and Kainakary village is the micro context.

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Colonies of Anthropocene

Posted on August 19, 2022October 1, 2022 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2022Tagged Adequate Housing GM, Mixed use GM, Public Space GM, Social Design GM, Urbanism GM

Author: Devayani M
Site Location: Sundarbans
Institute: R V College of Architecture
Advisor: Anup Naik, Mehul Patel, Nagaraj Vastarey, U Seema Maiya

description

This project investigates the need to design a climate resilient and responsive form for the coastal communities in the Sundarbans with the aim of adapting to the devastating effects of climate change.

The site is located in Gosaba Island in Sundarbans which falls under the moderate to high risk zone. This island is constantly threatened by coastal erosion, environmental degradation and salt water inundation due to flooding thereby causing loss of livelihood.

The master-plan is developed to be implemented in a phased manner over the next 30 years. The
plan envisages responding to the identified natural conditions of the site and developing the design that proposes to selectively allow water flow through the site to create wetlands, and a natural mangrove buffer zone to mitigate the effects of floods and storm surges. The aim of the project is to create a prototype built form that is inspired by the local livelihood practices, skills and local typologies of construction. The design focuses on creating modular flood and storm resilient structures using bamboo as the primary building material. The buildings are raised on stilts and strategically located around the landscape and connected by elevated walkways to protect from the floods and harsh winds. The structure has modular components that can be easily customised to needs of the user.

The project is a response to the impending disaster that the people of Sundarbans have to face. Through symbiotically fusing the built environment within a natural ecology, the architecture is designed to positively sustain the landscape and its people.

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Designing a Social Housing in Vadodara

Posted on September 3, 2021August 11, 2022 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2021Tagged Adequate Housing GM, Neighbourhood GM, Residential GM

Author: Kairavi Gandhi
Site Location: Squirrel Circle, Vadodara
Institute: SEDA, Navrachna University
Advisor: Pratyush Shankar

description

The project aims to design a better living environment and to bring social communities instead of individual living in an affordable housing. The nuclei of the proposed intervention are based on the idea of the coexistence of collective and private.

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Reinterpreting Communal Spaces In Neighbourhood Development for Community Living

Posted on September 3, 2021August 11, 2022 Posted in Charles Correa Gold Medal 2021Tagged Adequate Housing GM, Neighbourhood GM, Residential GM, Social Design GM

Author: Shreya Manoj Sulgekar
Site Location: Venketeshwar Nagar, Hubli, Karnataka
Institute: KLS Gogte Institute of Technology, Belagavi
Advisor: Ar. Amit V Prasadi

description

The project looks at how we could reinterpret the spaces in built and unbuilt forms with new ideas and characteristics that enhance communal living.

In the context of India’s rapidly urbanisation, there has been a wide negligence on communal spaces in contemporary housing neighbourhoods. ‘Communitiy’ came from familiarity around families and neighbours, familiar places, a daily rhythm, social systems and customs that people understood. Now with emigration and greater physical and social mobility, many of the people find themselves in places far from home, living in communities defined not by common acquaintance, knowledge and culture, but by geography or economics. This loss of defined communal spaces has also diminished the feeling of belonging and privacy.

By creating spaces where all members of the community can engage naturally and get to know one another, communities can become places where people live together, care about one another and share hope. The project looks at how the development of communal spaces in residential complexes creates social stability and a sustainable way of life in a community.

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Charles Correa Foundation

Tag: Adequate Housing GM

A Model for Spatial and Urban Regeneration of Lodging for Healthcare: The Case of CMC Vellore

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Drawings

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Aasara: Threads of Shelter — Weaving Waste into Urban Renewal

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Drawings

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In The Search of Light: A Case of Subhash Nagar, Andheri, Mumbai

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Drawings

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Rural X Governance Representation of Indigenous through architecture by decoding the Warli ontology

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Architecture with Uncertainty & Certainty : Change in wetness

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Designing a Social Housing in Vadodara

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