Each unit, of 51m2, consists of three rooms, a bath and water closet, and a cooking alcove. Light and ventilation are provided through perforations in end-walls and the tunneling effect created by the roof shape.

Designed to accommodate migrants in the city, this scheme uses a thin concrete shell roof system built using steel rods, hessian and chicken-mesh. While saving costs, the roof also acts as a type of prohibition—an architectural control—designed to discourage what the architect has claimed would be ‘unplanned’ additions to the building, while retaining a low-cost design aesthetic. The brick-and-concrete structures resemble, in words of a critic,1 ‘the tent structures of nomads’.

  • 1. Chatterjee, Malay. "III. 1975-1985: On Our Own, the Evolution of Contemporary Indian Architecture." In Architecture In India, 154-172. Catalogue of exhibition held at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, 1985-86. Paris and Milan: Electa Moniteur, 1985.