A group of young Architect have come forth with a proposal of new ways of solving the problems of the poor in the modern process of urbanisation.

The architects who called on the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on Tuesday the 12th, have suggested a dialogue between the slum dwellers and the designers. Such a dialogue is totally Missing today, the architects pointed out. They also expressed their concern over the deteriorating physical and social environments caused by the insensitive handling of massive housing projects for the poor. Slum dwellers generally have an identifiable and cohesive community life which tends to be overlooked by the administrators of these projects. This results in increase of social tensions in such colonies and takes away from the poor their most valuable asset—the collective spirit. Among the architects who met Mrs. Gandhi were the winners of the Low-Cost Housing competitions including H.D. Chyya, Satish Debral, Narendra Dengle, M.N. Ganju, Vinod Gupta, Vasant Kamat, Romi Khosla.

Mrs. Gandhi remarked that it was the first time that she had found architects being concerned about the social and physical quality of the environment of the poor in urban and rural areas. She welcomed the suggestions.

Patriot-13/8/75

78-G. Sujan Singh Park. New Delhi-3

Re: Memorandum submitted by young architects to the Prime Minister Smt. Indra Gandhi on 12th August, 1975

From: Romi Khosla

To: Mr. Salman Haidar.

Further to our discussion held yesterday, and in the light of a search for a better way to rehouse slum dwellers, we offer below our proposals for “follow up action”.

There were seven architects who saw the P.M. on Tuesday and after my discussion with you we seven met to discuss how the pilot schemes should work.

  1. We feel that there should be four schemes given to us which consist of tackling the problems of four distinct committees in Delhi. The minimum number of dwellings in each scheme should be 400 together with ancillary facilities required for community life and livelihood. We feel that these four schemes will provide a comparative basis of evolving a strategy to cope with different community rehousing problems.
  2. All seven architects who will divide the four schemes amongst themselves will evolve a common strategy which will be submitted to the authorities for their final O.K. before launching into the design and implementation.
  3. Immediately a joint discussion between the seven architects and the DDA/Corporation to locate key problem areas and priorities on the basic of which the four schemes will be selected and approved by the authorities.
  4. The authorities should indicate the land to be used, the overall masterplan implications and the financial constraints. The architects will work out the detailed strategy, the investigation of the social problems, the method of dialogue with the slum dwellers and the nature of the solutions.

A group of young Architects have come forth with a proposal of new ways of solving the problems of the poor in the modern process of urbanisation.

The Architects who called on the Prime Minister Indian Gandhi on Tuesday the 12th have suggested a dialogue between the slum dwellers and the designers. Such a dialogue is totally Missing today, the architects pointed out. They also expressed their concern over the deteriorating physical and social environments caused by the insensitive handling of massive housing projects for the poor. Slum dwellers generally have an identifiable and cohesive community life which tends to be overlooked by the administrators of these projects. This results in increase of social tensions in such colonies and takes away from the poor their most valuable asset—the collective spirit. Among the architects who met Mrs. Gandhi were the winners of the Low-Cost Housing competitions including H.D. Chayya, Satish Dabral, Narendra Dengle, M.N. Ganju, Vinod Gupta, Vasant Kamat, Romi Khosla.

Mrs. Gandhi remarked that it was the first time that she had found architects being concerned about the social and physical quality of the environment of the poor in urban and rural areas. She welcomed the suggestions.

sd./
H.D. Chhaya, Satish Dabral , Vinod Gupta, Vasant Kamath, Romi Khosla. and Narendra Dengle, M.N. Ganju

We are socially committed young architects and planners and we fully support the 20 point economic programme announced by you. We support in particular point (3) which aims at stepping up provision for house sites for the landless and weaker section and point (11) which declares the intention of socialisation of urban and urbanisable land, ceiling on ownership and possession of vacant land and an plinth areas of new dwelling units.

We believe that if we care to have a healthy urban society, we must socialize all urban land and set up new planning bodies that have representation from amongst common people. We say this because we are aware of the elitist manner in which town planing and implementation is carried out in the west. This has resulted in an alienation of people from their environment.

We have grave reservations about the manner in which town planning decisions are being implemented in India without any dialogue between the urban and rural poor on one side and the bureaucratic authorities on the other. We are disturbed, for instance, about the manner in which slum clearance work is being handled in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi. We feel that a trend has been firmly established where the housing authorities have taken upon themselves so much work that no dialogue is being held with the slum dweller, no individual attention is being paid to the variety of communities, no attention is being paid to general environmental factors and no attention is being paid to the creative aspects of making human habitations enjoyable places to live. We are fully aware that there is an urgent need for a vast amount of low-cost housing in rural and urban area and that the existing authorities are trying hard to cope with the situation. However, in fulfilling numerical housing targets they have ignored social and environmental questions and have instead standardized the house and the approach regardless of who the slum dwellers happen to be.

We young architects offer our services to help change the way in which mass housing can be realized. We offer below our concrete proposals. That we have the necessary competence and commitment is demonstrated by the fact that we, amongst us here, have won 5 prizes in all India low cost housing competitions yet none of these schemes has been implemented thus denying us the opportunity for which we have been aspiring. We are, all of us, currently without any significant work and we believe that the new economic programme can offer us the opportunities for which we have been waiting for so long. We have, unlike many of our prosperous colleagues refused to go to work in Iran and West Asia for large fees because we have decided to here and help radically after the existing patterns of urban development which have so far catered to the elite. We have spent considerable time and energy studying the problem of law cost housing from both technical and social aspects and we are looking forward now to the opportunity that the economic programme has given us. There is plenty of work to involve young architects committed to this field.

We submit to you our proposals:

  1. The responsibility of existing Housing and Slum clearance Board should be restricted to the implementing housing schemes. However the responsibility of assessing the needs of the Slum and landless labourers should be given to young architects who and landless labourers should be given to young architects who are willing to hold dialogue with the slum dwellers and rural labourers. Taking account of the financial limits set by the authorities, the young architects should be free to create the type of designs and environments that they feel are suitable for different types of communities. The authorities should not dictate to the architect the assumed needs of the poor community. This is the only way in which it is possible to ensure an infinite vanity in the housing schemes being carried out all over, the country. At present, over worked housing boards and engineers are standardizing designs and environments and there is a grave danger that the slums of the future are being built today. Existing slum dwellers and landless labourers living in identifiable communities must not be rehoused in a haphazard manner on the periphery of the city as is happening in Delhi and other places. Young architects should be involved by the authorities at an early stage of the rehousing programme and they should be given the responsibility of drawing up the programme of housing that will ensure moving these communities in an intact manner.
  2. With the new emphasis given on housing in your economic programme, there is a need to reassess all master plans for cities that have already been drawn up. A national committee should be set up which should consist of the authorities, sociologists, social workers with slum and rural experience and young architects. This committee should undertake the following functions:
    1. Assess the work of low-cost work in urban and rural areas that has so far been carried out in all states.
    2. Establish a national framework with in which new planning bodies can be set up in the stage. These bodies should have representation from the authorities slum dwellers and committed young architects.
    3. Establish a national framework with in which housing programmes can be combined with employment and other community facilities.
    4. Establish a patten by which young architects committed to low-cost housing and government service, can be deeply involved in a mass housing programme for the whole country at rural at rural and urban levels.
    5. Reexamine all existing master plans suggest ways charges them to serve the needs of common people add not the urban elite.