Update

A competition-winning project at Champigny-sur-Marne more

A selection of writings focussed on the unplanned informal settlements in Mumbai searches for alternative solutions in the practice of tradition urbanism.

Editor Javier Pioz proposes that in Mumbai, “there is no claim made for architects to intervene. In these startling urban configurations, there is little sense in applying the basic academic concepts of order, harmony, beauty and functionality. But in their own way these ‘sub cities’ hold beauty, proportion, harmony and, finally their own ‘home made’ orderliness. So the question remains: How could any architect intervene in these areas?”

Essays tackle subjects ranging from ‘Mumbai seen for the inside’ to ‘What kind of architecture can be designed in a place where there is no place to design architecture?’, while published projects include Mapping the slums, Walking on the pipes of Mumbai, and The pottery space and Mumbai bio units. In these projects the city is envisaged from the point of view of it inhabitants rather than purely from its forms, along with the articles, they serve to promote the legitimisation of spontaneous urbanism, able to create a set of rules flexible enough to modify, revise and adjust themselves to a continuum of ever changing circumstances.

Mumbai Recycled. Re-envisioning the slum
Rosa Cervera, Janvier Pioz (eds.)
Universidad de Alcalá, 290pp, £16

Applications open for the English Heritage Angel Awards, for the best craftsmanship employed on a heritage rescue project.

The English Heritage Angel Awards is seeking exceptional craftsmanship on heritage rescue projects more

Houses designed by architects feature in a new book.

The greatest challenge in designing homes is negotiating the delicate balance between aesthetics and the personal desires of the occupants suggests Gennaro Postiglione, who notes that ‘it is particularly interesting, therefore, to examine the homes that architects create for themselves. If houses reflect their owners’ personalities, then architects’ own homes are like autobiographies. Location, layout, style, lighting, artwork, and furnishings – every detail adds colour to the story.’ The book features houses by Günther Domenig, Jean Prouvé and Le Corbusier among others. Each dwelling gives an insight abouts its designer perhaps unseen in other works.

The Architect’s Home
Gennaro Postiglione
Taschen, 480pp, £28

Basket Apartments by OFIS Arhitekti occupies a 200-metre-long by 11-metre-wide site on the edge of Parc La Villette in Paris’ nineteenth arrondissement. Comprising student apartments for major social housing provider RIVP, the ten-storey development is divided into two blocks on either side of a garden, connected by a narrow bridge. The ground floor houses communal facilities, while the upper floors are given over to 192 studio flats, each comprising a bathroom, wardrobe, kitchenette, working space, bed and balcony.

Addressing Rue des Petits Ponts, The front elevation is charactersied by randomly oriented and different-sized ‘balcony-baskets’, clad with horizontal high-pressure-laminated timber. The shifting baskets are designed to create a dynamic surface, while also reducing the apparent scale of the scheme. Articulating the rear elevation and providing access to the studio apartments are semi-enclosed walkways clad with a three-dimensional steel mesh.

Environmental features include high levels of insulation, 300 square metres of photovoltaic panels and rainwater harvesting.

phs: Tomaz Gregoric