Transitions and Transformations in Housing and Habitats in India
The ISTP Senior Researcher Dr. Jennifer Duyne Barenstein, lecturer and coordinator of the MAS ETH in Housing organised a seminar week in Gujarat India in partnership with Hunnarshala Foundation.
What happens to rural and urban habitats when societies, institutions, culture, economy, the environment and people undergo rapid transformations? How do all these transformations affect rural and urban habitats?
The remote but rapidly modernising district of Kutch in the Indian State of Gujarat offered an interesting place to reflect upon these questions and to learn about old and new housing strategies and challenges of different ethnic groups in both urban and rural contexts.
Seminar Week in India
Visit upgraded informal settlement in Bhuj Meeting with Community Based Organisation in Bhuj Guided tour at Hunnarshala Campus Workshop at Hunnarshala Lecture by Dr. V.Thiruppugazh, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)
Lecture by Sushma Iyengar, Abhiyan Lecure by Sandeep Virmani, Hunnarshala
The seminar week, co-organised with external page Hunnarshala Foundation was held in the city of Bhuj with visits in surrounding areas and offered participants the opportunity to learn how different communities, including nomads, migrants and people displaced by disasters, with or without the support of the government of India, municipal authorities, NGOs and civil society organisations are coping with their housing needs in normal times and in times of disasters. The participants were introduced to these topics through lectures by senior Indian experts, field visits and meetings with various communities (e.g. migrant labourers, slum dwellers, farmers, nomadic camel herders, weavers and block printers), and through the active engagement in a two-days charrette during which they developed affordable housing solutions for homeless migrant construction labourers.
Find more information about the MAS ETH in Housing.