1. Introduction
“Slums are litmus tests for innate cultural strengths and weaknesses. Those people whose cultures can harbor extensive slum life without decomposing will be, relatively speaking, the future’s winners. Those whose cultures cannot will be the future’s victims.” (Kaplan, 1994)
One of the biggest challenges that India has to face today is the augmented urbanisation as a result of the economic liberalisation. Close to 16 crore people have moved to cities in the past 20 years, and another 20 crore are projected to migrate within the next 20 years (McKinsey & Company, 2010). But the coping up with this population influx has been a huge struggle for our cities. Our infrastructure is immensely over-strained. As a result, the informal …show more content…
There ought to be various inferences one can draw from the frugal lives of the slums and its dwellers.
2. Lessons learnt from the idea of frugality in Slums
The amount of learnings one can deduce from these dwellings are enormous, given the fact, they are considered problems to begin with. One should try to understand that these dwellings are homes to the people comprising the base of the economic Pyramid, and on this sound foundation rests the entire economic development cycle. Prof. Akhtar Chauhan, published an article in the book “Minimal Space – Minimal Housing” by Prof. Peter Schreibmayer and Johann Grabner in 1996, in which he talked about the various lessons one can learn from slums. (Chauhan, et al., 1996)
To begin with, this is the Architecture of Survival. It is not something anyone wants, but what they need to survive. With limited resources, it eventually boils down to their courage for survival that they are able to come up with such innovative solutions to problems at the face of adversity.
Use of scrap as building …show more content…
Also called the solar bottle bulb, it was developed by Alfredo Moser. It is installed on the roofs of households which refracts sunlight in order to light up the interiors of the room. The innovation lies in the utilisation of cheap, readily available and durable materials to generate natural lighting that will enable the slum dwellers to access affordable and environmentally friendly long-term alternative to electric light for use during the day. (Myshelter Foundation,
“Slums are litmus tests for innate cultural strengths and weaknesses. Those people whose cultures can harbor extensive slum life without decomposing will be, relatively speaking, the future’s winners. Those whose cultures cannot will be the future’s victims.” (Kaplan, 1994)
One of the biggest challenges that India has to face today is the augmented urbanisation as a result of the economic liberalisation. Close to 16 crore people have moved to cities in the past 20 years, and another 20 crore are projected to migrate within the next 20 years (McKinsey & Company, 2010). But the coping up with this population influx has been a huge struggle for our cities. Our infrastructure is immensely over-strained. As a result, the informal …show more content…
There ought to be various inferences one can draw from the frugal lives of the slums and its dwellers.
2. Lessons learnt from the idea of frugality in Slums
The amount of learnings one can deduce from these dwellings are enormous, given the fact, they are considered problems to begin with. One should try to understand that these dwellings are homes to the people comprising the base of the economic Pyramid, and on this sound foundation rests the entire economic development cycle. Prof. Akhtar Chauhan, published an article in the book “Minimal Space – Minimal Housing” by Prof. Peter Schreibmayer and Johann Grabner in 1996, in which he talked about the various lessons one can learn from slums. (Chauhan, et al., 1996)
To begin with, this is the Architecture of Survival. It is not something anyone wants, but what they need to survive. With limited resources, it eventually boils down to their courage for survival that they are able to come up with such innovative solutions to problems at the face of adversity.
Use of scrap as building …show more content…
Also called the solar bottle bulb, it was developed by Alfredo Moser. It is installed on the roofs of households which refracts sunlight in order to light up the interiors of the room. The innovation lies in the utilisation of cheap, readily available and durable materials to generate natural lighting that will enable the slum dwellers to access affordable and environmentally friendly long-term alternative to electric light for use during the day. (Myshelter Foundation,