Mapping typologies and Urban Solutions in Historic Mumbai

During the spring semester of 2020, ten fourth-year studio students at Notre Dame University’s School of Architecture traveled to Mumbai, India, to map the architectural language and urban layouts of buildings and creations of space in the historic part of the city, notably in the Northern Fort area, Ballard Estate, Bora Bazaar, and Crawford Market. The students reviewed traditional layouts of housing and referenced these to envision a new township on the eastern waterfront, specifically for the Darukhana community, which is one of five new development sites destined to be part of the Eastern Waterfront Development of Mumbai. The students also met with local community members and architects to study the character, typology, and style of the city’s traditional urban architecture and worked with the local development team of the Mumbai Port Trust to create design layouts. Their work covered the master planning of the site, plus a variety of configurations for multi-family housing with additional commercial/mixed-use designs. In addition, the students explored executable solutions, working hand in hand with architects responsible for new designs in the area. All these outputs of their work were compiled in a single report, which was submitted to the official architects of the project and the Mumbai Port Trust team for future reference as the actual site gets developed.

This research project was sponsored by the Education Programme of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.

Krusche, Krupali, editor. Darukhana Masterplan Development. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2020.

University of Notre Dame