There is another reality to be faced in Mumbai, a fast-paced city where skyscrapers dominate the skyline and luxurious apartments command exorbitant prices: the city’s huge slums, where millions of people live in claustrophobic, unfit conditions.
One of the world’s most densely populated residential regions is Dharavi, the notorious slum. It covers 2.39 square kilometres. This place unites people and things as a hub for small-scale production and recycling in addition to being a residential neighbourhood. This Mumbai slum serves as a stark reminder of the wide economic divide in the city due to its cramped living quarters, poor sanitation, and restricted access to basic commodities.
Project Overview
Design solutions that put sustainability, affordability, and community involvement first have been the focus of GA Designs’ commitment to solving these problems. In Mumbai’s overcrowded Dharavi slums, the shipping container skyscraper was intended to provide temporary housing.
The proposed shipping container skyscraper exemplifies a commitment to innovation and socially conscious design. Standing tall amidst Mumbai’s skyline, the skyscraper is envisioned as a vertical community that will provide cheap housing solutions to slum people while simultaneously promoting social cohesion and economic development.
Concept
The robustness and adaptability of shipping containers—which are recycled and stacked to create modular living spaces—serve as inspiration for the design concept. The skyscraper offers people a high standard of living while simultaneously reducing its influence on the environment owing to its shared areas, green areas, and sustainable technologies.
Houses are made up of one or more units joined end to end to form a complicated, extremely dense linear mass. The roadways, which are often only 4 feet wide, act as the settlement’s arteries, supplying light and ventilation to each of the units, which are constructed from plywood planks fastened together or repurposed tin.
Design and Construction Process
The skyscraper’s design was monumental and needed meticulous planning and organization. The shipping container skyscraper was conceptualized collaboratively by architects, engineers, and members of the local community. The design process has methodically addressed issues like as structural integrity, ventilation, and natural lighting, ensuring that the skyscraper fits its residents’ needs while conforming to strict safety and regulatory norms. Every stage of the process, from material sourcing to onsite assembly, has been guided by sustainability and efficiency principles, with an emphasis on waste minimization and resource usage.
Ten levels of containers can be stacked without the need for additional support. Adding extra columns or beams is less expensive because the steel skin alone carries the weight, similar to a “Monocoque” construction. A 100 M tall high-rise structure, or around 32 stories, must be designed using portal frames linked by steel girders spaced every eight floors. These girders support each eight-story self-supporting stack, with the module repeating upward.
Basic bolted connections allow for rapid and easy assembly. Horizontal staggered units maximize the quantity of natural light that reaches their surfaces. To produce electricity, tiny wind turbines and solar panels are also mounted on the west and south elevations of the building.
Feasibility and Sustainability
An affordable housing experiment that provides a less expensive option to conventional construction methods and promotes sustainability. By repurposing the containers that can be reclaimed from Mumbai’s ports, the architects were able to cut building costs while limiting environmental impact, demonstrating the viability of inventive and sustainable design solutions to urban housing difficulties.
The building’s open corridors are lined with screens made from recycled, locally produced Terracotta bricks. Bolted connections provide rapid and easy assembly. Horizontally spaced units maximize the quantity of natural sunlight that reaches each surface. South and west elevations of the building are outfitted with small wind turbines and solar panels for energy generation.
The shipping container skyscraper’s sustainability solutions include communal gardens, water recycling, and energy-efficient technologies, help to ensure its long-term profitability. Moreover, the initiative can enhance communities, reduce poverty, and promote social integration by offering low-cost housing alternatives to slum inhabitants.
Potential Impact
Beyond its physical presence in Mumbai’s skyline, the shipping container skyscraper has far-reaching potential effects. The initiative can improve lives by giving slum inhabitants access to decent housing and by establishing avenues for education, career progression, and upward mobility. In addition, the shipping container skyscraper represents possibilities and inspires the next generation of architects and urban planners to tackle urbanization-related issues thoughtfully and imaginatively.
Challenges and Future Considerations
The shipping container skyscraper presents several difficulties even if it is a significant start in the right direction toward resolving Mumbai’s housing crisis. A few of the difficulties that need to be overcome to guarantee the project’s success are financial constraints, societal opposition, and regulatory obstacles. The architectural team behind the design is committed to realizing its goal of creating a more equitable and sustainable city. They are currently exploring ways to get beyond these challenges and take the project to other cities with comparable housing shortages.
The shipping container skyscraper offers hope in a city of extreme contrasts, where massive slums coexist with tall skyscrapers. By combining innovative design and social purpose. As building advances and residents move into their new homes, the skyscraper will serve as a tribute to architecture’s transforming potential, as well as a beacon of hope for communities around the world facing urbanization difficulties.
Reference list:
The Intersection of Sustainability and Architecture
https://illustrarch.com/articles/15088-the-intersection-of-sustainability-and-architecture.html#google_vignette
The New Aesthetic: Technology & Sustainability in Architecture
https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/narratives/a10105-the-new-aesthetic-technology-sustainability-in-architecture/
The Intersection of Innovation and Sustainability in Architecture and Building Design
https://medium.com/@apsotech1/the-intersection-of-innovation-and-sustainability-in-architecture-and-building-design-922db31f4aba
