NAi matchmaking in Mumbai

Last week in Mumbai, five Dutch and five Indian architecture firms collaborated on a joint design proposal during a workshop as part of the Matchmaking Programme organized by the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi). In a four-day session, the ten architectural practices investigated future scenarios for a housing development on a test site in the heart of Mumbai owned by Indian real estate development company TATA Housing.

Architecture of Consequence

Mumbai has over 20 million inhabitants. Estimates say that its population will exceed 25 million by 2020, making it the largest city in the world. A city, incidentally, where 50 per cent of the population lives in make-shift shacks in the slums. The premise of the Matchmaking Programme was to examine these ‘relevant urban planning issues of social urgency’. At the first meeting, NAI director Ole Bouman accordingly urged the international group of architects ‘not to create icons, but to strive to demonstrate architecture’s added value to society through a problem-solving attitude’. A viewpoint that fits in with the outlook championed by the NAi, the Architecture of Consequence, an impassioned philosophy with which the participating architects were in complete agreement.

While expanding the network of Dutch architecture in India is certainly one of the objectives of the Matchmaking Programme, a free exchange of knowledge and experience is equally important. In addition, the mix of Dutch and Indian architects taking on a project for a local developer contributes to the broadening and regeneration of international architecture practice.

Social housing expertise

The NAI Matchmaking Programme admittedly has a direct link to the unfavourable economic situation in the Netherlands and the lack of employment for architects. The choice of India – as well as China in an earlier session – was no accident; these are countries with strong economic growth and fast growing populations: in the coming years, millions of new residential projects will need to be built in these emerging economies to fulfil the enormous housing need. In this context, there will be strong demand for talented architects who can produce high-quality work. The Netherlands, after all, has a reputation to uphold when it comes to well-designed (social) housing and the Matchmaking projects draw upon this unique Dutch expertise. ‘But,’ Bouman insists, ‘the architects from the two countries work on a basis of equality.’

Workshop

During the workshop, the ten architecture firms split into five teams – each pairing a Dutch firm with an Indian firm – to address the redevelopment of the walled TATA Housing residential complex. At the conclusion of the four-day session held at the Dutch Design Workspace India, different scenarios were presented, focusing on various themes like sustainability, mobility and adaptation into the existing city street plan. TATA Housing has pledged to study these various redevelopment scenarios in further detail.

In 2010 the NAI organized a similar Matchmaking Programme in China, the results of which exceeded expectations. The five Dutch and five Chinese architects formulated a joint master plan, each designing a residential block on a site in the north of Beijing made available by VANKE, one of the biggest project developers in China. The construction of these complexes is in progress.

Dutch architects participating in the NAI Matchmaking session in Mumbai:

KuiperCompagnons

Dick van Gameren Architecten

VenhoevenCS

ANA Architecten

DUS Architects

Indian architects:

Architecture Brio

MO-OF Architects

HCP Design & Project Management

RMA Architects

The Design Cell of Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA)

This report from he Matchmaking by NAI and Tata Housing is part 2 of a series from Mumbai.

• Part 1 covered the opening of the Dutch Design Workspace, 
• Part 3 covers the Base of the Pyramid-seminar.