I watched a movie called ‘Dharavi – a slum for sale‘ during the Jugaad Urbanism event in New York. The movie was directed by a Swiss director who had been making trips to India for a few years and decided to make a film on Dharavi. It was well directed, the characters were well developed and I empathized deeply with the residents of Dharavi. The movie talks about an ambitious project that the US trained architect Mukesh Mehta planned to launch. It dealt with public private partnerships and radical makeover of Dharavi. A number of stakeholders were involved but the project was being carried forward with little insight into the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of Dharavi. A lot of families were at a risk of being evicted as billions of dollars would be made as the flats in this prime property would have been sold off to the highest bidders. The project proposed for Dharavi did not take off because of oncoming elections and public pressure. The movie ends with a looming question about the future of Dharavi and its inhabitants.

This article, however, is not about the project that was supposed to change this slum into a skyscraper city by razing everything to the ground. Its about the $300 house, a dramatically different but an equally bizarre option. Vijay Govindrajan of Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business with Christian Sarkar, marketing expert issued a challenge in the Harvard Business Review blog to come up with a house for the poor. As per an article in the Economist – They laid down a few simple guidelines. The houses should be built of mass-produced materials tough enough to protect their inhabitants from a hostile world. They should be equipped with the basics of civilized life, including water filters and solar panels. They should be “improvable”, so that families can adapt them to their needs. And they should cost no more than $300. A $300 house since Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank had once calculated, that the average value of the houses of people who have just escaped poverty is $370.

The idea seems like a good one given the fact that there are numerous examples of reverse and frugal innovation making rounds in the social entrepreneurship circles. Tata’s one lakh car being one and GE’s $400 electrocardiogram being another example. One could say houses are different though, since they are fixed in one place and warrant strong community, neighbors, light, ventilation, sanitation and adequate space to make them comfortable. Older houses carry a sense of history, memories, and air of the past. Houses also carry the signature of the owner and the place if there is the use of local materials and craftsmanship in their building process.

Why should the $300 house work then? According to this article which is a response to the NYtimes article by Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava, the $300 house is not just a clever shack, but answers a number of complex questions. These issues include financing, energy and infrastructure and investment etc. There are some interesting ideas like alternative energy and use of available technology that are being kept in mind. However, the idea does fall flat on its face as far as preservation of the community is concerned. Advising a community on how they can build their own houses versus using them as a test subjects for a prefabricated house are two different things. Introducing township amenities such as shopping, retail areas and commercial office spaces cannot replace the microcosm of businesses that thrive within slums. Slums like Dharavi have rich industries in textiles, pottery and printing where a huge number of products are exported to western countries. Some of the houses are passed down through generations and the urban landscape in not a grid of similar looking houses but a organic mesh of community, people, businesses and social life. One wonders how ‘one house fits all’ approach would respond to an environment like that.

The problem is not just a issue in developing nations. Public housing and transformation plans have failed again and again in the US. Cabrini Green Projects in Chicago is a good example of an ambitious idea gone very wrong. The trend towards mixed income, low rise housing has shown more success rate so the $300 house might be the solution the slums of the world were looking for. However its tough to forget an interesting story that I read in the Knowledge Wharton blog – the Tamil Nadu government built low income housing for milkmen who were squatters and without housing. Once the houses were ready and the milkmen moved in, they came to a realization that the buffaloes gave a lot more milk when they were housed in the quarters and were cosy and comfortable which meant that the milkmen went back to being homeless and the buffaloes lived in the low income housing. Not the scenario the government had envisioned while cutting the ribbon on this not so cheap housing project.

That said, there are millions of people in India living under the poverty line with very little access to safe and secure housing solutions. Some slums have better living conditions, communities and business versus others. The time is right to rethink low income housing in India but I wish it wasn’t as cut and dry as Mukesh Mehta’s high rises and Vijay Govindrajan’s one house fits all solution. Sanitation, running water, security are human rights that should not be denied to any one irrespective of their financial status. The poor should be able to vote on what works for them, where they want to live and how they want to run their businesses. Ideas generated in ivy league schools for the poor, should be a way to open a dialogue with them. Prefabricated housing has a eerie postwar, disaster relief, apocalyptic ring to it, I am sure the brilliant minds in Dartmouth and other architecture and business schools can do better by using community input, local resources and a deep insight into the history and habits of people they are addressing.

More Links on the topic

Hands off our houses in the NY times

Vijay Govindrajan’s video about the $300 house

The winners for the $300 house contest

The $300 house website

Additional post describing the $300 house

India’s poverty line is sometimes called the ‘starvation line’ since this income based poverty line considers the bare minimum income to provide food and does not account for education and healthcare. An income of less than a dollar per person per day is defined as extreme poverty internationally. By that estimate, 40% of the Indians are considered below the poverty line.

Below Poverty Line is an economic benchmark and poverty threshold used by the government of India to indicate economic disadvantage and to identify individuals and households in need of government assistance and aid. [via wikipedia]. Based on the parameters set by the Central government, the BPL card defines the poorest of the poor in the country, identifies them and makes them eligible for the the benefits  announced by the Central and State agencies.

This BPL Census 2011 for rural areas will start this month in some states. The government had come under criticism for the actual design of the census after the 2002 census. The 2002 questionnaire included questions on the number of meals one ate each day and the number of saris owned: you got into the BPL category only if you ate a meal once a day, or owned one sari. These questions have now been removed.

A complete analysis done by the National Family Health Survey of 2005/2006 had showed that BPL cards were issued to large sections of people who were actually not that poor. The cards were distributed by a company called Comet Technologies which was outsourced the task of BPL distribution in 2006. By 2011, the financial burden on the government increased by Rs 80 crores to Rs 100 crore a month since 44 percent of the total 60 million BPL cards are with households that did not need them.

The 2002 BPL questionnaire had 13 questions, each with a score of 0-4. The total score ranged from 0 to 52 with 0 denoting the most poor. The 2011 questionnaire has only seven questions. It has a 0-7 score, with seven denoting the most poor. This years questionnaire also includes an automatic inclusion and exclusion category along with the ranking criteria.

Excerpts from the article in ‘The Hindu’ by Brinda Karat that explains the uselessness of the exclusion and inclusion criteria to ascertain poverty in order to be eligible for a BPL card.

Exclusion criteria

“The list “automatically excludes peasants with 2.5 acres of irrigated land who own a tubewell.” With hugely fluctuating incomes, large debt burdens on poor peasant households, vagaries of the weather, droughts or floods, such automatic exclusion would amount to meting out grave injustice to a large section of rural India “ [ Increasing number of farmer suicides in India are a stark depiction of this fact]

“Another questionable exclusion is that of a household with “a non-agricultural enterprise registered with the government.” Even micro-enterprises run by women’s self-help groups, for example, are registered with the government. So are many others, and why should they be automatically excluded?”

Inclusion criteria

“Destitute people have been defined as those living on alms: they will be in the automatic inclusion list. But if, for example, a family of two senior citizens who are forced to work, say, four or five days a month just to survive, they will not be included as destitute as they do not “beg.”

“Others include “households without shelter, manual scavengers, primitive tribal groups, legally released bonded labourers.” Presumably, if the worker has run away from bondage he or she is not legally released and therefore does not deserve automatic inclusion.”

“Social categories such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the disabled, widows, and casual manual workers are not automatically included.

Ranking

With such a narrow set of automatic inclusion criteria being applied, the large mass of the rural poor will be marked poor or non-poor through a ranking system. The questions are odd and have little connection with actual conditions. Suppose you are a tribal family of five members — Mina Usendi, aged 35, her mother aged 58, a 17-year-old boy and two polio-affected girls; owning half a bigha of agricultural land but doing manual work to survive. How would you be marked in the seven-point questionnaire that would make you eligible or ineligible for a BPL card?

Question 1: “Houses with one room with kutcha walls and roof.” Since within the small plot of land that you own, you have erected a kutcha house with a kutcha roof with two small rooms (not one), on the first question you will score zero.

Question 2: “Household with no adult member between age 16 to 59.” Since you are 35 years old and therefore an adult, on the second question also you score zero.

Question 3: “Female headed family with no adult male member between age 16 to 59.” Although you are a woman, and you head your family, since your eldest child is a 17-year-old boy, you will get a zero rank.

Question 4: “Household with any disabled member and no able bodied member.” You have two children who are disabled, affected by polio. But since you are able-bodied you get zero on this question.

Question 5: “SC/ST households.” Since you are a tribal, you will get the score one on this marker.

Question 6: “Households with no literate adult above 25 years.” Since you are 35 years old and have studied up to Class 4, you are literate and therefore will again get a zero.

Question 7: “Landless households deriving the major part of their income from manual casual labour.” Since you own half a bigha of land, even if it is dry and unproductive, even though you work from morning to night as a casual manual worker, you will still get a zero.

Therefore, someone like Mina Usendi, a tribal woman heading a family, who depends on casual manual labour to survive, will get just one point on a score of seven.

This is just one example of how the method of ranking and also the questionnaire are bound to ensure that only a small percentage of the poor can score the highest or near-highest marks. It is like trying to distinguish between the ‘poor,’ ‘very poor,’ ‘very very poor,’ ‘extremely poor,’ and so on. This is the classic manner in which neoliberal policymakers make poverty “disappear.” You are no longer poor, because you are not as poor as the poorest of the poor!

This a two fold mess to clean. One revolves around making sure that eligible people get the card and bribery is curbed, and the other one deals with making sure that the criteria to define eligibility is well designed and deserving people are not excluded because of a erroneous census methodology. This will surely be the UPA governments ticket into next years Lok Sabha election and one can only hope they do better this time.

A video from the Video Volunteers on You Tube exposing the corruption within the BPL system

Panel discussion topic – Parallel Urbanism : local people editing local spaces

Panelists – Lina Srivastava, Jyoti Hosagrahar, John Gerarci

Date – Feb 28th at Wix Lounge NYC

The panel on Parallel Urbanism : local people regulating local spaces addressed the topic of involvement of community in the decision making processes pertaining to their environments. The three panelists from diverse fields of design, technology and strategy came together to talk about this topic through their own lens.

The discussion started with focusing on how the community might not always respond to projects pertaining to local development. That said, if the framework created for community involvement is user centric,  and if there is a process of building relationships with the community and engaging them in a meaningful conversation, the results can be truly groundbreaking. If such steps are not taken, even if the design or service for city, county or a neighborhood gets implemented, it will never be used in the way it was meant to be used since the there was no community input. The process of good design depends not just on what the local people want. Its about capacity building and making the community understand good and bad design and policy by the experts.

There are always a variety of voices amongst the community members. Some are loud and some are not.  It is important that every voice is heard. This could be done using ethnographic interviews, surveys  and design charetes that gets the view point of a wide cross section of people. All the panelists agreed that the main role of the expert is not leadership but facilitation. Balancing viewpoints and being open to all the different interests is important. A solid framework around goals, interests and voices needs to be created in order to bring about systemic change. There is a need for professional intervention, inequalities that need to be set right, new directions need to created. The idea is to be able to identify and to see where the problems are by both the experts and the locals. There is a need to work with a larger policy framework. Restrictive convenance does not work so it is really important to generate alternates. That said, even though expert opinions are important, the frameworks around us are rapidly changing. The idea is not the experts coming to the community and making a decision for them but enabling new models and new frameworks that enable the community to make informed decisions.

The boundaries between government, experts and people are rapidly blurring as well. The line between the governed and government is becoming really fluid and its an exciting time for all of us.  Integrated solutions will come out of coordination of community groups, different policies and departments. Local governance and open budgeting process through crowd sourcing  has been successful in some places in the US and Mexico and there is surely more to come.

Technology is very powerful but is not the only tool to reach out to everyone. The question of access is always an issue. Jeff Jarvis once said ‘the internet is its own continent. If one wants to reach out to larger sections of people who dont have access to technology, alternative frameworks have to be created. The issues the people are confronting don’t always fit into existing frameworks, the ability to translate between interdisciplinary roles and identifing cultural landscapes is crucial.

John Geraci sums the conversation pretty well, “Its not about you solving the problem, its about you doing your bit and other people pitching in”.

Panel insight

by Ruhi Shamim

I am in the business of social innovation, which really means redefining how we interact with resources and our surroundings and restore (or preserve) holistic and informed solutions to our lives both personally and communally. I was excited to be part of the Designwala launch event which took place at the Wix Lounge in New York City on February 28th. “Parallel Urbanism:local people regulating local spaces” brought together an Urbanist, a Strategist, and a Technologist into an open forum for over 60 people, in a free space devoted to building community at the grassroots level. Accustomed to feeling like puny David looking up at Goliath, the energy of the event was an inspirational change that enlightened all in the audience about interdisciplinary action plans and the need for communication and design thinking to weave different skillsets into solutions for local communities taking the initiative to serve themselves through organization and entrepreneurship.

The three panelists, Jyoti Hosagrahar, Lina Srivastava , and John Geraci shared the insights on urban solutions. While they come from different academic and professional backgrounds, they all have forged independent paths that have allowed them to assess community issues on an individual basis to synthesize implementable action plans. They explored the differences between top-down and bottom-up solution-making and observed how diversity and communication are consistent factors in approaching local governance—valuable insights for the Designwala blog community to consider when taking their ideas into the real world.

As a cyber nerd following the blogs and tweets of social entrepreneurs, sustainability experts, cultural diplomats and tech savvy communicators, it was motivating to convene and meet the faces of forward thinking community members. As part of the Designwala team, I look forward to sharing news about urban design and connecting our resources and talent to create opportunities for change.

We would love to hear what our readers have to say about initiatives happening in their cities or solutions they would like to see. Please share your ideas on our video contest.

Designwala recently organized a panel about local people regulating local spaces. The panel was timely given the political unrest in the Middle East and Africa with people standing up to reclaim their rights. The video for the panel will be posted shortly. Our three panelists Jyoti Hosagrahar, Lina Srivastava and John Geraci come from different backgrounds but there was a common thread of ideas that tied everything back to local people and community driven design and activism.

While all the discussion from this monday is still brewing in my head, I came across the slideshow for the redevelopment of the Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad. Urban planner Bimal Patel’s office HCP Design and Project Management has been working on the project for close to 15 years. The long time that the project has taken is primarily because of the various scales of complexities that was involved in the project. One being the resettlement and rehabilitation of the close to 10,000 families living along the riverbank.

Image from HCP site 2007

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) set up the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corportation (SRFDCL) in May 1997 with a mission to revive the city center by reconnecting it to the river. The first phase of the project included a 9 km stretch of the riverfront. In 2003, the project was extended to cover a 20 km stretch.

Bimal Patel’s article in the WSJ about the project talks about a communication strategy that was put in place to communicate the projects vision and its benefits to the public. The primary communication strategy being circulating project reports. One has to take this with a pinch of salt since hiding details in small print is an established methodology to hide the finer details of the project from people. There is also a component of presentation which is a great way of getting the public’s attention and have them react to what is being designed in their city. Through these presentations the designers were able to communicate to the residents how world over waterfronts have been transformed into communal spaces for city residents. All cities are not the same, other governments are probably not uprooting thousands of slum dwellers from their houses either. There is a lot behind the scenes which still needs addressing.The question about rehabilitation looms large as there is no strategy in place for resettlement. Other issues involve environmental problems related to reclaiming land. The project is supposed to be self financing which means that a lot will depend on the sale of the proclaimed land to build a walkway, promenades, gardens, amusement park and water sports and slum rehabilitation.

Recently HCP put on an exhibition of the renderings showing what Ahmedabad’s riverfront would look like after redevelopment. A lot of questions about floods, slums, finances and implementation and traffic etc were addressed using diagrams and drawings. An interactive feature to get feedback on the project would have been really helpful as well. Giving the local people information is important but equally important is the getting their feedback on it.
The exhibition of the renderings of the riverfront were showcased in an art gallery in Ahmedabad in December last year for two weeks. The art gallery is not home to people used to going to community board meetings. Invitations were send across to wide variety of people to come out to see the images. The images were made realistic along with everything that an indian street cannot be seen without, the cows, dung, dogs and the messiness that forms India. The reaction to the renderings from the people who came to see them was positive. We don’t have the statistics on how many people came to see the images.

Working on such projects involve wide range of partners that include NGO’s, the local government, ministers, politicians etc who are are involved from the get go. However it is important to get the local people involved not just to look at the end product but to be a part of the process so that they can proactively get involved in the design discussions and not just the informal approval process. It is one thing to keep the people informed and its quite another to get them involved. Both need to go hand in hand so that the amount of skepticism and suspicion is reduced and people feel like they are part of a project versus mere spectators in a myriad web of bureaucratic policies and decisions.

The project was meant to finish end of December 2010. As everything in India, this is taking its time and we hope its worth the time it has taken. Ahmedabad is home to two premier design institutes – National Institute of Design and Center for Environmental Planning and Technology as well as the world famous business school Indian Institute of Management. It will be a pity if a project from a city with these institutes solely focuses on commercial interests that go with waterfront development without addressing the basic welfare needs for the displaced as well as the value of the waterfront for all city dwellers from all walks of life.

Join us on Feb 28th for a panel presentation and discussion on “Parallel Urbanism – local people regulating local spaces”.

http://parallelurbanism.eventbrite.com

THE PANEL

Major decisions that affect design and planning of cities are made by urban planners, politicians, policy makers, real estate owners and the government. The local people who inhabit the city usually don’t have much say in how their city is being planned, designed or restructured. These design decisions may include planning out services like healthcare, education, transportation and other urban infrastructure for the city dwellers. The panel hopes to explore the middle ground between local people and decision makers. How can the decision makers tap into the grassroots level community activism to come up with better decisions regarding urban living? On the other hand how do the local people get access to the decision makers to get their voices heard with regard to the city? These are some of the questions we hope to answer through this panel.

THE PANELISTS

Jyoti Hosagrahar | The Urbanist

Jyoti is faculty at Columbia University, New York and Director of Sustainable Urbanism International at Columbia University, and Bangalore, India. Architect, planner, and historian, she advises on urban development, historic conservation, and sustainability issues in Asia. Her research interests include urban heritage, cultural and environmental sustainability of cities focusing on the intersections of nature, culture, and the built environment, and postcolonial perspectives in design and planning. She serves as an expert for UNESCO on historic cities.

Lina Srivastava | The Strategist

Lina is the Principal of Lina Srivastava Consulting, LLC, which focuses on employing strategy, innovation, engagement and the use of cultural assets to create and demonstrate social change. The former Executive Director of Kids with Cameras, and the past Interim Executive Director of the Association of Video and Filmmakers, she is currently the strategist for Three Generations and a partner in the social change strategy team for the Resist Network. Trained as an attorney, she is based in New York City.

John Geraci | The Technologist

John has spent the last six years making life in cities better with the use of web technologies. His latest project, DIYcity.org, has web developers and urban planners all over the world teaming up to create open source tools for residents of cities everywhere. Prior to DIYcity Geraci co-founded the hyperlocal news network Outside.in. His earlier work, which includes web-meets-real-world projects Neighbornode, Foundcity and Grafedia, has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Popular Science and other news sources. You can visit his website at johngeraci.com.

THE ORGANIZERS

Shagun Singh

Shagun is an interaction designer and founder of designwala.org. At present she works for frog design in New York City. In the past she has worked for design shops like Antenna design, 2×4.org, C&G partners, Method Inc and SOM. She also coordinates the Architecture for Humanity NY Chapter Studio initiative that promotes architectural and environmental design-driven social change in New York and abroad by empowering design activists with the tools of collaboration and open forum.

Sonali Sridhar

Sonali has been the board member of SAWCC from 2008-2011. She is currently an Interaction Designer using web, print and mobile electronics to explore the connectivity and psychology of design. She spent two years as an Interaction Designer for The Open Planning Project where her work focused primarily on web applications that fostered citizen engagement with government entities. In her spare time Sonali also works with wearable technology, designing objects that interact with daily life, form addictions and provide comfort.

Ruhi Shamim

Ruhi Shamim is a social media marketer and blogger, specializing in corporate social responsibility, urban planning and sustainable transportation, and cultural diplomacy. She has worked with Sosauce, Justmeans, Sparkseed, and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and is currently developing a Green Network for JobThread, a New York based technology startup.

The event is co-sponsored by SAWCC, Designwala.org & Wix Lounge

The past decade has seen a lot of work being done in the arena of development of mobile applications in the developing nations. A lot of them include mobile banking, inventories for agricultural products, education, healthcare etc. There has been extensive mobile phone penetration in places like India, parts of Africa, China, and a lot of South American nations.  A lot of developers and stakeholders in the mobile industry are creating applications for the base of the pyramid users, taking for granted the affordability of mobile handsets and SIM’s by the BOP users. Statistics show that very few BOP users can afford mobile technology. Since mobile and wireless communication makes it so easy for people to communicate and bank even in places that are secluded and far flung, It doesn’t come as a surprise that an innovative startup has thought of a solution to make mobile communication available to BOP users. The initiative is called Movirtu.

As described on the Movirtu website – Movirtu provides innovative mobile technology and business models to wireless telecommunication service providers servicing rural poor communities in Sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia to help them realize shared access to basic mobile phone services at a much lower cost than has been achieved before. Although we are a for-profit enterprise, the company has an underlying social mission: To expand the use of mobile communication by the rural poor communities in Sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia living on less than $2 a day to improve their sustainable livelihoods and help alleviate poverty.

User flow for movirtu

Movirtu is developing a series of patent pending products that would enable shared access to basic mobile services for people earning less that $2 a day. For one such application called MXShare, Movirtu partnered with frog design to create a virtual mobile phone system to enable people who can’t afford to buy handsets to call, receive calls and text message using other peoples phones or pay phones. This mode of communication was being followed in the past using SIM cards. The call maker would borrow the phone and simply replace the SIM in order to see his/her contact list and make the call. This involved taking the phone apart and caused both the lender and borrower some amount of discomfort. The SIM’s were also easy to lose and only the person who was carrying it was able to use it, not the whole family.

MXShare is based on similar behavior type of borrowing other peoples phones to make calls. In the case of MXShare, all the information is stored virtually in a telecom cloud and can be accessed by the user by logging into his/her account using a code or a password. This doesn’t require any SIM cards. Frog design was responsible for doing user research and experience design for the product. Extensive research was conducted in Kibera in Kenya where people were interviewed to gather observations to know how people lived and used technology. The technology was well received and everyone was very excited about it. The challenge was coming up with the right nomenclature where the designers decided to go with the established universal language.

‘Cloud Phone’  as it is being called now is being compared to cloud based webmail or google voice. Accessing the cloud costs the subscribers 10 to 20 cents a call. Compared to a $25 dollar handset and a $12 SIM card, the Movirtu solution is affordable for users earning $2 a day or less.

Recently Movirtu raised $5.5 million dollars for expansion in a Series A round of financing. The funding will allow Movirtu to expand to newer markets and help its goal of reaching 4 million users by 2013.

Nigel Waller, the Founder and CEO of Movirtu who is also the POPTECH Social Innovation Fellow explains the step by step functioning of MXShare  -

Movirtu Fact Sheet

Supertable (previously called the Mobile Activation Station) is a project  by Holobiont (Haruka Horiuchi & Frank Hebbert) . It was  selected as the winner of the ‘Grand Idea Competition‘ organized by Designwala this summer. Haruka and Frank won a grand or $1000 to make their idea come to life. Supertable is a portable reconfigurable table with built-in power distribution, lighting and storage. It turns empty stores into communal spaces. Once built, the Station will be available for short-term use in vacant storefronts along Rogers Avenue in Crown heights, Brooklyn.  Supertable will be built off of an easy set of instructions with easily available kit of parts. It follows the idea of hackable and DIY culture of building structures that are flexible, adaptable, reusable and community driven. Stay tuned for the Holobiont’s other community and urban planning projects in the upcoming second part of this series.

A Prototype, by definition, is a typical example of something.

That is exactly what PROTOVILLAGE aims to be. An initiative of InteGreater and brainchild of Kalyan Akkipeddi, who, in a trend that is fast becoming popular with those who are opting to BE the change they want, quit his corporate job and went travelling across the country over the period of a year.

During this time, moving from the south right up to the north, Kalyan found that apart from the obvious poverty around; the statistics available on poverty was extremely dis-empowering. He found himself asking the question – Why is this number so important?  He also discovered that one of the main problems was the lack of access to expertise to come up with solutions and make them possible. Thus began InteGreater (more about it – coming soon). The main idea behind this venture was to bring together people with expertise, identify committed NGO’s, and serve as a common thread that brings them together.

Prototype began as a question posed in Kalyan’s mind – How does one define an ideal village? This began the quest to define this ideal village using a multi-dimensional approach which also looks at the definition of the desired state of being and more importantly, the word, enough. Another interesting route this project took was to create an “opportunity” get to that desired state and have sufficient access to factors that ensure dignity of life. While there is an infinite scope of extending this “desired state of being”, ProtoVillage decided to limit the possibility to ADEQUACY – which is achieving the desired state while maintaining the basic dignity of the people. The 12 dimensional approach to create a sustainable state of ADEQUACY have been defined as  -

Food Security

Water Conservation & Management

Shelter

Clothing

Healthcare

Energy

Income Generation

Education

Connectivity

Eco – Conservation & Disaster Management

Socio – Cultural Equality

Public Domain.

The force behind this idea being that “ If a multi-dimensional approach can comprehensively define  the poverty line, and effectively measure the population below it”, then team Proto believes that “ the definition of a desired state of being can be developed as a function of the same dimensions.” It is important to note that the idea isn’t merely about the supply of the above-mentioned dimensions but also the quality.  The 12 dimensions were arrived at from research and studies conducted by the team and the idea of ADEQUACY came from involving the residents of the chosen village-cluster.

One of the main objectives of this project is to document the development process into a robust theoretical framework that can be broadly replicated across the country. Having said this, there cannot be a formula-based approach and the proportions of each dimension cannot be defined. What Protovillage hopes to achieve is to define an outline, a broadly replicable framework of these dimensions that can be further tweaked and molded to suit each village-clusters individual requirements. This project also hopes to create a rural leadership model that will gradually take form and create an avenue for sustainable incomes for the villagers.

The village-cluster, currently being worked on, in situated in Andhra Pradesh. On asking Kalyan, how the village was selected, he said that they travelled to over 166 villages and chose this one primarily because he is familiar with the language. Given that they are currently in the experimental phase, it makes sense to chose a space that it more familiar than alien. It helps that this cluster has huge forested area in close proximity, giving them an opportunity to introduce the idea of social forestry to the villagers.

While Protovillage began as Kalyan’s idea and vision, he now plays the role of a gatekeeper. In his own words,  “I’ve brought people in, sent those who weren’t meant to be out and didn’t let the others leave”. The Protovillage team currently consists of peoples from various disciplines and with unique set of expertise, all of who are living of their savings and living their dreams. A small bunch of enthusiastic volunteers, who are more than happy to have people passionate about social innovations and participatory practices, on board.With 1091 days left to build the prototype of an Adequate Village Cluster, here’s wishing the project all the best with its endeavors. Anyone interested and willing to help can get in touch with the team at – kalyan@integreater.org or fra@integreater.org

To know more , visit – www.protovillage.org

For some of us who grew up back home in India, we understand the perils of living in an unplanned city. Dodgy transportation system, consistent power cuts, inefficient waste disposal and sewage systems, gridlocked roads and a broken, corrupt bureaucratic government. People develop ways around problems. They adjust. The idea is to work the system in order to get maximum returns from it. It is tough to think of rebuilding or fixing this broken system since living in that system, if one is not rich or if one doesn’t work for the government, is such an ordeal.

This is an excerpt from a recently published article in the NY times. The writer is Akash Kapur – “Between now and 2030, the report (a Mckinsey report ) estimates, 250 million Indians will migrate to the cities, a figure that exceeds the current total population of all but three countries (China, India and the United States). As a result, India will have 68 cities with populations of more than one million (compared with 35 in all of Europe today)…….”Like much of the country, cities suffer from the legal ambiguity, rampant corruption, political infighting and institutional inertia that block even the most enlightened policies and policy makers.”

Are we equipped to deal with this influx when the cities cannot even handle the numbers that live in them right now? What if the policy makers have a way of getting round the government and mobilize the people instead? What if they can develop a community and network of people genuinely committed to changing the system or atleast identifying the problems within it, in an analytical fashion. I came across ijanaagraha today – an online platform to initiate community building to create change.

A cut and paste from their about section says – “The iJanaagraha portal envisions a huge online networking community that is committed to urban issues – electoral and civic. It aims to initiate change, build networks of communities & local civic bodies, provide data on urban issues, civic awareness & training – all of this at a local neighbourhood level. With the relevant information presented intelligently through use of simple interactive MAPS and a powerful platform to ACT, we aim to inspire everyone to get out and grab opportunities, participate in campaigns, events and community projects and become an Active Citizen in our society.”

The number of people using this portal to connect to others and identifying problems is unknown. However the fact that a step has been taken in the direction of using the internet or the online community to mobilize change is a powerful one. Another great example is FixmyCity.com. FixMyStreet is a site to help people report, view, or discuss local problems they’ve found to their local council by simply locating them on a map. This is UK based application. It launched in early February 2007. The various projects under DIYCity initiative are a step towards using the internet to improve civic services and urban problems in NYC. The government initiated ‘Dial 311′ is a great way for the public to get in touch with the New York City services and information also.

The democratization of the internet has allowed a number of grassroot level initiatives to take off and create substantial change in the way governments are run and cities evolve. India, with its abundance of people and knowledge needs to use this medium effectively and to its advantage.

What is this competition about?
This competition is focused on design solutions that can change our immediate urban environment into places that we can truly inhabit. The first series of ‘The Grand Idea Initiative’ is called ‘INHABIT‘. The ultimate challenge of which is to create solutions that introduce fun, sustainable, and innovative ways people use public space. The intervention can be components that are spatial, graphical, digital or purely strategic. These ideas have to be US $1000 in budget and need to maximize the return in the shape of a built design solution.

Who should apply?
Anyone – You could be an architect, designer, a mad scientist, a housewife, a student or anyone else interested in making cool stuff for public spaces.

What kind of projects can be submitted?
Projects could be aimed at designing street furniture, environmental graphics, services, online communities, anything that changes peoples behavior to how a public space gets utilized.

Submission requirements
A photograph of the Site – The place of your intervention, preferably in your neighborhood
The Proposal – A 100 word design brief describing your project.
The Design – Your proposal in a visual format, e.g. sketches, drawings, photo collages, anything that clearly outlines what you propose to do.
The Budget & Timeline – Breakdown of the usage of the US $1000. A tentative installation/implementation timeline.

Please send all these requirements in a letter size PDF format. The number of pages in the PDF document should not exceed more that 4 pages.

What is the budget?
US $1000

Selection process
The selection of the final project will be based on creativity, innovative thinking, maximum impact and practical plan for implementation.

Our judges are -

Raul Correa Smith
Co-founder, FAISCAS
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture, Columbia University GSAPP

Raul Corrêa-Smith is a co-founder of Faiscas, a two-way cultural exchange channel geared towards boosting the architectural imagination between New York and Rio de Janeiro. Established in 2009 through Columbia University’s Graduate School for Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Faiscas is an evolving hub for the facilitation of such exchanges. Raul earned his BA from the Taubman School of Architecture at the University of Michigan in 1998 and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University’s GSAPP in 2002 with Honors for Excellence in Design. Born in New York City and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Raul currently resides in NYC where he works at Studio Daniel Libeskind and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia’s GSAPP.

Soo-in Yang
Co-Founder of The Living

Soo-in Yang created The Living with David Benjamin in 2004. Using an open-source, collaborative approach, the architecture firm designs both handheld interfaces and urban-sized buildings. Work by The Living has received multiple international awards and has been exhibited and published widely. Their current projects include a 50,000 square meter mixed-use development in New Jersey, and a floating network of pods in New York’s rivers that sense water quality and presence of fish, then display a cloud of light that changes colors according to environmental conditions. Yang graduated from Yonsei University with a BE in Architectural Engineering and received Master of Architecture degrees from Columbia University. Yang teaches at Pratt Institute and at Columbia University, where he is the co-director of the Living Architecture Lab.

Where should the entries be sent?
Send your PDF attachments to agrandidea@designwala.org. Please include your name and contact information in the body of the email as well as on the PDF document. The subject line should be “Inhabit Competition Submission”.

Important Dates
Inhabit Competition kicks off – May 17th 2010
Deadline for Submissions – June 17th 2010
Winners Announced – July 17th 2010

For more information
Contact us at info@designwala.org

This competition would not have been possible without the generous contributions from these amazing people and friends :
Ravisharon Kaur
Ramakrishnan Subramanian
Rahul Pande
Kiran Kannacheri
Saravanakumar Velayudham
Sameer Kumar
Keerthik Sasidharan
Saad Tabani
Ritwik Dey
Giana Gonzalez
Sonali Sridhar
Jairam Ranganathan
Amit Desai
Priyanka Gupta
Shweta Mudgal

Other things to keep in mind
* This competition is open to people from all countries
* Since public intervention laws are different in different countries, please choose sites that have the potential to grow without   upsetting any stringent legality.
* The project money is NOT prize money but money to build something small and useful

About the Grand Idea Initiative
A Grand Idea Initiative is a 5 part series competition – INHABIT, LEARN, ORGANIZE, HEAL & SUSTAIN. The rest of the competitions will take place as soon as we raise the prize money for them.

Watch the trailer for ‘The Grand Idea Initiative’.