Render of a planted courtyard between brick housing blocks, with residents walking through

Arrival City

Migration facilitation hub

Year: 2021
Place: Mehrauli, Delhi, India
Context: Thesis, Bachelor of Architecture, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi
Role: Solo

50,625 m²: housing
3,000 m²: education and community centre
45,000 m²: site

Every year millions of workers migrate to Delhi carrying the memory of a courtyard home in a village. What they find is a pavement.

01The journey

Government housing for migrant workers gives shelter and little else. There is no community space, poor ventilation and nothing that carries a cultural identity.

This thesis grew out of fieldwork in Delhi’s informal settlements during Covid. It asks what a neighbourhood would look like if it followed the migrant’s journey.

Arrive
Shelterdormitories and family housing
Learntraining centre
Earnshops and workshops
Belong

Five-step journey diagram, a comparison of two housing types, and four squares subdivided into a fractal — The journey, the comparison, and the fractal that sets out the plan.

02The neighbourhood

A 45,000 square metre site that follows the journey in order. Dormitories and family housing sit around a training centre, a health centre, shops and 10,000 square metres of green space.

Aerial render of the housing clusters with labels, areas and six icons for the project's aims — The site, its programme and what it is for.

Site plan showing building clusters, paths and trees — Site plan. 40 percent ground coverage, nothing above 26 metres.

03The dorm

One square, divided and repeated, sets out the unit, the cluster and the neighbourhood. The dormitory is an L-shaped unit. Three make a cluster. Stacked and flipped, they leave double-height terraces to share.

Diagrams of an L-shaped unit combined into clusters and stacked — Unit, cluster, stack.

Six interior views with brick jali walls and arched openings — Inside cluster A.

Plan of a dormitory cluster set among trees and paths — Dormitory cluster A, for women and non-binary residents.

Long section through the four-storey dormitory cluster — Section AA’ through cluster A.

04Family housing

Families get a flexible open plan of one and two bedroom sets around a shared common area.

Cutaway drawing of a brick housing block showing rooms, stairs and people — The family housing block, cut open.

Numbered floor plan of the family housing block set among trees — Family housing plan.

Section drawing through a five-storey housing block — Section through the family housing.

05Keeping cool

Cooling is passive. Rat trap bond brickwork and RCC box windows keep heat out. Terracotta filler slabs use less concrete. Brick jali parapets let air through.

Wall section with four labelled details from parapet to window — The wall, detail by detail.

06Outcome

Street elevations of the brick housing blocks — Elevations.

Site: 45,000 square metres. Floor area ratio 1.5
Housing: 50,625 square metres: dormitories for single workers and family housing
Shared: Education and community centre 3,000 square metres. Primary health centre 205. Shops 1,000. Green space 10,000
Drawn: Masterplan, unit and cluster plans, sections, renders
Tools: Revit, Rhino, Lumion