First Place: “Interior for the Most Vulnerable” by Team SIAN Architects, New Delhi

Project Description

To satiate government’s development desire to render New Delhi into a ‘world-class poor-free’ city, the ‘poor’ are systematically displaced from their positions in the city to newer neighborhoods, often far outside it, characterized with rigid unit slabs and inadequate open space. While the ‘cut-off’ sites truly reflect the stringent attitude of the planning agencies towards the poor, the displacement process is far more crippling. In the first phase, the poor are placed in a unique housing arrangement called transit camps’ before being eventually relocated. As the name suggests, the transit camps are temporary accommodations, however, in most cases they are continually inhabited for longer than the prescribed period, even permanently. Hence, for this competition, the focus is on reimagining one such ‘transit camp’ namely Anand Parbat, New Delhi to challenge the existing project and the displacement process altogether.

Conceptualized and constructed as a series of ‘cattle sheds’ by DDA (Delhi Development Authority, 2014-2018) to house 2800 families of a slum called Kathputli, Anand Parbat camp sits on an extremely well-connected and fertile patch of land. The re-imagination attempts an inclusive neighborhood, exposing the poor to socially and physically resonant inhabitation forms, empowering and stabilizing them to build up capacity and assimilate back into the city before the ’final displacement’y

Proposal by Team SIAN Architects, New Delhi