Page 17 - HUDCO DESIGN AWARDS

SUBLIME ORDINARINESS – HOUSING AT VASIND, MAHARASHTRA

Project History
The project is located in an industrial steel plant, 60 km to the north east of
Mumbai. It came about with a need to provide housing for the lower
management and floor worker staff. The chosen site had existing houses in the
form of row houses, small one room houses and some larger houses. Most of
the existing buildings were either ground floor or ground plus one storey.
The project took two years to complete on site. It started with an extended
understanding of the site and its surroundings, the needs of the existing
residents at the level of the apartment and as a community. We met residents in Location of site
the plant to understand the ground realities and understand the challenges
being faced by the residents. A few points which came out of this research
were:
1) Many of the houses had a greater number of people than they were
designed for.
2) The kitchen was isolated from the activity areas.
3) Movement areas were dark and dingy.
4) There was an abrupt transition between the public and private spaces.
5) There was no designated public space for children to play and for adults to
sit outdoors.
The budget for the project was very modest. We wanted to address the Existing JSW plant, housing and site
challenges within this budget. It took some effort and convincing from us as
architects to move to a new typological spatial organization. Also, we had the
support of the client and the engineers on site to be able to achieve this.

View of former housing