Repair and Retrofit: A case of Eksar Village

Borivali, Mumbai

Collaborators: Ankita Dhal, Foram Desai, Vinisha Kuckian

The study took place as a part of the three year long investigation by SEA in the practices of repair and retrofit of the old housing stock of the city. The urban villages of the city consists of various existing community formations that developed over time resulting in informal and organic growth. These organic changes overtime result in poorly light and ventilation, narrow spaced roads and poor maintainance. Eksar village houses more than 500 families. Through the stages of site work and the various analysis conducted, two main questions regarding urban villages arose:

-How do we better living conditions without destroying and remaking the village?

- How do we regulate growth and expansion in the future?

The cluster deals with a part of the settlement that still has ground floor masonry structures made with wooden beams and rafters with Mangalore tiles over it. The design consisted of proposing guidelines to build for the inevitable future expansion.

Existing ground floor section

Expansion Together