Jute Mill Conditions

A systemic approach to life on the edge of the Hooghly

Xiomara Alvarez, Architecture & DUSP Alberto Meouchi, Architecture

JUTE MILLS LEGEND

STATUS

Open Closed

SIZE (# Looms)

0 - 347

348 - 637

638 - 874

875 - 1675

Jute Mill Name % of Months the Mill was Closed, Nov ‘18 to Nov ’19

ABCDEF JUTE MILL

Closed 2019: 0% Production Level:

System

Kolkata was built by the river, both in terms of its geographic location and the foundations of its economic power. The silt of the Ganga river system, today an impediment to trade, is integral to the productivity of the agricultural hinterland. Located on a wide-sweeping delta, Kolkata’s urban development has been one of intervention in the deltic system, one that attempts to counter natural flows while simultaneously depending on them. In this project, we attempt to harness some of the wasted energy of resisting the river in order to create new landscapes of urban life along the river’s edge.

For the purposes of the project, it is useful to begin at the scale of the Ganges river.

Rivers are dynamic landscape actors, and the dual geological processes of erosion and sedimentation translate into movements that in turn influence human patterns of development. Natural and agricultural products of the river are brought downstream and industrial products trace the path of the river back inland from the port. The Gangetic plain is the agricultural hinterland of not only Kolkata but of greater India. This land is largely made fertile through the transmission of siltation over the plains during cycles of monsoon and drought. These same processes build new land throughout the river system. The Hooghly branch, where Kolkata is located, is subject to these productive forces in two directions -- daily tides bring sand in from the sea while alluvial flows deposit silt from the Himalayans. The river itself is federal property which, due to the changing nature of the river’s edge, is simultaneously an incredibly formal and an incredibly ambiguous condition. Land ownership along the river bank reflected in different characters of edge conditions in how private property meets this ambiguity. A number of programs are captured along the edge, bringing industry and people out and down to the water.

Figure tk. The ebb and flow of the Hooghly river through cycles of monsoon and drought. These processes result in a changing boundary condition between river and land, as well as the production of new land through processes of aggregation and retreat

Figure tk. In section, we observe that the edge of the river, and therefore the dividing line between federal and private properties, vary up to 10m in places

Figure tk. Land ownership along the river is expressed through varying conditions, largely resulting in a hard edge at which the city comes down to meet the water

Kolkata’s history of urban development has been one that fights the river’s natural processes. The project proposes using the jute mill sites as testing grounds for a river-scale intervention in the liminal space between the river and its edge. If the current dredging process carves a shipping channel down the center of the river by hastening the movement of sediment downstream to the bay, our project looks to harness some of the wasted energy of that longitudinal movement by instead proposing small scale, rivers edge cottage industries that might find themselves in the space between the federal land of the river and the private land of the mills.

Mill sites are organized around two priorities -- improving logistics connections for the mill buildings and creating new connections for smaller programs along the river’s edge. Using existing public access axes and mill buildings as starting points, the major moves on the site are primarily creating infrastructures for moving people and goods.

Reflecting existing urban morphologies of property along the river, these scales are replicated in the jetties along the waterfront. Cottage scale and industrial scale uses push out to meet the river at its changing edge, aggregating and collecting in multiple ways. As temporary structures and lessees of the land along the rivers edge, these actors change over time and leave behind fragments just as the river deposits sediment among them. In these spaces, the river’s urban neighbors find places to gather and wander in relative solitude.

Figure tk. State-scale environmental engineering projects currently attempt to accelerate the movement of debris downstream to the delta in an attempt to maintain the central channel navigable to barges

Figure tk. The project imagines a coproductive machine of economic, social, and natural collection, where the aggregation of silt at the river’s edge produces new land

Figure tk. Working with existing roads on-site, the site strategy connects existing eastwest public access routes along the edge of the river, creating a north-south connection

Figure tk. Site strategy develops a more purposeful laying out of the industrial/ commercial axis that intersects with the river, streamlining and modernizing the relationship between the mills and the navigation channels that feed it

Figure tk. The site plans hold existing land for the processing of jute while creating new land at the edge for the urban inland to meet the river

Figure tk. Subleasing of the land abutting the river occupies the territory of the changing river boundary and the jute mill. Jute mill owners manage the agglomeration of leases; different operations require different portions of land, but because it is merely a lease they are constantly being reconfigured

Figure tk. Cottage industry-scale jetties focus on navigation channel and water’s edge access

Figure tk. Industrial-scale jetties are scaled to mechanical tools of dredging and logistics

Figure tk. The aggregation of jetties on the river’s edge increases the surface area in terms of spaces for silt and people

Figure tk. River’s edge 2025

Figure tk. As the river rises and falls through tides and monsoons, the characters either close for a dry spell or extend out and down to reach the changing edge

Figure tk. The characters of these businesses on the riverfront and the infrastructure they leave behind creates a new urban space