Edited by
Rahul Mehrotra
Apoorva Shenvi
Jessy Yang

Produced by
Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture and Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

This publication provides a dense and stimulating overview of the findings of the fourth studio in a series on the topic of “Extreme Urbanism,” conducted since 2011 at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, under Professor Rahul
Mehrotra’s direction. In 2016, the studio has returned to Mumbai, possibly the ultimate exemplar of urban extremes, and focused on the district of Dongri.  Dongri is a zone of traditional and often architecturally undistinguished mixed use structures, punctuated by religious landmarks, retail, and rail infrastructure, and home to a pluralistic community.

The Extreme Urbanism IV studio has taken these and myriad other urban nd architectural characteristics of Dongri into account and has melded field research with bold propositions about redevelopment that could have a dramatic
impact on the future of Dongri. Specific project proposals reveal a natural nterest in the organization of living and retail spaces and techniques to overcome the brutality of heavy infrastructure. Nearly all the design proposals seek
to acknowledge the extreme urban nature of Dongri while humanizing it. They chieve this through buildings with sculptured volumes and voids, surface textures and transparencies, and alternating internal and external orientations.

Write to info@architecturefoundationindia.org to order a copy of the book.