http://www.airoots.org A blog by Rahul Srivastava and Matias Echanove on adventitious roots, urban forests and villages, natural cities, lost tribes, new nomads and everything in between and under... Thu, 01 Dec 2011 06:37:03 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Presentation at the Politecnico de Torino, December 1st, 2011 1.    Vulnerable Urban Age Building in construction, Khar West, Mumbai. Photo by Priyanka @ urbz We live in a vulnerable urban age – where many ambitions of the twentieth century seem to be coming apart. According to David Harvey, the connections between ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/12/the-future-of-the-unplanned-city/ Presentation at the Municipality of Milano, on November 28th, 2011 1.    URBZ: user-generated cities URBZ is a global network of urban practitioners interested in user-generated cities around the world. These are urban spaces produced or controlled by residents and inhabitants. The URBZ studio is in Dharavi, Mumbai and acts as a space ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/11/mumbai-contra-ct/ Old Goa Any engagement with Goa and Mumbai inevitably stumbles across its Portuguese history. In Goa its in your face and omniscient, in Mumbai its hidden and unexpected. Either way this past reinvents itself and sustains its influence in the places it once touched, embraced and dominated. In its persistence lies ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/10/the-persistent-shadow-of-faded-grandeur/ At most times the urbanologist and the anthropologist are one and the same. For us walking the streets of old neighbourhoods in ancient or futuristic cities and the forgotten paths of history in far away places happen together. An assignment to Indore in central India, for the Aranya project saw ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/08/mandu-mahua-and-magic/ This is a repartee to a post published by Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar in the Harvard Business Review blog who initiated the $300 house idea. Their post responded to our Op-Ed in the New York Times on May 31, 2011. Dear Prof Govindarajan and Prof Sarkar, We are deeply sympathetic ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/07/short-changing-the-slums/ Chez Nous bungalow in Bandra West (Mumbai): A freshly repainted 1950 art-deco building. Three of the builder's children live in the building with their children. The biggest casualty of the new wave of urbanization in India is not architecture or design, even though these have suffered a lot from the ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/06/neighbourhoods-in-bubbledom/ [caption id="attachment_1169" align="aligncenter" width="575" caption="Structures like these emerge over time. Their flexibility and adaptability is invaluable."][/caption] The following text appeared as an op-ed on June 1, 2011, on page A27 of the New York Times with the headline: Hands Off Our Houses. Last summer, a business professor and a ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/06/cheap-stories/ Presentation @ MAD Salon in Mumbai on Saturday, May 7th, 2011. Hosted by Susmita Monhanty and Sid Das. 1. Tower of Babel This biblical story conveys many human anxieties and fears. Its monumental architecture encompasses a tale of tyranny – the domination of man over man in an attempt to bring together ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/05/spectacular-speculation/ The practice of photojournalism and image making has changed everywhere. Whether it is on websites of mainstream newspapers or on amateur blogs all around the world, images are increasingly taken by sources close to the scene of action. It is about being right here, right now, and having a sharp ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/05/the-illustrated-street/ This introductory note on Goa has been written for graduate students of the landscape architecture program of the Royal University College of Arts in Stockholm. We are organizing a year-long programme on Goa’s urban systems with them. The Studio aims at understanding the way habitats and settlements in Goa function, how ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/02/goa-urban-network/ This is an excerpt from our lead essay published in Art India magazine, January 2011. A Street in Khirkee, by Jose "Cole" Abasolo. Produced during the Urban Typhoon Khirkee, New Delhi, November 2010. At the simplest level, there is one thing that connects the world of urban practitioners – architects, planners, ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/01/art-the-city-and-collective-action/ Shopping Mall in Santa Fe, Mexico City We  just spent a week at a seminar organized by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Bangalore, where a group of 60 students, professionals and academics debated the theme of the “World Class City” and its possible re-imagination. The phrase "World Class City" ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/01/revisting-the-world-class-city/ Presentation at the Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bangalore January 7th, 2011. 1. The Culture of Activism in Mumbai The traditional culture of activism in Mumbai was broadly nationalist socialist, rooted in the freedom struggle against colonialism. The activism around housing and urban inequality, that blossomed during post-Independence, inherited a similar ... http://www.airoots.org/2011/01/activism-reloaded/ Presentation at the JSTOR conference on Sustainable Digital Initiatives in India, Bangalore, December 9, 2010. The presentation is titled: "Hyping Up Neighbourhoods: Hyper-topographies of user-generated cities." 1. The Culture of Friendship. According to anthropologist Marilyn Strathern one of the biggest achievements of the web has been to break through kinship based hierarchical ... http://www.airoots.org/2010/12/the-streaming-archive/ This is a series of new fiction pieces that accompany a longer narrative we are working on. 1. The Downpour The seven-computer cyber cafe was housed in the smallest room possible, testifying to the words hung on the wall near a window right next to Neel’s terminal. ‘This physical world of ours ... http://www.airoots.org/2010/11/new-urban-fables-1/