This course will discuss three key design strategies required to develop adequate housing and inclusive dwelling environments for sustainable urban development. These are incrementality, typology mix and clustering. In this module, we will focus on incrementality and discuss how housing can be designed to accommodate growth and change through time.

At the end of this module, you should be able to:

• • Identify the different historical variations of incremental housing approaches.
  • Understand the correlation between incrementality and the social practices and spatial configurations of a dwelling community.
  • Recognize the potential of incremental housing design approaches to contribute for the development of adequate housing.

In this module, we’ll look in detail at a particular case study: The Aranya Low-Cost Housing, built-in Indore (India), in the mid-1980s. This project was designed by the Indian architect, B.V. Doshi and it is a very good example of allowing people to build and shape their own houses, and best demonstrates his ideas for low-income housing and incrementality – that architecture must allow for growth and change. Using an innovative analytical approach based on video animations, we will take you on a tour to the secrets of this remarkable project.

After learning more about incrementality and about this case study, we’ll challenge you to develop your skills as an urban detective.