Architect Sandhya Naidu Janardhan, managing director of Community Design Agency, uses her design training to help provide innovative housing schemes for disadvantaged communities across India. She shares takeaways from her experience designing at the community level and explains why the approach is suited for our modern times.

The CDA managing director has significant experience working on holistic collective living projects that are heavily informed by residents. CDA is a Mumbai-based organization made up of architects, artists and engineers, working together to support marginalized groups. A graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York City, Janardhan previously worked at San Francisco-based non-profit organization, Architecture for Humanity, which used architectural solutions to combat humanitarian crises. 

Sandhya Naidu Janardhan.

Could you tell us about your Sanjaynagar Slum Rehabilitation Project?

SANDHYA NAIDU JANARDHAN: This is an ongoing project, located in Ahmednagar, India. It will house 298 families that are currently living in slum conditions. A cluster of eight three-storey buildings smartly organized around courtyards will occupy the 2.09-acre plot. The scheme has been co-designed with the 22 different communities that have been living in the area since the 1980s. When we started engaging with the residents in 2018, 209 dilapidated dwellings housed approximately 900 people. These structures lacked adequate plumbing, windows, and ventilation. However, while good physical infrastructure was missing, the site had strong social bonds, a fundamental element of successful collective living developments. The first phase of the project, which was completed in 2022, consists of 33 homes. The second and final phases are projected to be finished in 2024. 

What are your thoughts on collective living housing schemes?

Collective living schemes can provide families with healthy zones to live, work and play. I believe the answer to solving the world’s housing crisis lies in forming communities that support residents and reimagine their physical surroundings. At CDA we are envisioning a world where every human enjoys access to clean, secure, and social spaces. Having this type of built environment is a pre-condition to basic human rights. However, instead of looking at individual people that need to be housed, we should be viewing them as members of larger collectives. By doing this, the way we approach housing would fundamentally change.

Photos: Rajesh Vora

Cover and above: The Sanjaynagar Slum Rehabilitation Project comprises a cluster of eight three-storey buildings smartly organized for 298 resident families.

How should collective living projects be approached?

Architects need to genuinely make residents part of the design process. When working on collective living projects, designers should start at the community scale and then work their way down to individual families. As professionals, when we work on these types of schemes, we need to treat the communities with respect. Trust is critical in this field of work and professionals must listen to the people they are designing for. In our Sanjaynagar Slum Rehabilitation Project, we had young community representatives who would engage with the different families. This helped us better understand the needs of the people. Furthermore, when working on collective living projects, architects should try organize people around flexible social spaces like courtyards that can be used for multiple purposes and by a wide range of ages.

How do you make a collective living project successful?

Architects must carefully listen to future residents and treat them as equals. As designers, we tend to enter environments and make assumptions, often presuming we know what individuals need. Many architects go into projects with preconceived notions. However, at CDA, we spend months speaking to groups to ensure they actually want any proposed developments. From the outside looking in, people may need better homes, but they may also like aspects of their current living conditions and have strong social ties and memories associated with their site.

Participatory design processes with communities are crucial to CDA's work.

What can India teach the world about collective living?

Designers in the Western world can learn how to create vibrant, intergenerational social spaces where people feel supported by closely looking at successful co-living projects across India. I think that as urbanization continues to sweep the globe, the focus is increasingly on the individual as opposed to the collective. If we look back at the pandemic, many people were stuck in their homes and were isolated from their friends and family during the lockdown. In many cities, people don’t know who their neighbours are and don't have any opportunities to interact with them. Due to the design of the homes, strong social cohesion is often missing here. For this reason, for our Sanjaynagar Slum Rehabilitation Project, we wanted grandparents from different families to be able to sit outside in cool ventilated areas as children play right in front of them. In each of our projects, we want residents of all ages to have opportunities to interact with one another.