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Socio-architecture in slums – An Environment Psychology perspective Submitted by Meera T S Guide Prof. Soumini Raja B.Arch Dissertation November-2015 C . A. T COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE TRIV ANDRUM Mulayara P.O, Thiruvananthapuram This thesis is the property of the institution and the author, it should...

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Socio-architecture in slums –

An Environment Psychology perspective

Submitted by Meera T S Guide Prof. Soumini Raja

B.Arch Dissertation November-2015

C . A. T COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE TRIV ANDRUM Mulayara P.O, Thiruvananthapuram This thesis is the property of the institution and the author, it should not be re-produced without prior permission

College of Architecture Trivandrum

C . A. T COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE TRIV ANDRUM Mulayara P.O, Thiruvananthapuram _________________________________________________ Meera T S

B.Arch Dissertation Socio-architecture in slums-an Environment Psychology perspective

Approval The following study is hereby approved as a creditable work on the subject, carried out and presented in a manner, sufficiently satisfactory to warrant its acceptance as B.Arch Dissertation, a pre-requisite to the B.Arch Degree program for which it has been submitted. It is to be understood that by this approval the undersigned do not necessarily endorse or approve the statements made, opinions expressed or conclusions drawn therein, but approve the study only for the purpose for which it has been submitted and satisfies as to the requirement laid down in the academic programme. Guide

Dissertation Coordinator

Head of

Department

Designation

Designation

Designation

Soumini Raja

Soumini Raja

Bijey Narayan

Assistant Professor

Assistant Professor

Head of Department

Date: 02-11-2015

Date: 02-11-2015

Date: 02-11-2015

College of Architecture Trivandrum

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Ms. Meera T S has worked under my supervision on ‘Socio-architecture in slums - An environment psychology perspective’ towards the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Architecture of the University of Kerala. This is her original work and can be submitted as a B.Arch Dissertation.

Soumini Raja Assistant Professor Date: 02-11-2015

College of Architecture Trivandrum

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the Dissertation titled “Socio-architecture in slums” was carried out by me during the year 2014-15 in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Architecture of the University of Kerala. This dissertation is my own effort and has not been submitted to any other University.

Thiruvananthapuram November 2015

Meera T S

College of Architecture Trivandrum

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I express my sincere gratitude to Ar. Soumini Raja, Assistant Professor of CAT and my Guide for the dissertation for her valuable suggestions, guidance and timely help to render the final report.

I extend my gratitude to the Principal of the institution, Ar. Jayakumar Sir for providing with the facilities to complete my research work.

I’m also obliged to my parents and friends for their relentless support and criticisms provided during the course of this project.

I thank the almighty for his blessings, strength and guidance that helped in the timely completion of research paper.

College of Architecture Trivandrum

ABSTRACT As slums have continued to expand across Indian cities, official and scholarly attention has grown rapidly in the recent years. The research looks into the slum from an environment psychology perspective. It attempts to study the behavior of slum dwellers in their immediate environment and also, the influence of living in a slum in the lives of residents. The study is carried out primarily based on the case based analysis of Chenkalchoola, a notified slum in Trivandrum, Kerala. Behavioral pattern of people are governed by the environment they reside. Behavior of individuals with their surrounding environment and with their fellow beings is found to vary based on their culture and individual psychological variations. The impact of the environment observed and as perceived by the residents’ varies depending on different age groups since different people interpret the same scene differently. For example, the feeling invoked by a scene at a particular place could be interpreted in differently by a child and an adult. The behavioral mapping of slum dwellers with respect to the environment and their nature of interaction in a micro level- that is, within the slum and at a macro level with the city are analysed through the research. To meet the purpose, the city slum is classified into five major zones to study the inter-zonal interactions of residents. Nature of interactions of slum dwellers at neighbourhood and community level as observed and analysed from the questionnaire survey has shifted from more of a relationship or associative interaction to purposeful. Whereas it continues to be quite stable in the case of their interaction with the city which remains purposeful over the years such as employment, education, for immediate factors like medical help etc. This shift from an associative to purpose oriented interaction does not imply that there is a reduced social cohesion among the residents. They enhance the idea of community living with a willingness to help each other at all times irrespective of cultural differences and economic status. However, there are frequent cases of social conflicts arising between individuals and families caused due to personal individual dislikes, lack of understanding between neighbouring units, egoistic behaviour, noisy neighbourhoods, drainage and waste management issues etc.

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Similarly, an individual may suffer from increasing frustration levels as he becomes a member of growing family with increasing expenses and decreasing resources. People are in a situation or have the least capability to adapt to whatever environment they are provided with or to the space they have taken up by self. The degree of adaptation of slum dwellers to their environment are also analysed.

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CONTENTS 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 2 1.1 Need for research ........................................................................................ 3 1.2 Aim .............................................................................................................. 4 1.3 Objectives .................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Methodology ................................................................................................ 5 1.5 Scope .......................................................................................................... 7 1.6 Limitations ................................................................................................... 7 2. Life in slums ...................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Pros and cons .............................................................................................. 9 2.1.1 Affect of life in slum on an individual ....................................................... 10 2.2 Development perspective on slums ...………………………………………..10 3.Review of Literature ....……………………………………………………………...13 4. Case study …...................................................................................................17 3.1 Inter & intra zonal interactions... …………………………..…………………17 3.2 Adapting to the environment …………………………………………………21 3.2.1. Utilizing shared spaces in built units …………………………………….23 3.2.2. Community centres

……………………………………………………….24

3.2.3. Extended activities ....……………………………………………………….25 5. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………..27 4.1. Coding for questionnaire survey ...………………………………………….27 4.2. Observations…………………………………………………………………..29 4.3. Inference ………………………………………………………………………32 6. References

.……………………………………………………………………….35

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 Chenkalchoola-Figure ground diagram ................................................. 15 Figure 2 Introverted nature-entry to the slum ...................................................... 15 Figure 3 Inter & intra zonal interactions-Chenkalchoola...................................... 15 Figure 4 Activity generating areas in the slum ..…………………………………...16 Figure 5 Major interactive areas of women & children……………………………..17 Figure 6 Interaction between two housing units ……………………………………17 Figure 7 Interaction around functional spaces ...…………………………………..17 Figure 8 Utilising shared spaces in built units .……………………………………..18 Figure 9 Religious and community centres ... .……………………………………..18 Figure 10 Utilities around the location of drain.……………………………………..19 Figure 11 Activities extending to streets ….....……………………………………..19

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LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1 Family ........................................................................................................ Chart 2 Employment................................................................................................ Chart 3 Activity status.............................................................................................. Chart 4 Schooling ……………………………………………………………………….. Chart 5 Changes in environment & lifestyle ............................................................ Chart 6 Convenience in built residential units ......................................................... Chart 7 Neighbourhood interaction ......................................................................... Chart 8 Community interaction ................................................................................ Chart 9 City level interaction ................................................................................... Chart 10 Problems faced......................................................................................... Chart 11 Awareness of problems ............................................................................ Chart 12 Willingness to change ...............................................................................

College of Architecture Trivandrum

College of Architecture Trivandrum

College of Architecture Trivandrum

College of Architecture Trivandrum

College of Architecture Trivandrum

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Socio-architecture in slums 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

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Socio-architecture in slums 2

1. INTRODUCTION Slums have complex environmental settings. A wide range of people live in slums with diversity of housing and employment types. Slums are defined as residential dwellings that are unfit for human habitation due to reasons of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangements of street or design of such buildings, narrowness and lack of ventilation, light or sanitation facilities or combination of these factors which are detrimental to health and safety (Census of India, 2001). These areas provide accommodation for urban workers of all types at low cost with required services for the people such as water supply, sanitation etc. These areas also serve as networks of social support for new migrants to the city. At the same time, most urban slums experience numerous social, economic and infrastructure problems. Slum dwellers lack proper housing, water, sanitation and are exposed to serious health risks due to unhygienic living conditions. In developing countries like India where there is lack of resources to meet the growing population, slums have continued to flourish through the years. This is the very reason why authorities have failed to combat the further growth of slums although several projects that have been launched to eliminate slums in India. Life of people in slums is a classic example for community living. A community can convey different meanings such as inhabited geographical areas or an area inhabited by people with common interests, culture etc, but not residing in a geographical locale (Plas & Lewis, 1996). The sense of living in a community is associated with socio-environmental characteristics of a place although the perception of people is linked only to the physical features of built environment. On looking back to the history of slums in early capitalism, urban slums were swelled up with low income or unskilled people seeking opportunity and enterprising landlords and developers sought to take advantage of the situation by subdividing lands and dwellings for rebuilding to far higher density of population. It was considered as working men’s houses who suffered social exclusion and degradation and finally there was a realization for their

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Socio-architecture in slums 3

regeneration (Assessing slums in developmental context.pdf, p: 66). This created several problems : -

Due to lack of investment in civic amenities and basic social infrastructure, these areas perpetuated unemployment, lack of education, crime and unsanitary living conditions.

-

Mono-cultural concentration delayed the integration of rural immigrants into urban lifestyle and overall city fabric.

-

Isolation led to social stigma and spatial segregation of economic classes. Lack of shared public spaces with the city created further social segregation.

Now slums are on one hand, places of opportunity but on the other, poverty and social exclusion. The community, in whatever context they may exist- whether it be an inner core slum or at the periphery of the city, has developed a capacity to cope with their changing environment. They are looked upon as a separate entity residing in the area since these people form the rural migrants in the city. Their process of adaptation and changing life pattern in a place entirely different from where they had resided earlier to a busy city life is indeed a good example that can be viewed upon. 1.1 NEED FOR RESEARCH Slums help to maintain the vitality of a city in terms of population and its daily contribution to city labour. Low income groups find cheap accommodation which helps to keep the housekeeping costs low enough to afford. For this, they tolerate much less than ideal conditions hoping to improve their living or move on to somewhere better. However in city slums, living conditions of most slum dwellers remain stable due to an increase in daily expenses and land costs. These low income groups in slums mostly constitute the daily wage workers in cities. Their income remains low with which they cannot funnel any savings for future College of Architecture Trivandrum

Socio-architecture in slums 4

improvement. Therefore, people continue to reside in city slums which is why inner city slums are called slums of despair. Challenge is to upgrade the slum with the rest of the city. Present planning practices focus more on land resources, infrastructure and transportation with less regards for a comfortable environment to live in and to support the activities of slum dwellers. Studies reveal that these policies are insufficient in addressing the overall well-being of people in slums. This indicates the need to work at a micro level. That is, a development that leads to social upbringing by the way of economic growth with the help of physical planning. As the title refers to, the research is carried out from an environment psychology perspective in the context of an urban slum. Environmental psychology is primarily the transaction between individuals and their physical settings. The study would relate human behavior to an urban setting. Environmental psychologists work at three levels of analysis which is basically; (a) perception of the environment, spatial cognition and personality as they study the human experience and behavior (Gifford R, 2007a), (b) managing the social spaces: private and community spaces, overcrowded areas etc based on the daily activities of residents in their physical setting and (c) human interaction with surroundings at a micro and macro level, that is, within the slum and with the city. The scope of the subject is to improve the physical environment by analyzing the everyday settings or close simulations of them with the people, consider the person and setting as a holistic entity and recognize how individuals actively cope with and shape their environments (Gifford R, 2007b). It tries to convey the architects a better idea to design for the people so that they can experience spaces with their comfort and convenience. Environmental psychology approach for designing will also help in the management of environmental problems like pollution by promoting behavioral change.

1.2 AIM To study the socio-behavioral aspects of slum dwellers in their immediate environment in the context of an urban city slum.

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Socio-architecture in slums 5

1.3 OBJECTIVES The three stage analysis in environmental psychology is used as the basic theory to frame the objectives. 

Perception of the environment : To study the evolution and process by which slum dwellers shape their environment and how the environment in return, influence their behavior through an observation of everyday settings and lived experience of the people. Perception is the process by which individuals perceive the surrounding environment using senses or it is the information acquired through senses.



Management of social space : To observe the daily activity areas like community spaces and other overcrowded areas with peak activities existing in the slum.



Nature of human interactions within the slum : To analyse the interaction of residents with the city, whether it be for a purpose, experimental, due to associations or individual preference.

1.4 METHODOLOGY Environmental psychology requires a qualitative analysis to understand people’s perception of their living environment which is further more than what can be obtained through an observation around the slum. Their perceptions may vary with personal and cultural differences as people interpret the same scene differently.

Research

is

conducted

through

case

based

analysis

of

Chenkalchoola, an urban city slum in Trivandrum, Kerala. Through a qualitative survey phase based on the prepared questionnaire for slum dwellers, the everyday activities of people related to various spaces in the slum are studied and nature of human interactions with the physical setting is identified. Human interactions with a particular context can be mainly for a purpose such as employment, for accessing shops, religious centers etc. It could be due to associations with people residing within the slum or in the city. Interactions with

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Socio-architecture in slums 6

people and spaces could be experimental such as meeting up with friends or relatives, starting a friendly relation with people around or due to individual preferences. The following parameters were identified to prepare the survey phase questionnaire – (1)Behavior of residents within the slum- in neighbourhood and in groups, (2) behavior with the physical setting-how people manage the environment, (3) awareness of problems caused by the behaviour of residents and their willingness to change, (4) social norms-social pressure from others to engage in a particular behaviour and (5) reaction towards others’ behaviour perceived behavioural control, social conflicts, egoistic and self e...