RESIDE JURY (Alphabetical)

GENERAL COMMENTS

​The projects that I was drawn to most were those that incorporated elements of the brief into a connection with the history, memory and sensitivity of the site. Whether it be rethinking the elements of mixed housing or defining public space with the livelihood of the Koli's who had originally settled there, I was impressed with the quality of submissions and the originality of ideas in this competition.

DANIEL LIBESKIND​
The design is intended to address the needs of a fairly diverse community on a fragile topography. The high visibility from the Bandra – Worli Sealink for an uninterrupted and extended period of time, gives the development an iconic positioning as an alternate skyline for Mumbai.

SHEILA SRI PRAKASH
​When housing approaches the scale of the city, a big challenge for architects is to balance the legibility of new forms of housing, with their urban integration.  The projects I enjoyed the most (of which there were too many to award), achieved hybrid conditions between building and city, appearing and disappearing in the right places.
 
In many cases, designers proposed infrastructural armatures that would permit growth, adaptation and recombination.  These three dimensional grids, looping platforms, and shared stilts, signal an acknowledgment that successful housing is the result of both bottom-up and top-down contributions, and that housing cannot be static - housing must grow with the city, and with us.
 
At the same time, the most successful projects also understood the beauty and importance of the site, and the opportunity to create an iconic part of the city - both connecting to, and extending Mumbai into new places.
 
Projects that tried to take on the realities of density were in my opinion braver, and as a result, more compelling. 
 
Finally, I enjoyed projects that did not reinforce social stratification.  As an implicit challenge in the brief, architects should acknowledge and understand the complexities of the culture they are working within.  However a competition is also an opportunity to imagine a better world.  If we architects and urban designers cannot create equitable cities that allow residents to make the best of their lives - let alone within the freedom of a competition - then who will?

ERIC BUNGE
​I believe the competition brief was spot-on in identifying the most pressing issues in housing in Mumbai, which are also relevant to many coastal cities in developing countries. I enjoyed reviewing the many thoughtful projects.

GEETA MEHTA
The coastline of Worli Koliwada is under threat and the first response should be the protection of its shoreline from the threat of annual monsoons and rising sea levels. This protection preserves the existing community that has lived there for generations but also frees the land and the competition site for development that can be linked to the existing community, neigbouring Worli and greater Mumbai as a whole.
 
The second important criteria is how this new development connects with the existing city ensuring that this waterfront development is not isolated or segregated from the rest of the city. The chosen schemes have all suggested solutions that connect Worli Koliwada to the new development as seamlessly as possible making the existing village an important  part of the  new expansion. The proposed new developments could be a blueprint for the redevelopment of Worli Koliwada in the future.
 
The selected schemes create dwellings and workplaces in an urban setting that are distinctly low rise and  truly of mixed use. They  combine living with local industry, fishing, places of worship, and open spaces that suggest that they will be rooted in the culture of the place and the site.

NORMAN FOSTER
Architecture competitions such as these bring to light critical issues that address our society these days but remain unspoken or as a back drop to our busy urban lives. Reside highlights how architectural interventions, landscape interventions and urban design interventions can shape and impact society in a significant way. The location is a perfect choice intensely intertwined with local culture that has existed there for many years but is contiguous with one of the most affluent neighbourhoods of Mumbai. There is potential for connectivity, for nurturing of livelihood both current and future and an opportunity to address conservation of land abutting the cities water edge which often in a city like Mumbai is no mans land or land that cannot be touched.

SHEFALI BALWANI