Refurbishment and extension of an Haveli in Ahmedabad | Feasibility | May 2014
The Haveli is the typical house diffused in Ahmedabad, India. The great economic development in India leads towards urban transformations in the historical cities and it requires renewing building. The risk is in losing the traditional typologies and in impoverishment of Heritage. Heritage doesn’t concern only the buildings, but it involve people and their relationship, arts and crafts, lifestyle and habits. Large part of the historical urban tissue in Ahmedabad is made by traditional Haveli with a very cheap rent. Owner are not interested in renewing, so the historical city is declining. But if they decide to refurbish, the consequence is that current residents will go away, because of rent increasing. The final result will be a deep social transformation, with people moving to peripheral suburbs. Indeed, Urban intervention always causes social effects and very often it’s a tool to obtain a not declared social segregation. To prevent this risk, is possible to design interventions that are economically sustainable preserving the Urban Habitat. If that balance is missing, historical centres go towards decadence, or they change into uninhabited entertainment places for tourists, or they become free field for speculators.
The Developing Heritage Program for Urban Habitat is focused on planning and design sustainable interventions in the historical centre of cities in developing countries. The DHP’s main goal is to avoid the classical mistakes, well known in Italy, caused by an imbalance between conservation and renovation, and between economic and cultural aspects.
This project shows one of the DHP’s proposals. The goal is to make economically attractive a refurbishment, avoiding that current residents have to go away.
Ahmedabad is a layered city: the haveli is typically composed by different level built in different moments, according to residents’ needs. So, building a new level on the top of the haveli is almost a rule in Ahmedabad. Since the economic development in Ahmedabad, the requirements for high-end temporary rent is growing. Business man, technicians, experts, and merchants arrive in Ahmedabad to build new infrastructures and to make business. New infrastructures make the city more attractive for tourism. New hospitality spaces with high standard are required. Big hotels or high-end detached villages are the expected response. The first solution imply an heavy damage if hotels are placed inside the historical centre; the second one is an explicit form of social segregation, where wealthy people live a new walled city.
On the contrary, DHP proposes to respond to the new request following the idea of the diffused hospitality. Several flats built on the top of existing buildings and nestled in the very heart of the historical city could be very attractive for most foreign people. Such an intervention could allow to safeguard original residents from not sustainable rent increase. The high-end rent for temporary use is around 30 time the current residential rent for a medium size house in Ahmedabad. The economic rent obtained by only the top of the building is enough to ensure a favorable profitability, without mentioning the property increasing value derived by rennovation. The pictures below show how to arrange rooms and stairs in a typical Havely where residential use (light orange) and temporary high-end rent (light green), live togheter.
Carlo Bughi | Architect 