Mumbai's Interstitial Spaces

With the little land to expand in the island city, the financial hub of India, Mumbai, accommodates a large population. Despite of the discrete measurements of rapid urbanization of housing, transportation, commerce and economics, today, more than half of city’s population dwell in the slums, emerges on the footpaths and other interstitial spaces. These act as dual use spaces which have single use at certain time but are otherwise underused, thus becoming residual spaces for certain period. Today, shopping malls, social clubs and pubs have acquired the centre stage for recreational activities. But it has catered to only a few sector of people of the city, hence the need for public recreational places in Mumbai is still a question mark. 

In a city like Mumbai, there are numerous problems of having public spaces in vicinity to the habitable areas. There are places which have become picnic spots like national park Borivali, or places like Azad Maidan which are not accessible to the people or which are distant from the very need of the place. And on the other hand there are places which have become or acted as non-spaces due to lack of planning. 

Spaces identified in the city: Very common examples of such residual spaces are Railway tracks precinct, spaces below the flyovers, and peripheries of the city, big open grounds, subways, pedestrian footpaths, skywalks and road dividers.

How can residual spaces be put to use? 

Every day, in thought and action, the inhabitants manage to bring together what was disjointed by modernist zone planning: a tremendous act of place making. The residual strips interpreted as public space offer kinds of encounters between different groups of inhabitants. 

\

According to Rem Koolhaas theory of control/residual spaces the most obvious manifestation of this spatial residuum is the generation of unfamiliar landscape that when viewed under interrupted at times by moments of consumer saturation and activity. 

These interstitial spaces can act as potential spaces for urban restructuring .They can act as public spaces which today occupy crucial components of the city, both in terms of the physical as well as social function they serve. These spaces not only form the image of the city and the way it is perceived, but also become places where people interact under a collective identity. Public spaces act as movement corridors within the city.

Residual urban space can become a catalyst for transformation that would otherwise remain largely inaccessible. The space could be designed to give a sense of ownership of it to the community, it could be designed to reunify areas of the city that have been severed by urban renewal. 

In Image of the City, Lynch discusses the power of edge conditions, many of which are created by highways, rail lines and riverfronts, the same elements that are associated with Residual space. Edges, while generally separating and isolating areas, could conversely be seen uniting space between two areas. Design intervention in residual space could be used in this way: to knit together the fabric of a city at a crucial border zone. 

Design intervention in residual space could be used in this way: to knit together the fabric of a city at a crucial border zone.The approach to the design thus points out in creating live able space according to the need of the locality and its context. It aims to generate solutions so as to create public spaces which are not only important at urban level but also at community level.

• The railway track precinct which act as a potential site for refurbishing the urban landscape of the city by providing basic amenities ,sanitary facilities’ and emergency aids or may be green zone to the cityscape- Region under western /central/harbor railways of Mumbai 
• Spaces below flyovers –to provide green corridors, visual image for the city, tourism development activity area. 
• Open ground not under use –make it available for the local public, create centers for community gathering, political and social gathering. Dual use space concept.

As all the existing open spaces in the fort area (Mumbai) like the Maidans are already been used for sporting activities and exercising. The office buildings in this area usually do not have their own private garden area etc. where informal public gatherings can take place. But necessity breeds innovation and the streets, parking areas, arcades, pavements become the new alternative open spaces where people can socialize. These spaces arise out of the need of the people and are present due to the changes brought about by people for themselves and in that regard they become unique ‘Peoples Spaces’. They are the residual spaces of the city but at certain times in the day they transform into vibrant public spaces with the Chaiwallahs, sandwich Walla, juice Walla catering to the office goers, taxi drivers etc. 

One such space is the Kamani Road in Ballard estate, this area is dominated by offices, and people coming in this area are mainly the office workers or taxi drivers. On this street there is a median, on which trees are planted at intervals, this makes the whole area shady .Height of the median is 0.7mts.and width is 1.2mts; moreover it’s grassy so it can be used as an ideal sitting area. This median is used by the taxi drivers and the local pavement dwellers as well as the office staff to rest and have lunch etc. Also there is parking on both the sides of the median over the entire stretch so this acts as a visual barrier for the person resting there or having lunch, against the ones on the road making him quite comfortable. 

Such activities in the area have invited hawkers to set up eatery stalls, apparels, book stalls, etc. With the course of time, part of the area has been designated as the hawking zone.

Sandwich Wala- Bharat Gupta, a native from Jaunpur, U.P daily comes from Cotton Green where he has a flat on rent and sets up his stall on the side of the pavement at Kamani road. When asked about the area he said that as this area is dominated by offices so he makes a good earnings of 1200 to 1300 daily and now as the area has been designated as hawking zone he is relieved of this.

Parking In charge of Kamani road – Ram Prakash Mishra a native of Allahabad, U.P. comes from Sion daily to Ballard Estate at 10 in the morning and stays there till 6 in the evening. His job is to take record of the parking, only residential vehicles having Municipality pass are not charged. He earns about Rs. 500 daily. When asked about the area he says “the area is good, quite peaceful”, he stays the whole day on the median walking from one end to the other for giving parking slips and taking money from the people parking and the ones leaving the parking .He says “as the area is shady, I can even rest for a while on the median and as the median is high so I can easily keep a check on the vehicles by just standing on it, it makes my job easier. 

There are many such spaces used as people spaces, like the road behind David Sassoon library, where students, lawyers etc. came during their lunch hours to have tea. There is no place that can be used as a seating so the people coming there just stand in groups taking support of the fencing or they sit on the vehicles parked. Then there was a wide and shady pavement in front of the police training institute where people used to rest during the sunny hours of the day. 

Then there were some common spaces which one can find in any area, like the parapet walls beside the steps leading to a building interface, the same steps transform into an informal seating when not used as a means to enter or exit like in case of a locked building or during those hours of the day when the building is not functional.

The repurposing of residual space lends itself well to the symbiosis of architecture and sustainability, and also to the concept of loose space. The concepts of altering perception of a space, and also introduce an aspect of temporality to the public space. Koolhaas and Jacobs both propose that mixed-use (buildings, neighborhood) and a variety of uses over time (hourly, daily) create vitality. The same case can be made for urban public space: a space that changes, and is changed by the people using it, will be vital, interesting, and well used. 

Anti-space, Border Zones, are usually chaotic, since they are comprised of the remnants of other uses. Bringing a complex order to a space that is otherwise unreadable would make it a more appealing space for one to enter into and use.