Incremental Infrastructure

The population of Delhi has rapidly increased. At the start of the project is was the fifth most populous city in the world and the largest city in India by area. Sewage infrastructure had not kept pace. At that time approximately 55 percent of the population in urban Delhi had access to a sewerage system. Not all effluent was treated, with a devastating effect on riverways and groundwater aquifers. The lack of sanitation was emerging as one of the most pervasive development and health challenges India was then facing, compounded by rapid urbanisation and peri-urbanisation. As such, Delhi, provided a suitable backdrop to examine the issue of sanitation based interventions to improve the urban fabric.

The methodological framework for this design-based research was rooted in the pursuit of learning-by-doing in addition to more traditional field work observational outputs; adding to emergent forms of architectural/design practice, particularly in contested and marginalised spaces. Research outcomes were small to medium-sized, topically linked building projects in addition to a final report and exhibition.

The project expanded on King’s previous work which explored the possibility of developing infrastructure using techniques and procedures of the incremental housing economy, which was presented at the Urban Age Shaping Cities conference under the title of Infrastructure and Community. Culminating in the completion of community based sanitation system connecting individual (household) toilets to a shared septic tank and up-flow filter which forms a Decentralised Wastewater Treatment System (DEWAT) in a resettlement colony on the edge of Delhi.