Houses provide more than just shelter, they create spaces that organize our lives and offer protection, security, and emotional well-being. Designing a home involves considering many aspects to support these needs.

However, Indian housing disparities are a growing challenge, shaped by design, policy, socioeconomic reasons, and various other factors. Access to affordable, quality housing remains unequal, affecting both individuals and communities. This discussion will explore how architecture and design philosophies set a benchmark for quality of life, and how multi-use spaces can enhance livability. It will also examine potential solutions to address housing disparities.

At Elev8 2025, panelist Ar. Dipen Gada, Ar. Manish Banker, Ar. Ashish Patel, and Ar, Jaydatt Vaishnav, explore the historical context, current challenges, and the promising future of Indian housing, they also share insights to address urban inequality.

Understanding Housing Disparities in Urban India

The discussion centers on the contradictory situation of Indian housing, where multi-story buildings and high-end skylines are right next to incredibly large, overcrowded slums and informal settlements. In megacities like Mumbai, over 50% of the population resides in slums, even though slum areas make up just 20% of the city’s land mass. Furthermore, with an estimated 20% of the world’s slum population living in India, it is clear that affordable housing is an urgent need.

The panelists discuss how the informal housing supply has occurred out of necessity with the urban poor, who, by definition, cannot afford formal housing. The informal housing sector is characterized by self-built housing, unregulated and unsafe construction, and a lack of basic services and amenities, including water, sanitation, and electricity. In addition, formal housing, or housing produced in regulatory space, is for a wealthier upper-class demographic. Therefore, the disparity between affordability and access will continue to grow.

Housing Without Livelihood

A repeated cause for concern was the disconnection between housing and livelihood. Panelists indicated that, with resettlement, people are moved far from work, separating them from their economic and social networks. This comes with longer commutes, additional expenses, and emotional dislocation.

“There is a cost to being relocated,” said one speaker. “You may get a legal home, but you have lost the ecosystem – your neighbors, your clients, and your support system.”

The panel examined slum rehabilitation models and some of their top-down approaches. Panelists pushed back against the replacement of self-built settlements with high-rise towers. Also, the changing habitations did not present the varied and subtle forms in which people live, grow, and modify their homes.

What Should Housing Look Like?

The panel discussed that standardized units, characterized by their square footage and boxy layouts, most often do not meet the requirements of real families. Very often informal settlements allow for a more dynamic/context-design of space: adaptive, incremental, and deeply personal.

They asked us to think of housing differently than possible policy checklists: “Can we design for messiness? For growth? For community?”. They also pushed for flexible, low-rise, community-oriented housing that could adapt to the people who lived in it.

Key Takeaways from the Discussion

1. Rethink Affordability: Affordable housing encompasses far more than cost – it’s about dignity, access, and quality of life.
2. Design with People, Not for People: Planning predicates on the real, lived experience of people, not idealized documents.
3. Homes Are More Than Just Their Floor Area: Housing policies should prioritize how people live, not how much space they take up.
4. Residents Are Placemakers: Communities create their own spaces – the design approach should recognize the unique role of the community process, and design should contribute to, or supplement, this process, not replace or erase it.
5. Blur the Divide Between Formal and Informal: Housing models based on formal and informal housing characteristics reflect a much more realistic image of life in urban India and should be accepted in housing policies.
6. Expand the ‘Right to the City’: Housing should also mean having access to public space, employment opportunities, and the wider urban experience, not simply a physical unit to live in.
7. Align Policy with Practice: Long-lasting systemic processes will take place only if formal designers, communities, and politicians are working together through participatory approaches, which encompass prior points.

Conclusion

The panelists called for a change in thinking. They encouraged us to stop trying to impose our aspirational visions of urban life and start paying attention to the realities of people’s daily lives. However, by listening and engaging in a collaborative design process, we can begin to picture housing that provides empowerment. Indian housing doesn’t exist only on paper but thrives in practice. Ultimately it was a call to action, to consider housing not as a product, but as a lived, breathing process deserving of care through empathy, equity, and imagination.