(de)Coding Mumbai

The megacity of Mumbai is on the verge of another paradigmatic shift in the ways its urban form will be produced and that will have serious implications on livability and the working of the city. One of the key actors in this shift, we believe, will be the Development Control Regulations (DCR) and the Development Plan. This study intends to offer key insights into the history of development plans and regulations in the city, and their impacts and point to some of the key concerns for the consideration of a DCR in the future.

The exhibition was structured majorly in four broad chronological phases between the emergence of the Modern ideas of Town planning as a result of the plague of 1896, the period of the First Development Plan of 1964 and 1991, the Second Development Plan between 1991 and 2014 and our notes pointing towards the emerging tendencies in the development of the city. Each section is further organized with analytical illustrations of respective case studies. The concluding section offers projections from the learnings of the three phases of building regulations in the city and points toward the lurking challenges in the near future for architects, planners, and citizens of the city.