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Two Quarry Classrooms, Navi Mumbai, India

The research methods involved and insights gained through constructing two classrooms for road stone mining settlements are reviewed in: Tang, B. (2012). ‘Quarry Schools: Building Community Classrooms in Stone Quarry Worker Settlements in Navi Mumbai, India’, Children, Youth and Environments (CYE) 22(1):280-293. Bo Tang was researcher and Project Architect (with Shamoon Patwari) for the Quarry Schools Project, and sole author of the paper published in CYE Journal. She is also Research Co-ordinator for the Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources (ARCSR).

Since 2008, collaborating with Indian NGO ARPHEN, researchers have, through physical and cultural surveys, engagement with residents, and reflection on iterative practice in the incremental construction of classrooms in two quarry worker settlements and through publications and exhibitions of this work, been able to extract and abstract learning in order to strategically re-inform the making process.

Whilst the practice of accommodating to local resistances is subtle, the observations and findings are original, specific and profound. Strategically the relevance of the process lies in developing for these sensitive contexts appropriate and effective methodologies, whereby collaborative practice and reflection creates shared understandings which facilitate practical action and generate publications and exhibitions disseminating knowledge to a wider constituency.

The first classroom at Baban Seth stone quarry worker settlement was shortlisted for the Architect’s Journal Small Projects Award in February 2010. Migrant quarry worker children now have a route to state education. Street lighting, water taps, drains and pathways have been installed by the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, consolidating the settlement.