Incremental Housing | Tag

What Informality and Incrementality Reveal About Sustainable Urbanism in India

Subscriber Access | January 21, 2026

The magic of Indian architecture lies in an invisible order amidst visceral chaos. When an uncertain future knocks on the doors of local practitioners, one might begin to look within the four walls they occupy to discover an opportunity for reinterpretation.

Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and other major metropolises are described as needing massive housing solutions for millions. The instinctive answer is predictable — masterplans, dense towers, and standardized units smeared over haphazard developments. The lexicon misses a deeper truth about how the people already live, work, and build in India. The shorthand used in policy and planning — slum, informal settlement, unauthorized colony — implies a temporary state to be corrected. A designer's eye views these places as layered urban histories, formed through necessity.

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How Architects Are Responding to Technology That Turns Buildings into Carbon Sinks

December 09, 2025 | Sponsored Content

During the Time Space Existence exhibition, organized by the European Cultural Centre in Venice, the building-solutions company Holcim and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena, with his firm ELEMENTAL, unveiled a full-scale prototype that introduces a new approach in incremental housing solutions.

The housing prototype—The Basic Services Unit—was built with Hoclim's recently launched biochar technology, which transforms buildings into carbon sinks by permanently trapping carbon in a bio-based material called biochar. This material is used as a component of low-carbon concrete, cement, and mortars.

Between Housing Demand and Environmental Goals: Alejandro Aravena on Incremental Solutions and Net-Zero Concrete

May 16, 2025

During the Time Space Existence exhibition, organized by the European Cultural Centre in Venice, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena and his firm ELEMENTAL unveiled a full-scale prototype for a new approach in incremental housing solutions. Titled the USB Core, standing for Basic Services Unit housing prototype, this proposal aims to demonstrate how efficient construction can provide all the essential housing components in a minimal space. The prototype is also the result of a collaboration between the architecture office and concrete manufacturer and researcher Holcim, and is built out of a newly developed type of net-zero concrete mix. It also incorporates fully recycled aggregates, in alignment with circular economy principles. The collaboration aims to demonstrate a more environmentally conscious yet cost-effective way of providing essential services to at-risk communities without harming the planet.

While on site in Venice, ArchDaily's managing editor Maria-Cristina Florian had the chance to sit down with Alejandro Aravena and discuss the implications of this collaboration, the urgent need for housing, and the role of the architect as the coordinator of a process involving many actors.

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How Do You Design for Informality?

Subscriber Access | January 12, 2024

Informal architecture is the dominant mode of urbanization in rapidly growing and industrializing cities worldwide. In Delhi, the city with the largest population in India has half of its residents living in informal settlements. Lagos, with a population of over 22 million, also has 60% of its residents living in informal settlements. This pattern is also observed in Cairo, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, and other cities in the global south that face similar challenges of inequality and housing shortages. As their population grows and urbanization progresses, the exploration of informal architecture schemes to address the demand for affordable housing and basic services will only increase. While the primary purpose of design is to provide structure, lessons from informal architecture offer insights into how architects can respond to such schemes.

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Incremental Iconation: A Path for Developing Monumental Buildings in the Global South

November 17, 2023

Buildings that are designed to layer stories and memories, evoke a sense of aspiration, define cultural narratives, and build a national identity will always be important in all societies. When buildings have this power to shape communities, make an impact on a city’s image, and change the course of socio-economic growth, then they can be identified as iconic. Though the term “iconic” is subjective, it is one that pushes the boundaries of architecture in any context. It calls for spatial originality, proposes innovative material technology, and necessitates a radical socio-economic investment to be realized.

However, since the economies of developing countries in the global south cannot meet the requirements of these architectural structures, is there a more suitable socio-economic model for monumental structures in this context? Can the incremental principles of small adaptable changes and growth be applied to the finite iconic aspiration of this architecture?

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Architects Propose 120 Incremental Social Houses for Iquitos, Peru

March 23, 2018

Building and growing are two actions that should be considered more often than not at the same time. This is how the 2017 "Build to Grow" social housing competition, looked to establish bases that sustain a flexible way of living. The event took place in the Belén district in the city of Iquitos, on 3.7 hectares plot of land. The project that received first place proposed to locate 120 incremental homes, that alternatively allowed users to modify and expand it according to their needs and economic means. In short, a home with a solid nucleus formed by a structure that supports changing activities.

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