Background Women’s movements across the world have been among the most salient features of the 20th century. These movements have generated changes in social patterns, roles and lifestyles, in short, transformed identities. If we ask ourselves what some of these changes have been even in our immediate environment over the past ten years in India (since the first Women Architects Meet in 1991), we may note that there is now 33% reservation for women in local governments, departments of women’s studies flourish in many universities and women have begun to occupy positions in the bureaucracy and in political life. Specifically, in the field of architectural education, 50% of the students are now girls and there are more women on the faculty and more women planners in the field than ever before. It is our hope that this symposium will generate a debate on how women’s needs may be better addressed and their capacities tapped in shaping to the built environment.

Thematic Concerns Our basic underlying assumption is that the appropriation of space is a political act and that therefore, access to space is fundamentally related to status and power. Spatial arrangements in a society reflect and reinforce the nature of gender, race, caste and class relations. At various levels, from the city to the dwelling, the ideals and reality of the relationship between men and women is expressed in built form. Cultural rules govern the use of space and codes regulate behavior between genders. For example: A woman’s place (so they say) is in the home, yet a design brief for a home rarely includes a space that the woman can call her own. Similarly, though it is women and children who are the primary users of public transport, yet even small innovations in design, which would make buses, trains, stations and bus stops more woman and child friendly are rarely considered. Urban public spaces specifically allocated for growing children are woefully lacking in our cities. Historically, decision-making and the practice of architecture, planning, urban policy, geography, etc. have been male dominated. Since the 1970s increased attention has been focused on gender issues in fields such as the social sciences, politics, management and cultural studies. However, in the disciplines connected with the built environment, ideas and theories continue to remain male-dominated. Today, women are better represented in urban planning as well as in housing policy groups. Therefore, we need to put in place systems in the building industry and urban planning policy that are more gender sensitive, for instance, employing women as skilled labor, providing facilities to ease heavy manual labor and providing on-site crèches. Similarly, the new building bye-laws being introduced for fire or earthquake safety could also include provision for wheel-chair/baby carriage access in all public buildings, exits fitted with panic hardware (also a boon to women with infants or handicapped persons), and public toilets which allow wheelchair access and additional counter space. In conclusion, we find it necessary to draw attention to a serious lacuna that presentations and discussions at this symposium may attempt to fill. We have indicated above that the changes generated by the women’s movement have resulted in fairly large numbers of women beginning to function within the disciplines/ professions of architecture and planning. However, the systematic changes/innovations that may have been expected to result from this have not done so. This is possibly because women have on the whole continued to function within the male-dominated disciplinary/professional system on the terms already set by that system. If fundamental change is to occur, therefore, it becomes imperative to theorize a gender perspective into the discipline that trains professionals. In order to do so, it may be useful to explore the possibility of lateral relationships between feminist theorizations of the built environment and its other radical political theorizations. It may also be beneficial to draw upon the theoretical developments across other disciplines like sociology, political science, cultural studies and anthropology. In light of the above, we invite papers from professionals/academics in all relevant fields to generate a cross-disciplinary discourse to initiate much needed changes in the systems and processes that create and consume the built environment. While presentations from all regions are welcome, the symposium will focus on India and South Asia. We also hope to publish the proceedings.

Themes for the Sessions: Day 1: Building by-laws and planning policies | Gender and the public realm | Gender and the appropriation of private space | Gender and the building industry Day 2: Theorizing gender into the built environment | Curriculum and pedagogy | Education and faculty development | Relationship with other theoretical perspectives and academic disciplines.

Follow-up Activities: The findings of the symposium will be of value to academicians, theorists, practitioners, government policy makers and NGOs. The Center for Environmental Planning and Technology is a premier educational institute in India. It includes Schools of Architecture, Planning, Building technology etc. It could take the lead in developing a theoretical angle relating to gender and the built environment to be incorporated in design education in the country. The Women Architects’ Forums’ broad and continuing aim is to work towards the empowerment of women professionals to make a positive and consistent contribution to the field in terms of practice, research and education. The symposium will help generate awareness on gender issues in government and private spheres. It will create a professional network at the South Asia level for an ongoing sustained dialogue. The document published at the end of the symposium will disseminate its findings to the broader academic and professional world in South Asia.

Organizing Committee:

• Ms. Madhavi Desai, Architect, Faculty, CEPT
• Ms. Manu Agrawal, Student, CEPT, A’bad
• Ms. Malini Doshi, Architect, A’bad
• Dr. Darshini Mahadevia, Arch-Plan, CEPT, A’bad
• Ms. Ismet Khambatta, Arch-Urban Designer, HCPDPM, Ahmedabad
• Ms. Nivedita D’Lima, Urban Designer, EPC, A’bad
• Ms. Gita Shah, Arch-Plan, GIDC, Gandhinagar
• Ms. Parul Jhaveri, Architect, Abhikram, A’bad

• Pedagogy of Vulnerability: Feminist Practice in the Classroom
• Re-mapping the public: Gendered Spaces in Mumbai
• An Evaluation of the Infra- structural Set-up of Residential Institutions for Senior Citizens
• Rebuilding Homes and Livelihoods: SEWA’s Shelter Reconstruction Program
• Application of Ergonomics in Kitchen Design
• Miracles in the Park: Architecture, Dalit Women and Church Authorities in a Bangalore Church.
• Small Town Practices: Gender Performance
• Gender Issues and Compact Townships
• Exploitive Nature of the Construction Industry: A gender Based Study focusing on Women Construction Workers & their Children in India
• Men, Women and Architecture: Gender Identities and the Appropriation of Space
• Gender Relations and Changes in Housing Design in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
• Gender and Architecture of the Colonial Bungalow Form in Gujarat, India: 1900 to 1970
• Gender Perspectives in Vernacular Settlements: The Dwellings of Rohailkhand Region, Uttar Pradesh, India
• Engendering Urban Planning in India - Issues and Approach
• Female Vigilantism and Urban Spaces
• Constructing the Self in Other Spaces
• Role of Gender in Architectural Creations: A closer Look into Female Workforce in Construction Industry and its Impact on the Environment During the Construction Process
• Effect of Mix Land Use in the Business District – The Gender Perspective
• Learning to Designing a Women’s Compartment? No way

Pedagogy of Vulnerability: Feminist Practice in the Classroom
Sarvar Sherry Chand, Ph. D in English Literature, India - Dept. of English, St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad

In the lights of the events of September 11^th, one feels impelled to think of modes of being, of the information of human beings capable of such comprehensive violence. Formation of persons implies education. Education, therefore, is a nodal expression in the creation and maintenance of social systems.

A plethora of education theory has, over the last three decades, generated critiques of formal education systems the world over and suggested alternatives. In the light of that fact, this paper attempts nothing new. Perhaps it attempts to reiterate something hat bears urgent repetition in the context of the world scenario today.

Whereas most critical educational theory has concentrated heavily on the nature and function of the curricular change, this paper attempts to focus on pedagogy and common on sense attitudes underlying ordinary pedagogical practice, from the point of view of practicing teacher. It, therefore, implicitly, cuts across disciplines in a way that focus alone on curriculum alone does not.

My contention is that formal pedagogical practice hitherto, across cultures and disciplines, has been of an implicitly patriarchal, authoritarian kind with a latent structure and violence built into it. Therefore whatever a curriculum consciously wishes to communicate (however obviously emancipatory it may be) is being communicated by means of generalized violence (not necessarily of the physical kind) which acts upon and forms the learner subconsciously, Such information is aggravated when the curriculum content is also authoritarian.(We might remember that verbs like to school and to discipline almost explicate the violence inherent in these actions.) the contention here is that there is only a difference of degree between the ordinary pedagogy of day to day formal education and the pedagogy of violent indoctrination- sometimes there is not even that.

The paper attempts to suggest that a ‘feminist’ alternative pedagogical practice of openness and vulnerability capable of subconscious formation of the learner toward kindness, humanness and openness. This would be based crucially on attitudes that accept all in a classroom as equally learners and teachers; and practical methods that foreground mutual listening, dialogue and conversation rather than the usual lecture and learning by rote. All of these then assume a common set of ethical values rooted in the recognition in the universal worth and dignity of all human beings.

Re-mapping the public: Gendered Spaces in Mumbai,
Shilpa Phadke, M.Phil in Sociology & Politics of Development, UK - Visiting Lecturer Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work

By Access to and rights over space are important mrkers of the existing power structures in society. This is clear from the fact that many marginalized groups are denied rights of access, visibility, and voice to and from public spaces. Class, caste, community, ethnicity, gender, and disability are among the factors that mediate an access to public space. In this paper I focus on gender as a category to map access to public spaces in Mumbai City. In this there is the tacit acknowledgement that gender is intimately and inextricably linked to caste, class and religious community and therefore one does not seek an essentialised category woman. However, while acknowledging the heterogeneities, both structural and individual, which divide women's experiences of public space it is still possible to query the specific ways in which public spaces in the city are gendered. The public-private dichotomy has constructed public spaces as the preserve of men relegating women to the private sphere of the home. The sheer inequity of sex ratios of men to women even in a city like Mumbai that relative to other cities in the country is supposed to be both safe and friendly for women tells its own story. At any time of the day, including rush hour one rarely sees more than about 20 per cent of women in public spaces. By public spaces, I refer largely but not exclusively to buses, trains, parks, maidans, footpaths, subways, bazaars, restaurants, and theatres. The central questions that the paper attempts to probe is how are women excluded from public spaces in the city and what is the role of architectural and structural elements in creating and maintaining this exclusion? And secondly to what extent can infrastructure change contribute towards increasing access to public spaces for women? This paper explores the ways in which infra structural and architectural elements in a city, specifically Mumbai exclude women through design or erasure. It examines the class dimensions of the visibility and invisibility of women in public spaces and asks relevant questions about the gendered nature of space and the ideologies that underline a structural construction of space. How are gendered narratives imprinted on the body of the city? How are conservative agendas written on the bodies of both women and urban public spaces? What are the critical consciousnesses or lack thereof that mediate women's presence in specific public spaces? To what extent can we address women's access to space through issues of urban policy and planning? Some of the specific concerns that the paper examines are those of street lighting, structural elements of railway stations and markets, efficacy and safety of public transport, availability and design of public toilets and the location of police assistance booths in the construction of hierarchical spaces in the city. Through an examination of these practical concerns the paper interrogates their implications for fulfilling strategic feminists agendas in the context of access to spaces, both private and public.

Rebuilding Homes and Livelihoods: SEWA’s Shelter Reconstruction Program
Tanya Mahajan, D. Arch, India - Housing Coordinator, Rural Development Wing, SEWA, Ahmedabad

The Self Employed Women’s Organization (SEWA) is a member based organization based on women in the informal sector with a total membership of over 2,15,000 self- employed women. Registered in 1972, SEWA is currently working in 11 districts of Gujarat in organizing women in both rural and urban areas, to achieve the twin goals of full employment and self reliance

Naya Ghar is SEWA’s post-earthquake shelter reconstruction program that evolved as a result of the very strong demand for rebuilding of shelters that came from our members, due to excessive damage to their homes by the earthquakes. For our members, the home is also her workplace. Hence, ensuring that one has a secure and safe shelter, where the women and her family dwell and work, is one of SEWA’s Ten Basic Objectives.

Prior to this, shelter was part of SEWA’s Social Security program for its members, where members were provided with health-care, child- care, and shelter. Though this program, SEWA worked towards enabling women to own their own homes –as an asset, and also be able to improve their standard of living by grading their homes. In many ways, embarking on reconstruction on such a large scale was a first for SEWA on many fronts. The initial demand for houses from earthquake affected districts of Kutch,

Surendranagar And Patan was in the range of 40,000 houses.

This paper will focus on the evolution of SEWA’s shelter reconstruction program centered around our women members. The shelter reconstruction program is not being carried out in isolation but is built into a long- term rehabilitation and regional development plan that includes livelihood society and social protection services.

Despite being perceived as a traditionally male bastion, we have evolved and implementation strategy that centers around the house owners, and is driven by their participation specifically, the construction process is structured in a manner that involves our women members at all stages, including planning, organizing, executing and taking decisions.

Main features of the shelter reconstruction program and design of the core unit:-

1. In-situ reconstruction of collapsed/severely damaged houses –to maintain and restore the intrinsic character and built form of the villages
2. Use of local materials, traditional building-practices, and local labor to make program self-sustainable.
3. Including participation and contribution of house- owners into the program so that they own the process as well as the product

SEWA’s local leaders or aagevaans, are entrusted with the responsibility of managing the entire process, and taking control of the entire process. Further, the program also includes the training, capacity building and strengthening of local construction teams (spear head teams) who will be equipped to organize themselves and their communities to manage any construction activity in the future of houses, tanks, latrines, community centers, etc.

This ensures that the knowledge of earthquake- resistant building technology is disseminated and remains with the community, long after SEWA’s intervention in this area end.

Gender and Architecture of the Colonial Bungalow Form in Gujarat, India: 1900 to 1970
Madhavi Desai, M Arch, USA - Partner, ARCHICRAFTS & Adjunct Faculty, School of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmedabad

The spatial arrangements in a society are a reflection and reinforcement of gender, race and class relations. Women are closely associated with domestic architecture/ environment as the notion of a ‘home’ is intricately intertwined with the self-image of the woman of the house. Along with ritual, caste and kinship, gender plays an important role in the negotiation of space in India. Like in all cultures, there exists a demarcation between the men’s territory (public) and the women’s territory (private). The spatial divisions are not static and the boundaries between male and female cannot be clearly drawn. They are the result of complex settlements and negotiations being not only fluid but also mostly invisible. In fact, these are cognitive boundaries that are different from the physical ones. These deal with the social idioms of pollution and purity, with notions of morality and safety. Gender rules affect a woman’s mobility, use of common spaces and notions such as inside/outside, public/private, etc.

Urbanism can be termed as one of the most lasting legacies of the British Empire in India. Of these legacies, the ‘bungalow’ remains an important symbol of the British Raj. Towards the turn of the 20^th century, the bungalow emerged as a new urban dwelling form on the domestic and cultural landscape as an alternative to the medieval system of largely wall-to-wall housing that existed in the dense and over-crowded inner cities of India. The early bungalow was a simple, utilitarian and symmetrical single-storied structure in military components. Set in a well-defined compound, it typically had an extensive garden that evoked the environment of home for the Britishers. It was modified and adopted first by the elite of the society and later by the middle classes heralding a historical revolution in plan, form and structure. As the 20^th century progressed the type gradually grew more sophisticated, opulent and was regionalized/Indianized. Finally it took on a modernist expression in response to the international scene from 1960s onwards in the western state of Gujarat as well as other parts of India. In stark contrast to the shard, community-based living unit, the bungalow was an ‘object in space’ with a clear territorial definition, signifying the other sociopolitical approach to life by the colonial rulers.

In the 20^th century several structural changes took place in the social set-up in Gujarat. The role of the woman underwent a slow but definite transformation during this period. The British women’s life was rather ceremonial with a lot of time on hand due to a retinue of servants. During the first part of the 20^th century, a Gujarati woman’s role also

changed as a result of public participation in the freedom struggle against the British rule, increase in education and impact of Gandhian thoughts. Families began to move away from the tradition of a joint family, becoming more nuclear while also limiting the number of children. There were radical transformations in the notions of privacy as well as personal space. The spatial organization shifted from clear gender segregation in social interaction and inclusion of a designated women’s room to more open floor plans with living/dining as a combined space.

This paper attempts to study this critical relationship using the construct of gender by examining the evolution of the bungalow typology from the simple one-story structure to the colonial mansion and finally to the modernist house within the specific cultural milieu (the urban middle class) in the state of Gujarat in western India.

Gender Perspectives in Vernacular Settlements: The Dwellings of Rohailkhand Region, Uttar Pradesh, India
Manu Agarwal, B Arch, India - Student, School of Planning, CEPT, Ahmedabad

Background: Traditional histories until modernism have presumed certain constants with respect to which one could demonstrate change. These constants were based on the belief in the existence of absolute values outside historical time. The values were those generally related to basic human responses to external conditions, presumed to be unchanging. For example, the concept of freedom and equality, which are today, considered basic human rights were not absolute values. They are as today, expressions of the restructuring of relationships.

Vernacular architecture has more or less been a subject of concern over the last century, more so considering the well-demarcated shift from the traditional to the modern that this time period witnessed. Needless to say several approaches have already been explored to be able to explain and understand the simultaneity of the coexistent order and disorder in the traditional built environment. To me this denotes a complex phenomenon, which is better understood as an abstract process than a phenomenon, primarily because when we refer to the traditional context we are actually referring to several layers of complexities, which are a product of time. It might not be possible to be absolutely able to trace this process, despite history as history eventually is no more than a set of interpretations.

The Context: The wish to explore an otherwise undocumented region and an understanding based on my long term associations with it, were the principal guide for me to undertake a documentation of certain parts of the built form of the Rohailkhand region. An understanding that the historical evolution of the north India has been much peculiar and unstable, it having been subjected to a series of invasions and its culture being a product of a mixed heritage. The region was constantly under a state of flux and saw turbulence and violence for prolonged periods. The house form of this region illustratively states this.

The Intent: To place the existence of vernacular architecture in the Indian cities, in contemporary time, emphasizing the gender based perspectives. The attempt shall be to analyze a few cases of traditional architecture from the North Indian society, along the stated criteria, adequately placing it in the context of a historical framework. This shall be an exploration of processes rather than the study of an object within a time frame.

Argument: The invading fleet of our population with its apathetic attitude towards the vernacular architecture is fast obliterating it. In essence one cannot deny the integral relation of the existence to one’s past, present and the future. Significantly different and almost contrasting pictures that they are, it is interesting to mark the coexistence of the two within the same frame. Attempts at acknowledging the existence of this legacy, have largely not been able to break away from the tradition-modernity conflict. Spatial organization is a dominant function of social solidarity and the very equations of the coexistence of genders in the society give it a firm ground.

Aim: The paper attempts at revisiting the debate between the actually existing scenario at the vernacular upfront in the North Indian city and the situation of the ‘gender’ as a reified image in the society’s structure. From art to media to social customs to architecture, the act of space has become bonded to the omnipresent gender biases and the paper shall highlight the conditions of coexistence of the genders and its manifestation in the traditional built in contemporary time.

Engendering Urban Planning in India - Issues and Approach,
Dr. Darshini Mahadevia, Ph.D in Social Sciences, India - Assistant Professor, School of Planning, CEPT, Ahmedabad

Engendering development process, women’s development, women’s empowerment, women-centred development paradigm, and so on, are some of the terms that have become part of the common terminology in development discourse. Number of initiatives have been taken up to ensure that the development benefits reach the women, an important one being introduction of the concept of women’s component plan in each government department’s budget to benefit women. These programmes are expected to benefit rural as well as urban women, though, the traditionally, rural areas have been the target of government programmes whereas urban development aspects have been left to be addressed by the urban local governments. Amidst these limitations of urban development efforts of the national and state governments in India, engendering efforts in general and more particularly in urban areas miss out on a gender perspective of urban development. This is particularly necessary when in the post-economic reforms period, the metropolitan cities have taken noticeable initiatives to respond to globalisation, a process that is leading to exclusion and marginalisation. Would it be possible to engender the urban development process in the manner we are moving ahead with when the macro processes are excluding the traditionally excluded? Do we need to change the philosophy of urban development, that is currently based on ‘economism’ for the purpose? The article argues for starting a discourse on urban development in academics and profession by introducing a structural framework in analysis and dismantling of current urban development practices based on professionals and consultants and starting a genuine participatory and transparent decision making processes.

Constructing the Self in Other Spaces
Isabel de Santa Rita Vas, MA, India - Lecturer, Dhempe College of Arts and Science, Goa

Contemporary society as most urban people know it, is seen as primarily production oriented. The systems that sustain it are consequently governed by a production-ethic which emphasizes discipline, control, work, clock-time, deferred gratification and strict rationality. Conversely, this same society relies heavily on a consumer orientation and a hedonistic ethic that commercializes leisure and entertainment, relaxation and pleasure. Both these ethics are believed to contribute widely to the construction of the self of the contemporary individual in his or her social milieu.

Feminist critiques in sociology have paid increasing attention to the leisure side of the picture. They indicate that often the emphasis on the work sphere takes on a deeply masculine perspective. They suggest that leisure is often the area of experience that women draw on to carve out some autonomy for themselves, and build a sense of identity. When leisure is understood as central to the lives of women, spaces for leisure, specially in the urban setting, deserve to be taken seriously as Other Spaces where the woman, singly and in community, escapes, dares, experiments, creates, grows, resists and challenges.

Art has through the ages offered women diverse possibilities for their leisure. Even more than sport or games, the arts have colored women's lives in India and have often made all the difference between a world view of powerlessness and self-pity and one of creativity, courage and meaning.

'Constructing the Self in Other Spaces' will seek to suggest avenues of convergence and areas of debate. As larger and larger numbers of women enter the workforce, engendered leisure must not be allowed to turn into endangered leisure. The Other Spaces of women need to be attended resistance and challenge.

Learning to Designing a Women’s Compartment? No way: locating spaces for appropriate gender interventions in architectural education.
Neera Adarkar, Architect and Industrial Designer, India - Partner, Adarkar Associates & Visiting Lecturere, Rizvi/Academy of Architecture, Mumbai.

Architectural Education in India is in desperate need of major curriculum reforms. While the Briish legacy was to produce draftsmen for the colonial architects, later under the control of various Technical Boards and Universities the curriculum still remained skill oriented. Some of the autonomous institutions succeeded in making their schools more design oriented but till today the most of them lack the holistic approach imperative to the profession of architecture.

The freshly graduated architect considers himself or herself as a nonbiased, neutral professional located at the center of the building discipline. On the other hand in the absence of a contextual approach towards the design education and practice; the social, economic and cultural reality remain alien and unimportant to the professional architect or planner. Since they are not taught to accept that, their perception of the society (for which they create the environment) is determined by their class and gender, they do not realize that, the built environment also cannot be value neutral; neither class neutral nor gender neutral. How many schools encourage the students to transcend their critical acumen beyond the design concerns to examine the class patriarchal bias reflected in the built environment?

The fact that nearly 50 to 60% of the students in most of the schools of architecture are women does not by default make them gender conscious, because majority of them have internalized patriarchal values and their myth regarding their status. on the other hand no aspect of human life has remained untouched by the issues and demands of the women’s movement and women’s studies. All the disciplines namely law, health, religion, social sciences, literature have undergone reviewing and reconstruction process to become inculcate gender conscious in all their works.

This paper will explore the possibilities of including the gender consciousness in the architectural education. It is intended to suggest short term interventions in the existing programmes and long term reforms in the curriculum.