Nivasa is an Architectural Not for Profit Trust, working to enable humane and dignified housing conditions for the urban and rural poor, through design.  

Architectural Intervention in design and materials is essential, but not affordable for the lower-income group in India. We use Design-Based Thinking - a mindset that focuses on solutions and on actions oriented towards creating a preferred future by drawing on logic and imagination.  Our approach uses a designer’s methods to match people’s needs

with what is technologically feasible.  Using a People-Centered approach, we involve the homeowner in the decision making process and the product. We interact with local communities, collaborate with the Government, NGOs, Developers, contractors, corporates and individuals, engage the Architectural community  in R&D of alternative materials and construction  methodologies and volunteerism,  derive specific, local and cost-effective designs to arrive at strategies for implementation that involves awareness

& training, constructing prototypes, and helping to construct, where required.

 

Mission:

Research: Our research allows us to understand the local dynamics, socio-economic conditions, climate, culture, vernacular, local material availability, current needs and usage patterns of people and issues of each community to develop a design based solution. Design: We then connect the dots to arrive at a palette of cost-effective, culture-sensitive and site-specific design options that the end-users are presented with. Implement: We arrive at localized strategies for implementation to help co-construct that involves the local ecosystem, training the local skilled and unskilled labor and the homeowners themselves. By involving the homeowner in the decision making process, our interventions endeavor to endow the homeowner with identity, dignity, integration,

self-expression and as an ultimate value, self-esteem.

 

Support:

https://nivasa-ngo.org/support-us