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The Institute of Urbanology aims at learning from its environment while contributing to its improvement. Its research is intended to be directly relevant to the localities where it works as well as anyone interested in urban development and neighborhood life.

Urbanology is defined as the understanding of incremental developmental processes and daily practices in any given locality through direct engagement with people and places. The institute contributes to the debate on urban development by engaging with local community groups, creating new concepts, implementing projects and recommending strategies and policies.

The Institute sharpened its methodology through years of fieldwork in New York, Bogota, Tokyo, Istanbul, New Delhi, Goa and Mumbai. It has offices in Dharavi, Mumbai and Aldona, Goa. In Dharavi, the Institute studies homegrown practices in the fields of housing, artisanship and trade, and physical and theoretical spaces where these fields converge. In Goa, it looks at the transforming role of villages within larger economic, cultural, ecological and urban systems.

The Institute of Urbanology regularly organizes seminars and workshops that bring together local actors, activists, artists, architects and urbanists. It uses art, architecture, story telling, and other creative means of expression to stimulate debates and intervention in the urban realm. It uses the web as well as live events to document, convene, produce and diffuse diverse modes of development.

The Institute of Urbanology is a registered Trust in the State of Goa. Its trustees are James Ferreira, Frederick Noronha and Abhay Sardesai. Its advisors include Amitav Ghosh and Yehuda E. Safran.

In September 2010, the Institute of Urbanology signed a collaboration agreement with the Laboratory for Urban Sociology, at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.

OrganiCity /New York

March 2004

Organicity is a multidirectional study of the city as an organism. Rather than being a parasite, the city can live in symbiosis with its natural environment . This web project is the product of a sustainable development lab at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs, ccordinated by Matias Echanove. The lab was informally attached to a seminar taught by Thomas Vietorisz.

The OrganiCity project is a proactive manifestation of the converging fields of urbanism and ecology. At a time when humanity is shifting from a predominately rural mode of living to an urban one, a new consciousness is emerging which recognizes that humans are not separated from nature, but rather our creativity and inventions are directly related to the ecosystem, even though our cities may not yet be symbiotically integrated to the broader environment.

This website explores the various ways in which urban lifestyles can become more sustainable. It is meant as a resource to empower our urban communities into action and invention.