feed the fragile Bombay water into each one of these pens through a spicket. Overhead, a web of clotheslines makes an ad-hoc trellis. In Bombay, where the act of washing and drying clothes can’t be trusted to resource-guzzling machines, a man inside a concrete pen and a clothesline suspended in open air are the best substitutes. The architecture of the New York Laundromat, in contrast, is far more subdued. The city’s robust infrastructure gives New Yorkers the li- cence to use as much water and energy as desired, even at a time when the word ‘sustainability’ is all the rage. This allows the demeanour of the New York City laundryman to be drastically different than his counterpart in Bombay. Like the Dhobi Ghat, the typical New York Laundromat also provides full laundry services for its clients. Once the clothes have been dropped off at the Laundromat, the laundryman empties the bag of clothes into a washing machine, usually separating whites from colors. A plastic dial is twisted to select water tempera- ture, while seven quarters are thrust into a metal tray in order to start the machine. After exactly twenty minutes, it stops, at which point the load is assumed to be clean. The clothes are then unloaded by the laundryman, transported in a cart a short distance to the drying machine, and tossed into a dryer. A fabric softener sheet is added, another dial is turned to select the desired level of heat (i.e. electric- ity) for the job, more coins are inserted to determine drying time (one quarter buys six minutes of hot air), and finally a button is pressed to begin the machine drying process. The only part of the New York City laundryman’s job that doesn’t involve the use of a machine is the folding of clothes, which has to be done by hand. If clothes are folded soon enough after drying, there is usually no ironing required. Because the laundry process in New York is not nearly as labour in- tensive as in Bombay, it enables many clients to come in and do their own laundry — an option not available at the Dhobi Ghat. Locals will arrive at all hours, unload a bag of clothes into a washer, return thirty minutes later to transfer the clothes to a dryer, then come back once again to take the clothes home. Compared to the Ghat, the New York Laundromat is an easy, tidy operation.
sorted, marked, and handed over to the laundrymen. Unlike wash- ing machines, which provide little flexibility in water usage, washing men can regulate the stream of water from a tap so as to use only the amount necessary for a given load of laundry minimizing wasteful wa- ter consumption. After the appropriate amount of water is released, soap is added and the washing man begins his job. Knee deep in sudsy water, he dunks a few articles of clothing at a time, pulls them out, smacks the garments on a flogging stone in order to beat out the dirt, and then wrings the clothes of excess water with his bare hands. This process is repeated until the washing man determines the load to be clean, at which point he carries the garments in his arms to one of many clotheslines strung from one side of the Ghat to another to begin the drying process. The clothes are hung to air-dry individually one article at a time; the occasional Bombay sea breeze is far more dependable than the Bombay electrical infrastructure. Finally, the dried, wrinkled clothes are hand-pressed using a heavy iron heated in a wood-burning oven. They are then folded, packed in another color- ful sack, and returned by courier to their rightful owner. The Dhobi Ghat is a place of messy, physical work that engages the entire human body and demands much from its architecture. Above all, the Dhobi Ghat needs to house men performing an ardu- ous job. Unlike the washing machine, a washing man requires more space and maintenance. He needs to be able to bend down, stand up, scrub and flail wet clothes. It’s necessary for him to be able to eat, drink, and communicate with other washing men. He is far less pre- dictable and productive than a machine. He can slip and fall, take ill, bear a bad mood, or demand better pay. Moreover, the washing man lacks the capacity to wash as many loads as one washing machine. Therefore, in order for the Dhobi Ghat to run as a legitimate business, it needs to house many washing men. With such a complicated pro- gram, it is no wonder the Ghats are designed the way they are: they are not enclosed at all. An open Laundromat — one with no walls — gives the washing men enough room to manoeuvre as required while allowing plenty of natural air circulation to mitigate the per- vasive dampness. In this open format, rows of concrete pens on the ground are sized to allow one laundryman to wash. Bundles of pipes
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