The Charging Chandigarh! design studio addresses the question of design strategies to trigger social integration and support policies aiming at promoting urban cohesion. New towns offer an important analytical support to discuss the extent to which original concepts and ideas behind the design of the city as a whole, the different neighborhoods and the housing units, can be redeveloped to accommodate changing needs and social reconfigurations, while remaining true to the specific qualities of the city’s original project. The case of Chandigarh offers a very interesting example to examine and develop ideas on the seemingly contradicting yet simultaneous qualities of top-down architectural control versus bottom-up adaptability. The re-densification of the inner-city, articulation of individual and collective spaces in Chandigarh’s new urban extensions, slum upgrading and slum prevention will be key aspects discussed in the studio, aiming to encourage the development of design solutions to cater for the demands of the economically weakest sectors of society. This goal will be pursued through a specific focus on urban in-fills designed to trigger mixed urban land uses, appropriate urban densities and a social mix of the population.