Traditional Wisdom
Architecture For Water | Snehanshu Mukherjee
LA 59 |
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History is a testament to how water has forever been a vital natural resource, essential for the prosperity of any community and the efficiency of the construction of different structures for the management and supply of this resource. These water conservation structures from varied contexts have been a derivative of and influential to the form and the growth of settlements. The ingenious architectural solutions used to construct these structures rendered them highly efficient as well as a visual delight and, more often than not, they became foci for societal interaction.
Book- Spatial Ecology of Water
Author Meghal Arya
Published by AADI Centre, 2019
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The book under review is Dr. Meghal Arya's latest contribution towards understanding traditional architecture, not just in history, but by bringing us research that has even more relevance today. The architecture of the past appears far more sophisticated in their harmonious resolution of function, context, and community than what is seen in the majority of built architecture today- both in India and across the world. Dr. Arya's book therefore is a valuable exploration and explanation as to how, through architecture, a community conserved and shared water - a vital life giving resource in the arid desert landscape of Rajasthan.
The system of conserving water that the communities of Rajasthan had evolved over hundreds of years is a remarkable example of architecture and engineering that has sustained the population in a hostile, water scarce geography. Dr. Arya explains lucidly through the book, how the architecture of water in Rajasthan is closely linked to a system of community management by the inhabitants of a settlement, a tradition that is very much a part of the culture of the place. Management of the water system involves the entire life cycle of its architecture - starting from its planning and design, through construction to continual maintenance to ensure that even in periods of drought water would be available to the inhabitants of a settlement. It is also apparent from the book that the responsibility of addressing water conservation lies collectively and singly at several levels of the overall community - from people of influence and positions of power like the king and his noblemen, the merchants to the common people. As Dr. Arya writes towards the end of the book, "Today as the world grapples with the environmental implications of rapid industrialization, large-scale mono-functional infrastructures, and homogenization of cultures, there is a revived interest in the 'local', and 'indigenous' processes and models of interaction with the environment that is both, sensitive and ecological."
"Rapid industrialization, large-scale mono-functional infrastructures" creates both scarcity and waste. Dr. Arya analyses in her book, that the provision of piped water during the British period in Jodhpur and the subsequent building of the Indira Gandhi Canal that brings water from the distant Bhakra Nangal Dam led to the disintegration of the traditional systems of conserving water which have resulted in the complete neglect of a valuable localised method of being self reliant in a vital natural resource and life line, that is water. Piped water has also taken away the community's responsibility of being self reliant, eventually changing the way people live today. The government's well intentioned plans to bring piped water supply to each and every household in the country could actually lead to further waste of this valuable resource as managing the resource could move away from the local community level to a centralised techno-infrastructure system.
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| CURRENT ISSUE: LA-61 |
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environment, ecology and biodiversity |
RESCUING THE URBAN POLLINATORS
MADHURA KHADE
WETLANDS AT WORK
UNDERSTANDING WETLANDS
With inputs from Dr. C. R. Babu
CONSTRUCTED WETLAND AT RAJOKRI, NEW DELHI
[Delhi Jal Board]
Ankit Srivastava
CONSTRUCTED WETLAND AT NEELA HAUZ, NEW DELHI
Landscape and Environment Planning Department,
Delhi Development Authority
CONSTRUCTED WETLAND AT HAUZ KHAS LAKE, NEW DELHI
Tarun Nanda, Evolve Engineering
RESTORATION AND REJUVENATION OF RIVER YAMUNA FLOODPLAINS, NEW DELHI
Landscape and Environment Planning Department,
Delhi Development Authority
REIMAGINING THE CITY
YAMUNA RIVER PROJECT:NEW DELHI URBAN ECOLOGY
[Authors Inaki Alday and Pankaj Vir Gupta]
Review by Geeta Wahi Dua
REJUVENATION AND RESTORATION OF URBAN PONDS, GURUGRAM
Future Institute
SPURRING ECONOMIC REVIVAL THROUGH ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION,
NANHU, CHINA
Uma Sekar
heritage, urban design, landscape architecture |
FROM MY HOUSE TO YOUR HOUSE
In conversation with Miki Desai
CITY MAPS: MAPPING NATURE AND ENVIRONMENT
Review by Rabindra J. Vasavada
A SENSE OF SPACE
Anuraag Chowfla
IN CONVERSATION WITH RANJIT SABIKHI
DEMOCRACY, PARTICIPATION AND CONSULTATION
In conversation with Bimal Patel
city and culture |
OUR CITIES CAN FIGHT COVID-19 PROACTIVELY
Mriganka Saxena and Puneet Khanna
LOCALIZING FUTURES
Geeta Wahi Dua
BOURGEOIS ENVIRONMENTALISM AND THE VULNERABILITY OF THE POOR
UNCIVIL CITY: ECOLOGY, EQUITY AND THE COMMONS IN DELHI [Author: Amita Baviskar]
Review by Nikhil Dhar
STREETSCAPES IN PUNE
CREATING A HEALTHY AND WALKABLE NEIGHBORHOOD: AUNDH NEIGHBORHOOD UPGRADATION | PUNE
Prasanna Desai Architects
ABOUT RETAIL, TREES AND YOUNG VIBES:
JANGLI MAHARAJ ROAD | PUNE
Oasis Designs Inc.
EMERGENCE OF THE EPHEMERAL
Bijoy Ramachandran
seeing the unseen |
ART FOR ALL
St+Art India Foundation
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