Join us for another session of the popular “The State of Architecture in South Asia” series. This session will feature A. Mridul, principal of A. Mridul Architect and alumnus of Chandigarh College of Architecture, India, moderated by Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Samosas and chai will be served at the start of the event.
About the session: Step-wells, subterranean aqua-structures known as ‘bawari’ or ‘vav’ in the local dialect, were an integral part of Indian communities from the 2nd century AD until the beginning of the 20th century. Designed as socio-cultural community buildings, dotting the rural and urban scapes, the historic water architecture of India sustained life even in the most arid regions.
However, with the advent of canals and piped water supply from remote sources, this repertoire of exquisite water architecture was gradually abandoned and forgotten. This resulted in the indigenous water frittered away and ignored, plunging the regions into deep water stress.
As ecological and sustainability issues have taken center stage amidst growing concern over the deepening water crisis, it has become vital to revisit and contemporize the ancient water wisdom by resurrecting the historic water buildings, creating new ones, rationalizing the modern and integrating the entire gamut of aqua-architecture to build a sustainable water network.
The talk presents the contextual study of historic water architecture, its hiatus, and the effort to revive the system to achieve water sufficiency exemplified by the case study of Birkha Bawari, a 21st-century subterranean building fashioned like a step-well, built in the water-stressed city of Jodhpur. The success of this contemporary iteration demonstrates the economic and architectural viability of reclaiming the indigenous water portfolio to mitigate the water crisis.
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