The Kutch region of Gujarat is no easy place to survive. An arid landscape bordering Pakistan and the Arabian Sea, the region is isolated by hundreds of miles of uninhabitable salt flats to the north and east. Primarily an agricultural society, the Kutchi population has always existed in a precarious balance with the harsh climate. These conditions have resulted in distinctive characteristics in the constructed environment as inhabitants must rely on their own resourcefulness and the support of others in the community.

Water plays a critical role in defining the built environment of Kutch. In this water-scarce region, a year’s supply of water falls in two days and briefly transforms the entire landscape. The Harappan Civilization first harnessed this rainfall five thousand years ago, constructing a complex infrastructure of water collection, storage and distribution that sustained its population throughout the year. In 1549, the capital city of Bhuj was established by channeling thirteen water catchment basins to a central lake which would adequately supply the city’s water needs for centuries.1 Rural communities, too, have devised remarkable systems of water harvesting that enable them to survive extended drought conditions and grow crops in Kutch’s saline soils.

Traditional dwellings in this region are shaped by the notion of “polyvalent space”2: each space, be it a room, a village square, or an infrastructural element, has a multiplicity of uses throughout the day and throughout the year. Simultaneously, this flexible attitude towards dwelling results in a continuum of public and private space rather than a sharp separation between the two. In this way architecture adapts both to the extreme climate and to the changing dynamics of the local population. Unfortunately much of contemporary construction is modeled after Western housing types which establish a barrier between inside and outside, both literally and figuratively. These new neighborhoods often fail to provide the social infrastructure required for a community to function successfully.

Today, Kutch is an unusual juxtaposition of remote villages, ancient architecture, and several rapidly globalizing cities. While development has improved living conditions in much of the region, it has also begun to disrupt the local practices of living off the land that have sustained the Kutchi culture for so long. Once revered and carefully managed, water is no longer used in such a way to support the local population. Rather, communities rely on pumping from the rapidly diminishing groundwater table or bringing water into the region from hundreds of kilometers away. One such population, the city of Bhuj, was devastated by an earthquake in 2001 and has since experienced an accelerated reconstruction, largely out of touch with the climatologically and culturally sensitive techniques present in older architecture. Bhuj provides a case study with which to explore the effects of this shift.

This project proposes that a population can be supported locally and sustainably with the existing rainwater supply, by way of the careful location of water infrastructure within the natural hydrological system. Water infrastructure then provides an armature for dwelling and all of the resulting social activity. In doing so, the roof becomes the catchment basin, the street becomes the water filter and the groundwater emerges in the form of vegetation that cools and frames public spaces. Each aspect of the water infrastructure is made visible and has a critical use in the daily lives of residents. In this way, water can once again be recognized for its importance while emphasizing an enduring method of inhabiting the landscape.

This case study examines a cluster of two hundred and twenty houses recently constructed on a relocation site west of Bhuj. Although the houses are only two years old, families have already begun to abandon them because they don’t have access to the infrastructure the households require. The project provides an alternate design for this community to be built on an adjacent site, incorporating the notions of the convergence of water and social networks. While this solution is site specific, it can also be seen as a model for analysis and intervention that could be employed elsewhere in the region.

Endotes
1Interview with Yogesh Jadeja, January 13, 2007.

2Pramar, V. S. A Social History of Indian Architecture. Delhi ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.