Sonje Gayatri Dilip

LA4001

Crafting the old tales

The sacred river Godavari meanders through the heart of Nashik city, Providing a mesmerizing intersection of land and water. Changing governance gradually transformed the river from being a ‘public’ to an ‘institutional’ body. In the center of the city, where all the Godavari’s religiosity is centered, countless layers of concrete control and tame the river. A mythological history of the city ties it to the Ramayana, and the city is also well-known for its Kumbh- Mela festival which happens once in 12 years. The ecology of the riparian edge and the natural experience of the river edge has been manipulated by religious events as these events invite development project which includes concretization of the historic kunds and riverbed, the extension of ghats, construction of parks and gardens along the river banks without considering the flood lines and importance of natural river edge and biodiversity which is important for protecting the river. Hence project aims to provide a minimalist intervention in the fragile riparian ecosystem zone and design the river edge utilizing the landscape character at the time of Ramayana.

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Report Content

Ideation and Interpretation | Site Introduction | Taking into account the larger context of a site helped in gaining insight into the living system of the project.

Ideation and Interpretation | Site Activity | Weekly and festive mapping indicate a strong relationship between users and existing ghats.

Ideation and Interpretation | Site Analysis | Physical layers of the site to understand the ground reality of the site and its connection with the surrounding.

Ideation and Interpretation | Site Inference |The site study offers scope for a range of observations that are helpful in taking design decisions.

Conceptual Exploration | Crafting the old tales to formulate the vision of the project.

Conceptual Exploration | A site-specific zoning plan that takes into account the dynamics of water and adjacent sites

Conceptual Exploration | Detailed design plan

Crafting the landscape | Planting plan

Crafting the landscape | Detailed planting plan | landscape | Zooming in (10m x 10m)

Crafting the landscape | Detailed planting plan | planting composition