Khushboo Prashant

LA4007

Palmyra link

About Dahanu has one of the narrowest transect between the northern western ghats and the Arabian sea. The Vahindra river passes from the ‘Junglepatti’ (forest belt - home for the Warlis) to the ’bandarpatti’ (coastal belt - home for the Kolis) catering to the diverse landscape & supporting the Warli (farmer) and Koli (fishing) community. It was declared as an ecologically fragile area in 1991 and is today at the crossroads – ecologically, socially, and culturally. 
 Warli’s lifestyle is embedded in the traces of this landscape. It entangles itself to various entities and processes, one of which is the abundantly seen palm and the act of toddy tapping. Bhandari, a community specialising in toddy tapping is know for their skilful art of climbing the toddy trees and extracting the palm wine. It is an extra ordinary skill based process and is gradually loosing its essence because of various anthropogenic pressures. Communities from higher cast and urban sectors profit from selling toddy, whereas the Bhandari’s economic income is meagre affecting their daily sustenance. 
 The project looks upon opportunities to bring Bhandari community to the forefront by enhancing the practice of toddy tapping in the landscape of Dahanu. Palmyra owned by the government occurring in common grounds like floodplains and riparian edges could be used as a shared asset by the Bhandari community. The community will have rights over the produces and the economic gains. A prototype is designed on the selected floodplain where jaggery and sweet toddy production unit are proposed. 
 This acts as a main knot within the landscape, especially for the Bhandari community who can access, produce and sell the palmyra produces. The idea is to develop a riparian corridor where the ownership of the palmyra is given to the Bhandari community resulting in their economic and cultural upliftment. 

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The first stage of traces looks at the shifting character of the river bed through lens of deposition and sublimation. The methodology followed is by studying process of integration and sublimation by Mapping the changing and shifting character of parental rock.

The sectional analyses allowed us to explore four changing typologies within the shifting terrain. The first section is cut near the source of the river where the terrain is dominated by steep slope and boulders. The second section explores the mid land where the elevation decreases and the parental rock is sublimated into rubbles. The third section is cut near the mouth where the rubbles further sublimates into silt and the. Edges are dominated by riparian grasses. And the fourth section is cut through the mouth which has a strong coastal influence and the silt deposition on the edges of the river is dominated by mangrove vegetation.

The study further explores the transportation types like traction, saltation, suspension and solution. This methodology of study gave us a set of inference words which was further used as a guide to understand and study the cultural layers.

The second stage is titled as identifying knots. As formal enquiries doesn’t allow one to tap into their own impressions of the place and stories.

The intervention further focuses into four scales. These four scales are analysed based upon occurrence of Palmyra, current condition of the common grounds and connectivity with the urban sectors.

One floodplain is selected which has as a common ground used for cricket and it acts as a node which brings the community together.

The intimate knot on the cricket ground is a demonstrative unit and the interventions can be repeated in similar manner within the landscape across many settlements.

The design further zooms into the knot and its connection with the opposite river bank.

The Warli tribe is known for their relationship with the surrounding landscape. The idea is to bring the Bhandari community to the forefront and use palm trees in floodplains and riparian corridor as a shared asset.

This prototype can be repeated in similar occurring conditions and introduce larger knot that brings the cultural associations of the palms and the toddy tapper to a regional scale.