Ananya Das

CR4001

Harkishandas seth ni pol has numerous listed buildings along with many unlisted but valuable buildings.The unlisted but valuable buildings were recognized due to the presence of some valuable elements like its original structure or features like tanka.The tankas are elements that were added to the pol houses during the Mughal period as an unique infrastructure,which was found by creating a timeline of the water systems of Ahmedabad. During the period of house to house survey we could see various kinds of tankas and wells which were abandoned or closed off due to lack of usage.Most of the houses are given new AMC water connections.Inspite of this there is a part of Harkishandas seth ni pol which does not receive AMC water.They are dependent on the Bore well connection located at old school of AMC.The houses which receive AMC water says that the water only comes for 2 hours in the morning which is of poor quality ,thus not generally used for drinking. Although most of the old houses has tankas and a nearby community well yet the problem of water persists. So the aim of the project was to regenerate the water harvesting systems of the pol which mainly consisted of tankas and wells and construction of new community tanks .The new community tanks would store the extra water as a measure for fire fighting.This would create a new infrastructure for safeguarding the listed heritage buildings along with other buildings that set up a context for those built forms.