Resilient Living

Resilient Living: A Housing Template for Kullu Valley

Backman, Karolina (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)
McGaffney, Ryan (TU Delft OLD Complex Projects)
van der Griend, Isabella (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)
Uiterwaal, Charlotte (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

van Bennekom, H.A. (mentor)
van der Meel, H.L. (mentor)
Lousberg, Louis (mentor)
Mota, Nelson (mentor)
van den Dobbelsteen, A.A.J.F. (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences

2018-07-31

Resilient Living - A Housing Template for Kullu is part of a greater group graduation project called ‘Towards a Habitable Earth’. ‘Towards a Habitable Earth’ focuses on creating a framework for a resilient built environment that ensures social, economical and environmental sustainability is integrated and considered holistically in everyday practice. This project derived from the team members initial research on the severe impact the built environment has on these three components of sustainable development, necessary for human survival as we move towards a future of environmental uncertainty. Inspired by famed economist Kate Raworth and her idea of a ‘safe space’ for humanity (later developed in to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals) we formulated the question for our graduation thesis; What this ‘safe space’ means for the built environment? The individual project area for a the case study of the framework was the Kullu Valley in Himachal Pradesh, India which is experiencing multiple challenges such as; rising risk of disaster (particularly earthquakes and landslides), increased densification caused by mass-tourism which has led to infrastructural failures and pollution, and a loss of culture as the traditional vernacular architecture is rapidly being replaced by cheap, but unsafe, concrete structures. ‘Resilient Living - A Housing Template for Kullu' focused on how to improve the current housing situation which is mainly self-constructed. The solution proposed was to establish a ‘housing template’ of resilient structures, typology and clusters with a primary focus on responding to local preferences and the various stakeholders involved in the development of housing in the area.

Resiliency
Sustainability
Circularity
Housing
Kullu
India
Global
Circular Economy
Himalaya
Architecture
Construction
Bamboo
Hemp

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:532d824f-001e-48c8-aa36-a7a04126ba84

Student theses

master thesis

© 2018 Karolina Backman, Ryan McGaffney, Isabella van der Griend, Charlotte Uiterwaal