Architexturez South Asia
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Geospatial platforms and immersive tools for social cohesion: the 4D narrative of architecture of Australia’s Afghan cameleers
No full textThis paper focuses on examining the scope of virtual architectural archaeology in forms of digital geospatial platforms and immersive tools such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to be used for achieving social cohesion, particularly in a multicultural and multi-ethnic society like Australia’s. In the context of the current global and national concern about Muslims and Islam, as well as for the mistrust towards and distance between Muslims and Non-Muslims in Australia, it is imperative to delve deeper into the contribution of early Muslim pioneers, in this case, the Afghan Cameleers, in the social fabric of colonial Australia. Based on the premise that architecture could be a unique and revealing research frame to gain insight into human values, worldview and material culture, the main aim of this paper is to address two key issues using virtual architectural archaeology. Firstly, to demonstrate the application of 4D capturing and component-based modelling with metadata and paradata regarding the past of the lost architectural heritage sites in remote central and western Australia, also counting on assets such as Linked Open Data (LOD) for further dissemination and use. Secondly, to propose a mode to disseminate new knowledge through digital platforms and VR/AR experiences to the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) audiences and schools regarding the Muslims in Australia. Understanding properly them and their contribution to the Australian society would eventually minimise the cultural distance between Muslims and Non-Muslims in Australia. Greater awareness could mitigate the myth of fear and mistrust regarding Muslims and Islam, widely misunderstood for a long time.
Highlights:
Architectural-archaeological heritage as a tool for achieving social cohesion and to minimise cultural/social differences between Muslims and non-Muslims in Australia.
4D capturing and digital geospatial platforms for contextualising architectural-archaeological heritage in a spatial and chronological way.
Gamified and non-gamified Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications to engage the general public with architectural-archaeological heritage from remote, hard-to-access areas.
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Regulating Architectural Practice: Thoughts on a Recent Judgment from the Supreme Court of India
No full textOn 17 March 2020, a bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Ajay Rastogi in the Supreme Court of India passed a milestone judgment affecting how architectural practice will be regulated in India. The Court noted that the Architects Act 1972 created the Council of Architecture (CoA) as the statutory regulator on architecture in India, and only a person registered with CoA is entitled to be called an architect. In the case before it, the Court passed a judgment focussed on two questions:
Can a person who is not registered with CoA be allowed to practice architecture?
Can a public body, or any legal entity, appoint a person who is not registered with CoA to a post whose prior designation includes the word ‘architect’?
In making this judgment, the Court (as it is constrained to do) noted its role is to uphold the law and not to enforce what is desirable, for to do the latter is to intrude into matters of policy which are the sole prerogative of the legislature and therefore outside the Court’s purview. Consequently, its judgment must restrict itself to a plain reading of the law, going beyond this only if a plain reading leads to a logically or legally untenable conclusion. The prevailing clause in this case is Section 37 of the Architects Act 1972 which states, “no person other than a registered architect, or a firm of architects, shall use the title and style of architect.” The Court remarked that a plain reading of this clause is sufficient as it does not lead to any untenable conclusion, and on the basis of this reading it is very clear that the legal constraint is only to using the title and style of architect and no constraint is imposed on the practice of architecture. Therefore, on the first question the judgment was that the practice of architecture is not restricted to those persons who are registered with CoA. Any other person or legal entity can practice architecture as long as they do not claim the title of ‘architect’. The judgment noted that comparable legislations in the legal and medical professions, which precede the Architects Act 1972, are quite specific in constraining who can practice the profession. The fact that such constraint was not adopted in the Architects Act suggested to the Court that Parliament in its wisdom believed such a constraint is not applicable to architecture. On the second question, the Court ruled that since the designation of the post includes the word ‘architect’, such posts are available only to persons who are authorised to use the title of ‘architect’, namely persons registered with CoA.</p
Transitional environmentality – Understanding uncertainty at the junctures of eco-logical production in Timor-Leste
No full textEnvironmentality has proven an enduring framework for interrogating issues around environmental behaviours and discourse as a means of subject governance and citizen-making. However, its application often insufficiently reflects the temporal nuances of environmental (eco) logics as transient, emergent and differentiated amongst ‘citizens’. This is particularly the case in post-conflict zones of transition where the fluidity, friction and fractural nature of socio-political relations between state and subject are often overlooked. By examining community experiences in the establishment of Timor-Leste’s first national park, this article highlights the inadequate attention directed towards addressing these concerns. It proposes ‘transitional’ environmentality as a novel framework that first, better reflects the ever-transient nature of environmental behaviour and regulation; and second, recognizes the prevalence for this in post-conflict landscapes. Transitional environmentality emphasizes the temporal fragility of environmental authority structures and its potential for renegotiation of resource management between the frictions of the state and the subjects it seeks to make.</p
Islamic Architectures of Self-Inclusion and Assurance in a Multicultural Society
No full textAlthough Muslim migration to Australia’s new world settler society has a long pedigree, their population and civic presence have grown in recent decades. New generations of Muslim migrants require the nation to engage with their histories and post-secular religious pluralism. Part of their history can be traced through their places of worship. This includes temporary structures along the inland telegraph route (the 1850s), the first permanent mosques in South Australia (Adelaide, 1888) and Victoria (Shepparton, 1956–60), and a variety of contemporary mosques as the population grows – indicating more settled lives. The aim was/is to provide sites of communal, spiritual, cultural, social, and educational guidance. Mosques often comprise (d) hybrid designs using a combination of local materials to fit with the existing built environment and to integrate unobtrusively. Recent examples of mosque development indicate a qualitative shift based on interacting social imaginaries of both Muslims and non-Muslims, which serves two key symbolic and social functions: as architectures of self-inclusion, and as architectures of assurance to the dominant, non-Muslim public in a society that resolutely “others” the Islamic faith and Muslim people. This paper explores the complex implications of this two-fold self-inclusion/assurance discourse by way of two case studies: the Hobson’s Bay mosque in Melbourne and the proposed Bendigo mosque.</p
Measuring the impact of the built environment on pedestrians in the old Bhubaneswar precinct
No full textThe old Bhubaneswar precinct is a prime religious and heritage site in India, which attracts millions of pilgrims and other travellers every year. This paper measures pedestrians’ mobility experiences and the influence of different factors in this heritage precinct. Five hundred respondents were interviewed to rate various factors of the built heritage environment using a five-point Likert scale. The data were examined through confirmatory factor analysis, and K means cluster analysis, which established that only one-third of the total pedestrians have positive mobility experiences, and pedestrians are least satisfied with comfort followed by safety factors at this site.</p
Surveying and producing the frontier in nineteenth century Manipur: challenges and practices
No full textThe second half of the nineteenth century was a turning point in the history of modern Manipur when it collaborated with the British in the first Anglo-Burmese War of 1824. With the conclusion of the treaty of Yandaboo 1826, Manipur was transformed into a frontier zone. In this backdrop, the paper explores the pre-colonial notion of territory and how it competed with the European notions of space. Boundaries were fluid, and land was perceived more in terms of people and social relations. The paper also highlights the impact of state formation and territorialisation on identity formation by referring to the changes in the management of the hills and the valley after the 1891 Anglo-Manipuri War. Demarcation of land and boundaries submitted to the logic of rule and control which resulted in the classification of land and people into far more rigid categories like the separate management of the hills and the valley.</p
Inscribing the social and sacred landscape: Jain monuments and their memorial traces in medieval Gwalior
No full textThis paper examines the programme of installing icons and inscriptions by members of the Jain religious community in the fifteenth century at the site of Gopālagiri, the prominent mountain occupying central Gwalior. I look at how this project provided opportunities for Jain patrons to literally inscribe themselves into the natural, social, and sacred landscape as benefactors to the community. In this way, I look at forms of memory construction and the ways in which they are encoded in the local landscape through the archaeological and epigraphic record. An analysis of the data obtained from this project further reveals that it was mobilized by a socio-religious network consisting of merchants, monastics, scholastics, and religious clerics. In this context of patronage, I also present a case study of one of the sculptures found here and provide an updated analysis of its inscription in order to reconstruct the circumstances of its production.</p
Largest Ancient Fortress of South-West Asia and the Western World? Recent Fieldwork at Sasanian Qaleh Iraj at Pishva, Iran
No full textProtected by a massive wall, but devoid of permanent buildings in its vast c. 175 ha interior, the rectangular compound of Qaleh Iraj near Tehran must be a military base – and as such, it is arguably the largest fortress in the ancient world to the west of modern Afghanistan. Investigations carried out previously have been based on surface finds and architecture and there had been no agreement on the date and purpose of this monument. Excavation, survey, in-depth studies of its architecture, satellite images and historical sources and the application of scientific dating have now enabled us to precision-date the earliest activity in the south-eastern gateway and the likely construction date of the fortress and to place it in its proper historical context. Sasanian Qaleh Iraj may have played a pivotal role in the northern defensive network of one the Ancient World’s most powerful empires and the fortress sheds significant new light on its military capabilities.</p
Uncovering transitions in paleoclimate time series and the climate driven demise of an ancient civilization
No full textWe present a hybrid framework appropriate for identifying distinct dynamical regimes and transitions in a paleoclimate time series. Our framework combines three powerful techniques used independently of each other in time series analysis: a recurrence plot, manifold learning through Laplacian eigenmaps, and Fisher information metric. The resulting hybrid approach achieves a more automated classification and visualization of dynamical regimes and transitions, including in the presence of missing values, observational noise, and short time series. We illustrate the capabilities of the method through several pragmatic numerical examples. Furthermore, to demonstrate the practical usefulness of the method, we apply it to a recently published paleoclimate dataset: a speleothem oxygen isotope record from North India covering the past 5700 years. This record encodes the patterns of monsoon rainfall over the region and covers the critically important period during which the Indus Valley Civilization matured and declined. We identify a transition in monsoon dynamics, indicating a possible connection between climate change and the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization.</p
Insurgent planner: Transgressing the technocratic state of postcolonial Jakarta
No full textIn Jakarta, Ciliwung Merdeka represents a collective body of emergent insurgent planning that has endured throughout the current neoliberal era and the authoritarian regime that preceded it. Within a movement tradition that recalls the Freirean influence on Indonesian societal transformation, the organisation challenges the technocratic state and its ‘rational planning’ ideology. Insurgent planning engages with society at large, laying claim to a fundamental role of participation in emancipation. Together with other Indonesian social-political movements, it helps open a path towards another kind of state, in which a more encompassing conception of right allows diverse materialisation of citizenship at the very local level.</p