Architexturez South Asia
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The world’s first slum improvement programme: Calcutta’s bustees, 1876–1910
No full textMany believe that the first slum (settlement) upgrading projects were launched in the 1960s. In fact, arguably the world’s first began in Calcutta in 1876 and ran until 1910. It was sui generis. Like recent programmes, Calcutta’s prioritized sanitary infrastructure over dwelling repairs; unlike them, it lacked resident participation. Inspired by sanitary initiatives in Britain, it was motivated by public health concerns, especially for Europeans; unusually, it had precise geographical foci. It involved the extension of sewers; of water lines to standpipes, wash stations, and public latrines; the filling in of tanks (ponds) used for washing and cooking; the closing of domestic wells; street cleaning and street widening. It was modestly effective but had the unanticipated effect of encouraging piecemeal redevelopment at higher densities. Locally and internationally, it was soon forgotten so that similar programmes had to be reinvented. In that respect, it exemplifies a common pattern of policy amnesia.</p
China’s corridor bridges: heritage buildings over water
No full textEssentially unknown in the rest of the world and only recently appreciated in China, the globally significant 3000+ ‘corridor bridges’ (langqiao) in China far outnumber the better-known ‘covered bridges’ found in North America and Europe. Rivaling or exceeding those in the West in number, age, complexity, and architectural ambition, some of China’s outstanding timber langqiao in the mountains of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces are on the cusp of being inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage cultural sites. Throughout south and central China today there is moreover a resurgence of new timber langqiao being erected using traditional carpentry alongside the unprecedented construction of modern marvels of steel and concrete.</p
Energy Justice in Slum Rehabilitation Housing: An Empirical Exploration of Built Environment Effects on Socio-Cultural Energy Demand
No full textThe interaction of energy and buildings institutes a complex socio-technical system that influences the eudemonic well-being of the occupants. Understanding these drivers become even more necessary in impoverished areas where occupants struggle to avail essential energy services. The literature indicates that energy injustice can be addressed through provisioning of comfort, cleanliness, and convenience (3Cs) as critical cultural energy services in low-income areas. This study investigates the socio-architectural influence for slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) on cultural energy services that can promote distributive justice. The methodology adopts an empirical route using data from 200 household surveys from SRH in Mumbai, India, and João Pessoa, Brazil. A model between the 3Cs and socio-architectural elements was established using Firth’s binary logistic regression. The survey results showed that the SRH in Brazil had twice the appliance ownership as compared to the Mumbai SRH. There were distinct energy service preferences in the study areas, despite common poverty burdens. The empirical results showed that the lack of socio-architectural design elements like open spaces, privacy, and walkability in the study areas demanded specific comfort and convenience appliances as a counter-response. A critical policy implication drawn was on the need for socio-architectural inclusive energy planning for distributive justice in poverty. Mitigating rising energy demand through appropriate built environment design of slum rehabilitation housing can contribute to fulfilling the UN’s SDG 7 (clean and affordable energy) and 11 (sustainable cities and communities) goals.</p
The (SUB)Liminal Art museum – Cultural dimensions in airborne societies
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@PORTALS: Doors are portals that symbolize the temporal space between the inside and outside so thematically are appropriate to be represented at an airport which is a threshold of international boundaries. The designs represented are also portals between today and yesterday as if the patterns echo a dastak, a knock, on the doorway of awareness seeking to take one back into time when these patterns were first created. For many, it is the beginning of a cultural investigation into an exotic eastern society which claims to have existed seamlessly for several thousand years. With that lure in mind, the Doors do their job of the first/last (hopefully lasting) impressions, beckoning the entranced culture-vulture into the arena of global explorers.
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The geographies of intermediation: Labor intermediaries, labor migration, and cane harvesting in rural western India
No full textIn this paper, I explain the role of labor intermediaries in the weaving of capital–labor relations in capitalist agro-business. I do so by focusing on migration infrastructure or the vertical network of labor intermediaries who facilitate labor recruitment from migrant home villages and migrant labor disciplining on cane fields in rural western India, where the laborers are brought seasonally to harvest sugarcane. I show how the role of labor intermediaries cannot be understood by containing them within the villainous stereotypes associated with brokers. Intermediaries are embedded within the labor geographies of commodity production where capital accumulation requires the downward transferring of the risk of financial loss from capitalist agro-business to intermediaries and laborers. I collected data for this research by conducting interviews and focus-group discussions in the Yavatmal and Kolhapur districts of Maharashtra state in rural western India during summer 2014 and 2015–2016.</p
Women in Islamic architecture: towards acknowledging their role in the development of Islamic civilization
No full textThroughout Islamic history, some prominent women significantly contributed to the progress and enhancement of their societies as well as expressed a sincere concern for the welfare of people. Many influencing studies examined women’s contribution to many fields of the Islamic civilization, such as the spread of the hadith (sayings) of the prophet Mohamed, education, literature, philosophy, poetry, mathematics, and medicine. Also, Muslim women were involved in a wide variety of roles in the media of visual arts, textiles, and weaving carpets. In the field of architecture, many notable women supported and initiated the construction of many remarkable buildings, which changed the image of Muslim cities. They commissioned a range of building types that enriched Islamic architecture and the urban landscape, including mosques, madrassah (theological schools), tombs, caravansaries, and hospitals. The main objective of this study is to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature on the outstanding role of women in the progress of Islamic architecture during the early centuries of Islam. The primary aim of this research is to provide an overview of women’s interaction with these varied categories of buildings, which represented an essential factor in their representation as visible members in their societies.</p
Destination image, visitor experience, and behavioural intention at heritage centre
No full textHeritage tourism is the largest, pervasive and rapidly growing tourism segment in the developing world. Developing countries consider heritage tourism as a significant tool for the community’s economic development and poverty alleviation. Heritage tourism is an essential component in India’s tourism, which reflects the country’s legacy of the past. Visitors’ perceived image on the destination and their experience is critical for the success and sustainability of the destination. The study aims to develop a model on the link between destination image, visitor experience and behavioural intention at UNESCO world heritage centre located in Karnataka, India. The findings of the research work indicate that visitor experience and perceived destination image on UNESCO sites have a strong influence on visitor’s behavioural intention.</p
Political Ecologies of Water Capture in an Indian ‘Smart City’
No full textThe historical water catchments of India’s capital city were foundational to the flourishing of settlements that spanned centuries. Today, those water features are held up as ‘wise’ models of water stewardship for the people who criticise the Indian government’s water management shortcomings. This article investigates historical imaginations of infrastructures past with attention to how their example leads to demands for ‘smart(er)’ water management regimes. It also shows how efforts to revive past water catchments can make meaningful contributions to water stewardship, but that they still risk perpetuating the water access inequalities and middle-class priorities that are identified in a growing body of scholarship on India’s water politics. Since the existing scholarship predominantly focuses on exploitative rural-to-urban and inter-urban water flows, this text argues that water politics – including political ecologies of water – are also poignantly revealed in the study of seemingly proactive solutions such as the expansion of urban water catchments.</p
Guarding the Sons of Empire: Military–State–Society Relations in Water, Sanitation and Health Programs of mid-19th-Century India
No full textDrinking water supply and sanitation have had a strong association with military institutions in South Asia from the colonial period to the present. This paper shows how military-state-society relationships created spaces of differential water access and sanitation burdens in mid-19th-century cantonments in ways that involved complex gender relations. In comparison with previous research, we argue that privileged military enclaves were segregated but never fully separated from larger urban water and sanitation systems. We use historical geographic methods to review the evolving role of military sanitation regulations in cantonments from late-18th-century policies of the East India Company (EIC) through mid-19th-century rule by the British Crown, during which time military cantonments, regulations, and formal monitoring reports were established. Close reading of the British Army Medical Department’s Statistical, Sanitary, and Medical Reports (Sanitary Reports) in the 1860s then shows how military-state-society relations diverged from civilian public health programs in ways that persist to some extent to the present day. Health advisors, some of them women, pursued an ideology and tactics to “guard the sons of empire,” from what they perceived to be a disease-filled landscape of “lurking evils,” “choleric attacks,” and “native offensives.” We conclude with a discussion of both continuities and change in the relationships between military and civilian public health reforms beyond the barracks. </p