Chitravad, India – AKAH

CHITRAVAD, INDIA

AKAH’s Town-Level Habitat Planning Project

Engaging with the community at various levels in India since 1991, AKAH has been working to improve the built environment including housing and sanitation, services and infrastructure and the larger environment. Post the earthquake at Bhlij (Gujarat) in 2001, which clearly exposed the vulnerability in the built environment of the area, the organisation has actively participated in post-disaster reconstruction of homes. This has enabled AKAH to build its capacity and led to the genesis of a scientific, participatory and resilient housing program called the Rural Habitat Development Program.

In 2017, the Chitravad project compendium was developed through a 9-week long workshop collaboration between the MIT School of Architecture and Planning (MIT SA+P) and the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH, of the Aga Khan Development Network) which included field work and design alternatives. The workshop focused on developing design and policy concepts for disaster resilient housing in rurban Saurashtra in Gujarat, India. A similar team from MIT studied these same villages in 1996 and their research helped inform the project planning interventions. In the span of twenty years that had elapsed since the last research study, the community had undergone several changes in its aspirations, settlement patterns, and livelihood options. However, access to basic services, effective governance models, and cohesive social integration in society, had not shown similar trends despite constitutional reforms for decentralisation and empowerment of grassroot-level governance. These factors, in turn, contributed in various ways to the quality of habitat and social fabric prevailing in these villages, as they steadily evolve and attain a rural-urban character.

Since the academic study in 2017, participatory planning with the local community has ensured that the Habitat Plan of Chitravad makes effective use of local resources to create and implement both short- and longer-term (five-year) development plans for the village.

This plan has contributed to reduced physical vulnerabilities due to flooding using technically appropriate plans to augment and restore natural drainage systems, implement wastewater treatment systems, improve village infrastructure and reconstruct vulnerable structures with disaster-resilient technology. On the environmental sustainability front, several community and stakeholder awareness sessions have been conducted on climate change adaptation, adoption of renewable energy, protection of forest and green cover and appropriate technologies for solid waste management. Rainwater harvesting systems have been installed to harness floodwaters to recharge aquifers through borewells. To help overcome the challenges of social exclusion, communities have been encouraged to create inclusive social spaces within the village. Through these interventions, AKAH in India hopes to fulfil the aspirations expressed by the community in a sustainable manner.

Place

The peninsular Saurashtra region of Gujarat is exposed to multiple environmental hazards including earthquakes, cyclones, floods, droughts, and extreme heat, and requires contextual and multi-hazard risk reduction strategies. Over the last decade, earthquake resilience has been a high priority largely because of the 2001 Gujarat earthquake that caused immense devastation in the nearby Kutch peninsula.

Some critical reasons resulting in the vulnerability in the built habitat were identified as:

Non-engineered structures built with poor quality materials seen in rural and semi-urban settlements.
Inadequate enforcement of codes in smaller settlements both urban and rural.
Lack of awareness of natural hazards and emerging risks due to new construction practices.
Lack of knowledge in resilient construction methodology in local engineers and contractors
Lack of awareness of the sensitive ecosystem which has seen huge impacts of unregulated concrete construction.

The mitigation efforts towards these risks, along with evolving community aspirations, have contributed to a gradual transformation in the housing fabric in Saurashtra villages like Chitravad, from vernacular and less durable structures of unmortared stone, mud, or thatch, known as ‘kutcha’ houses, to more resilient reinforced stone and concrete structures, regarded as ‘pucca’ (i.e., strong or solid). Efforts to upgrade or replace kutcha houses also fit into a major national housing policy initiative called Housing for All or Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY), launched in 2015. PMAY calls for state-subsidised construction of 40 million rural and 20 million urban pucca houses by 2022 to address India’s shortage of quality housing for the urban and rural poor. The magnitude of this scheme reflects the scale and speed of development and population growth seen nationally.

Although India’s population remains predominantly rural, according to the most recent census data (68% in 2011), there has been substantial rural-urban migration and peri-urban development in recent decades. Village communities, occupations, and lifestyles are changing with increased communication and mobility. These patterns of development pose a challenge to the traditional rural-urban dichotomy, and have led to ‘rurban’ policy initiatives such as the National Rurban Mission (formerly PURA, Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) to introduce urban services and economic opportunities within traditionally rural areas.

These transformational (and conflicting) forces are reflected locally in Chitravad. While the village economy has been primarily agricultural, there are signs of change as eco-hotels pop up in former farming plots along roads connecting villages catering to tourists visiting the nearby Gir Forest National Park and Sanctuary (habitat of the Asiatic lion). School children from the surrounding villages increasingly migrate to Chitravad for the school year staying in hostels to take advantage of the local reputation for quality schools.

On the one hand, a new area of houses is being incrementally constructed on the northwest edge of the village, with subsidies from the Housing for All program for low-income families. At the same time, some marginalised families continue to live in the flood-prone edges of the village in substandard homes. In addition, it is not uncommon to find abandoned or temporarily unoccupied structures along village lanes, as families of varied income strata migrate to urban areas in India and beyond in search of new economic and lifestyle opportunities. Recognising that housing and construction account for significant greenhouse gas emissions and much of the existing housing stock is energy and water inefficient, the transformation of rurban spaces requires greener solutions. Disaster resilient design is thus one key dimension of the broader ‘rurban’ vision needed to address the unfolding forces in the region.

Exterior view of a beneficiary’s family home. Credit: AKAH/MIT

Flooding in the village streets. Credit: AKAH

Typical business space in the village. Credit: AKAH/MIT

Animals frequently share the streets in Chitravad. Credit: AKAH/MIT

Storage space for shamiyana (wedding tents) and materials. Credit: AKAH/MIT

Daily life in Chitravad. Credit: AKAH/MIT

People

A socially resilient habitat development program focuses not only on physically safe spaces but a healthy, sustainable, inclusive development which enhances economic well being, creates cohesive communities and builds stewardship for society and environment. Participation was identified as the key parameter for success.

This required that the identified communities were aware of their vulnerabilities to realise the need for safe housing. Awareness and mobilisation sessions were undertaken in various settlements over a period of time.

Social Principles adopted for building community resilience were:

Participation– focus on people rather than assets
- Building identities and economic well being through spaces
- Generating ownership for assets through participation
- Developing accountability for healthy practices
Inclusion – integrating communities
- Creating identities for the left outs
- Building dignity through living spaces
- Encouraging cohesion through community spaces
Sustainability – impacting beyond housing
- Green homes and responsible living practices
- Promoting healthy and socially responsible behaviour
- Impacting housing market forces – building sustainable capacities and knowledge
- Sustainable settlement development – environmental awareness and stewardship

In response to these challenges, AKAH’s Rural Habitat Development Programme has provided safe community housing, access to water and safe sanitation, masons’ skill development and increased environmental awareness in these villages. Building on these efforts it has also engaged with the local community – including local Panchayat Raj institutions and focus groups – to gain a better, more accurate understanding of their concerns pertaining to basic services and amenities, aspirations for better housing options and the need for environment conservation. This has led to the creation of a comprehensive plan addressing improvement, development and mitigation measures for identified issues, prepared through extensive study and research of physical, technical, cultural, socio-economic and socio-political data and information.

Conducting a focus group with the Panchayat Raj. Credit: AKAH

Site visit by the project team. Credit: AKAH/MIT

Conducting a focus group with community stakeholders. Credit: AKAH

Collecting information from community members during their daily activities. Credit: AKAH

Planning

AKAH adopted the approach of establishing proof of concept of the various components of the Rural Habitat Development Program to the community through demonstrative projects. Individual resilient housing construction was demonstrated in Chitravad through the introduction of sloping roofs and bamboo tensile members thereby reducing the costs. However, an evaluation of beneficiary acceptance revealed an evolving preference for flat roofs to the traditional sloping roofs and greater preference of individual housing to group housing in rural areas. A total of 50 houses in Saurashtra and over 80 houses in other regions were constructed during this period.

The second phase of Rural Habitat Development Program was launched in 2015 in three settlements of Chitravad, Sangodra and Haripur of Gir Somnath district in Southern Saurashtra. This was then extended to seven more settlements where 110 vulnerable houses were reconstructed, and 45 moderately vulnerable houses identified for repair. The success of the program was clearly seen when requests for design and construction management support were received from less vulnerable sections of the village populations. The trained contractors further spread the awareness and ensured adoption of the good construction practices in their other projects. Thus, a change in local construction practices and techniques ensured that the objectives of the program were sustained over time.

Resilience in housing factored in not only structural safety but also resilience features for the changes in climate and the need for resilience from climate change parameters such as heat waves, excessive precipitation, water and energy stress and increasing conflicts with the local ecosystem. Rural houses were hence conceptualised to factor in traditional construction practices, cultural preferences as well as sustainable development parameters to ensure green development. These parameters include:

Bioclimatically suitable design for green homes
Material and resource optimization
Energy efficiency
Water conservation and efficiency,
Reducing heat island effect through cool roof tops

Village assessment carried out by the AKAH and MIT team. Credit: AKAH/MIT

A beneficiary in front of her newly constructed home. Credit: AKAH

Road paving work underway in Chitravad. Credit: AKDN

AKAH and MIT team working on design alternatives. Credit: AKAH/MIT

Reusing materials from demolished constructions. Credit: AKAH

A neighbourhood design proposal. Credit: AKAH/MIT

The lowest-carbon construction option is to avoid new buildings and instead repurpose an existing building for a new use. AKAH used this strategy of adaptive reuse for the Habitat Resource Centre in Chitrawad, Gujarat, India. Credit: AKAH

Focus on Bioclimatic designs. Credit: AKAH