"We have to look at the fractured parts and see how to reconnect them:” Akshay Kaul

Since evolution human being has been dependent on its surrounding for food, water, air, and other necessary materials required for sustenance of life. In the pre-historic period, people were described as hunter-gatherers who would kill animals for food and devised ways of vegetation. They didn’t settle in one place but kept on moving in search of a suitable place where they can survive. Since nature was their provider, they worshipped it and kept it safe. 

With the advent of time and technology, the dependence on nature increased which led to more demand. The demand was marked by excessive use of raw materials from nature but without any replenishment. This has resulted in what we see today- haphazard constructions, climate change, deforestation, global warming, man-made calamities, and the list goes on. 

The damage is done and some say it is beyond repair but many people are working to restore the balance in nature with the use of technology and spreading awareness about it. Akshay Kaul is one of those persons who are trying to bring balance through environmentally sustainable landscape planning.

Akshay Kaul

Recently ‘Design with Nature and Not against it’, an online workshop on on-site planning and urban ecology was started in Kashmir for professionals, architects, students of architecture and civil engineering professionals and students, by Kaul, founder of Delhi-based architecture firm ‘Akshay Kaul and Associates.’ 

The workshop was aimed at bringing awareness amongst people about natural processes and systems, principles and tools of site planning and site design, how to locate a building on-site with minimal damage to natural processes and systems. The notion of ‘Design with Nature’ would help participants to understand site and landform through contour plans, google maps, and its study and analysis. 

In this interview Kaul speaks about the workshop, Kashmir's landscape, and ecological planning in the valley. 

Edited excerpts:

1.       How did the idea behind the workshop originate?

I have been actively involved in Kashmir since the 2014 floods. I travelled the whole length of the valley and met many stakeholders, engineers, and common people to understand why the floods happened. 

Kashmir Floods 2014

After researching for six months I started presenting about the natural ecological fragility of the valley and why the floods happened. The ecosystem is on a threshold and until it is actively engaged, we will keep losing it.

 

We teamed up with young people and started a cafe talk over architecture. We even started one of the first story walks in the downtown to engage with people. In 2016 the office of the chief minister called us and after that, we were very actively engaged in doing one of its kind multidisciplinary workshops and conferences. We also initiated a solid waste management dialogue.

 

For flood relief we wanted the government to adopt alternate practices which have been done globally for designing with nature so that if it rains it is absorbed on the side itself and slowly percolates into the ground. Therefore, only some part of the city is inundated.

 

I kept going to Kashmir and then I had friends who were teaching in the school of architecture. They invited me and I did 2-3 workshops with architecture students on how to document lakes and what are the issues.

 

People were restless due to COVID and even the architecture community understands very little about larger issues of geography, climate, and designs that are responsive to nature, so I started the workshop with two modules where I teach architects of the country on how to do sensitive planning. If you have to construct a building on a 50-acre site I demonstrate from my projects of the last 25 years, what are the parameters that must be taken care of.

 

2. Do you think there is a change in the landscape planning in Kashmir post-2014 floods?

I think some people are talking about ecologically sensitive urban planning but not enough. There might be a slight iota of increase in the awareness but on the ground, it doesn't get translated into action.

If we look at Kashmir’s environmental history, flood was a recurring process but there were smaller floods. During the Maharaja reign when the floods came, he invited a French engineer who created a diversion channel which helped to reduce the yearly floods in the valley. Certain areas would get inundated but they were primarily agrarian areas but now those areas are inhabited by people. 

Kashmir Floods 2014

The whole connectivity of the lakes and sub-ground connectivity is completely fragmented due to the construction of rails, roads. Lakes have been encroached and shrunken.

 

The project proposal floated by the then Jammu and Kashmir government sought to create another channel that would straightaway take water into the Wular Lake from where it would drain off. This proposal was not an ecologically-based solution because Wular Lake is shrunk completely and the volume of water coming in the lake would have backflow.

 

3.       What interventions are required for wetlands and rivers in Kashmir?

It's not a big deal for the government to save the water bodies. With a clear mandate and support, they can take waterbodies one by one. If I have to work on the Jhelum river, I would take a smaller watershed and then another watershed and so on. The government can also follow this pattern.

 

The watersheds of Anchar lake are completely dried up because water is not coming from the catchment areas which means that the catchment is disturbed and fragmented. Another reason is the discharge of sewage into the water bodies which have a huge amount of nitrogen. This results in the growth of plantation which converts it into a marsh. A huge amount of pesticides also make their way into the rivers causing contamination of groundwater.

Anchar Lake

 

An alternative to chemical farming is organic farming but the organic farming content is minuscule in Kashmir. The level of education and awareness required for organic farming is not sufficient in the valley.

 

4.       What are the environmental challenges in urban planning in Kashmir?

We are not responding to climate emergencies and changing weather patterns. If you look at it historically Kashmir is a lake of bed which drains off from just one point and it is very prone to earthquakes and much more prone to flooding.

 

There is sprawl in terms of taking over land-use change over the years from agrarian to plantation, marshy to plantation, and agrarian to build.  After the 2014 floods, the building typology hasn't changed so are our planning bylaws.

 

For instance, when we're building in low lying areas like Bemina where it got flooded the most in 2014, the building typology should mandate at least 10 feet of stilted buildings which are also being followed in the outskirts of Kolkata where the Hugli river inundates every year. This type of responsiveness is missing in Kashmir. It can only handle a certain amount of people and there is no room for expansion.

Bemina Area

Many proposals came after the floods but people are building on the same place as it is never going to flood again but if it rains for two days in Kashmir people are frightened.

 

5.       What do you think is missing from the current education system of landscape planning in India?

The curriculum in India is only Masters for landscape architecture and we don't have any undergraduate curriculum per se where you can go through the rigour of landscape planning.  Another serious problem that exists in our landscape architecture curriculum is that only those students who have done specialization in architecture can apply for it. If we include people from other professions it will add more to the course.

 

For example, a person with a sociology background will help us to understand human behaviour in open spaces which will help in making more responsive designs for public spaces. Since people from other fields don’t join the courses there is a very little breadth of the course.

 

When I was studying landscape architecture from State University, New York, we had students who were from different fields thereby expanding the breadth of the subject. This helped us to understand the whole profession and other people add on the expertise of their domain and each of these domains then picks up issues of the environment and embraces it.

 

6.       Which cities/states in India come under the category of well-planned in terms of ecological planning and landscape design?

Sikkim has a turnaround story from being a plastic dumped state to a litter-free state. While travelling to Sikkim as soon as you cross West Bengal, you see there is not an iota of plastic in the state. With whatever minimal infrastructure they have, I would say Sikkim stands way far in comparison to other states.

Sikkim

There are many other isolated places on high altitudes in India on which I've been doing some research where individual efforts are merely heartwarming.

 

7.       What steps should be taken by the government to have environment-sensitive planning?

Some of the work done by us is being implemented by the government. For instance, about four-five years back we talked about connecting greenspaces in Delhi so that they become places for water resilience, wastewater management, biodiversity and once you put this green infrastructure into place, they also become recreational space. 

We have to look at the fractured parts and see how to reconnect them whether they are water systems or green systems.

 

We have an administrative boundary under the jurisdiction of some authority and then there is a political boundary which is under an MLA and then there's an administrative boundary which is that of the district. Half of the rivers which are a part of two-three boundaries are cleaned in one part and the other part remains as such. We're not looking at it comprehensively.

 

 If we don't look at it from a holistic management principle then we will be running into a problem. There has to be a correlation between all the boundaries for better results.