Settlement Study, Sem IV
The settlement study was done in a Orchha village of Niwari district, Madhya Pradesh.
The students were distributed in 8 groups, studying different places in the same village. The group I was working in was Harijan Colony, a housing space in the village 400m down from the Ram Raja Mandir which was chosen as the central point for our reference of mapping the village. Harijan Colony had block-type mirrored houses with an interesting play of plinths throughout it.
Harijan colony which is a housing complex situated along the east-west axis of the town of Orchha. The colony with over one hundred and twenty houses was established in the mid 90’s as a part of the government housing scheme (Indira Awas Yojana) which “provides a grant for the construction of houses to members of Scheduled Caste". The built form is laid out in an orthographic grid, consisting of rectangular and long chains of built structures. The built form is laid out in an orthographic grid, consisting of rectangular and long chains of built structures.
Initially, these houses had three doors and three windows each, from which the inhabitants had to choose one of each to keep and fill in the rest with bricks or stones. The plinths hold immense importance in developing the character of this place. People used to cook their food on the chullah, dry their clothes, store their matkas and dry wood stacks. Children play here in the in-between spaces and so much more. The whole colony is not divided by separate houses but is a continuum between the builtform and surrounding.
We started drawing out the plan of the whole space and the life that was happening outside. We tried to trace all the plinths, the dogs and cows that strolled in this space, the gutter lines that flow throughout the colony, the sheds and all such things we got to see. While drawing this, we noticed that the houses here are all arranged in rows, following the same pattern. Some doors and windows were closed for a specific reason. The people living there bathed outside, cooked their food on chullahs outside, they had even made sheds for cows.
The trees played an important role in the whole part, how we led our path through this colony and much more.
Later on we worked with the whole class and looked at how our part of study can be stitched with the drawings of other groups and how the overall drawing can represent some form of the Orchha village. We developed our work in form of miniature paintings, it helped us show the exact life happening in the village.
The overall study of our Orchha Settlement Study which consists of Raja Ram Mandir, Hardaul Vatika, Chaturbhuj Temple and many other places around can be seen here.
The study and documentation of Harijan Colony can be seen here.
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