ASSIGNMENT -1

TOPIC

URBAN MORPHOLOGY

Narratives of a neighbourhood
through satellite imagery

ALLIED DESIGN

rizvi college of architecture ,2021-22 , 5 th year ,

semester -9

nusha rakhe
1748
 THE VILLAGE TOUR:
A WALK THROUGH
TRADITIONAL INDIA
START

END

IMAGE 25

Travelers seeking a place to get a glimpse of true South India must

visit the ancient temple city of Madurai. Even today, we can see
the age-old beauty and elegance of culture and tradition. The city
boasts its lifestyle through architecture and the economy, attract-
ing visitors to the city and enhancing the revenue.

The city center, the Madurai Meenakshi temple, becomes the epi-
center for a tourist to start his journey. Entering through the tem-
ple doors, gopuram, orienting themselves in the axis to the nearby
landmark, trading town. The temple was the focal point and the
origin of the city’s development. The city has a sense of echo and
domination.

The boundary wall acts as a fortification against the invaders with

a wide door at the center of each wall intersecting your vision.
As we move out of the temple, we can see a line of trees shad-
ing the road, the market road filled with people connecting with
their sense of spirituality, mystery, and comfort, connecting god
in their own prospect. The whole scenario defines the aesthetic
of the place.

The composition of green and open compliments the infrastructure

of the city. The road is lined with tourists, visitors, and locals, each
having their purpose, creating their own interactive hubs around
the vendors selling the aroma of food, clothes, and flowers.

The city replicated the temple in its sense, ring patterns joined by narrow roads filled with living
organic blocks.

As I walk away from the temple flowing down the narrow lane branching from the market road, I can
see similar blocks, with similar muddy colors, following the standard skyline of the area with its flat
roof. The power in the area and how the locals still honor the city were clearly evident.

Here I meet Kareem, an old acquaintance. He has lived his whole life in the area. He explains to me
how the city was developed in the midst of its caste system and growing market and its influence
from globalization. From his house, I can see the temple, people enjoying the famous annual occasion
chithirai. Huge masses of people gather around the street, ground, and water bodies. It is surprising
how culture from ages ago can bind all age groups through a strong string of religions living happily
in the congestion of clusters resembling volumetric symmetries.

The story is an experience through the eyes of a travel guide on a tv show .

neighbourhood imagery pg-01
nusha rakhe ,1748
 THE SHADES FROM
THE FROST:
A LETTER FROM HOME

IMAGE 26

My dear Ann,

This is one of the last few attempts to get a letter out of you.
I am writing this letter to you before we part our ways, sitting
under the same tree where we used to meet around the circle.
I wish you would be here to see how this place has grown, rows
and rows of trees, birds chirping, people laughing and enjoying
laying on the wet grass, walking under the shading hand in hand.

It has been years since you have left the city. Everything has
changed, even the people living here. Remember the cafe we
used to go to for our morning coffee, Gabriel’s cafe, below our
building? He has shut it down and shifted to the countryside.
Now there are many such cafes to go to, but not you to go with.
The city has become aesthetic, with its charm to beguile the
visitors. I sit near the benches outside the shops shaded by the
buildings looking at the street and the people walking and buy-
ing the colorful items on display at the periphery of the street.
Though it has become a landmark for the economy, I still admire
the balance and beauty even today we saw 5 years ago.

For me, every day is brighter than the earlier every day, but for
days I lose my hope. I remember what you would say to me to go
to the end of the garden and walk straight past it looking in the
direction of the statues where the two gardens join. Our commu-
nity still connects to this. Remember the festivals?

Everyone in the area has shifted to the other end of the city, but still, it feels the same, maybe
because we share the same disparities. Today is Miley’s birthday. We are celebrating it together in
the courtyard. Miley’s mother has started gardening with a few others in the locality. She believes
gardening has its own power of healing us and truly it looks so gorgeous that everyone else is also
following us. Maybe if God permits, when you come back it will be a different place.

Well, dear, this is all the news I can write to you at this time. I trust that this letter reaches you and
believe that you miss us too.

Yours truly,

Amy.

The story is a letter from the series of letter written to a distant member neighbourhood imagery pg-02
nusha rakhe ,1748
 START
TOURIST DIARY

END

IMAGE 27
Today was my last day at the coast and I decided that before returning I would finally meet Abdul
and his family. Abdullah, one of the locals, has been living in this coastal village since his childhood
.he has been a part of the fishers community, working day and night with them.
He says they keep changing businesses with their need some time as a tourist agent, a laborer on the
ports, a trader or maybe tourist guide.it takes a lot to earn bread and run the whole family. Earlier
fishing was sufficient enough to generate income for the whole family.

Before the private companies tried to use the land the people of the village were the core of the
shores .during the days they used to work, collect, shift and sell the fishery and after the evening
they used to go fishing in a group .everything was so delightful they though their generations would
pass by so. But as years passed even the outsider started using the waterline creating private
beaches at the top shore and public beaches near the port. Boats started to collect near the port.
Day by day they started adding umbrellas and shading slowly expanding and finally one-day trading
ports were made .This increased the tourist but also took something that was only theirs. they were
being displaced further away from their house. today I can see the shore filled with people enjoying
their time with water recreational activities and sport, but what did it cost and to whom?
Abdullah takes me to his village to meet his family. The village is the background to the shore. As
I enter the lane they start getting narrower and filled with vendors and the stall reminds me of the
rabodi market .he shows me the empty land in the center ground where he and his family member put
their stall sometimes maybe when they don’t have any huge or massive festivals or events happening
.they really need a space outside those congested clusters . I met his kids playing there. it was their
sense of a park I guess.
Going further deep inwards to his family houses they were
small and closely packed, organic, unplanned yet so inter-
connected. They explain their story in those grey muddy old
walls, depleted, open terraces, deep corridors. The houses
were lit by the harsh sun but still dull. They live in these old
houses as a joint family. He says people from their commu-
nity prefer living close to each other for security, harmony,
connection, and privacy.

I spent the remainder of my day dancing, eating, and cele-

brating with his family on the roof, where people from other
terraces also gathered to watch the sunset. Despite this,
they still hold on to the culture they are accustomed to. It
was an incredibly different but wonderful day.

The story is an experience tourist to the site meetig a known.

neighbourhood imagery pg-03
nusha rakhe ,1748
THANK YOU