 Chettinad is a heritage region in southern part of Tamil Nadu.

 Chettinad comprises of 73 villages forming 3 clusters spread over a 1,550 square

kilometres

 Chettinad is known for many palatial houses and architectural ensembles built during
1850’s to 1940’s

 Majorly these palatial houses were built by a mercantile community called

‘Nagarathar’. They are known for their businesses and travelling for businesses
across the globe. Particularly to the countries of South-east Asia.

 Where ever, they go they used to bring some materials from there and produced
new products from them with indigenous locally available materials and techniques.
They brought marbles from Italy, glasses from Belgium and teak wood from Burma.

 As well they used to construct temples and aesthetic houses and mansions where
ever they go, we can see some of them in Chithamparam, Tamil Nadu and even in
Varanasi, UP

 Chettinad is not only known for palatial houses, it also very good reference for city
planning and water conservation and preservation planning.

 Due to the fact that they settled in a hot and semi-arid region, the Nagarathar took
the climate into consideration to plan the villages, design the palatial houses and in
choosing the materials to use. They had a vision of land-use planning which has
shaped a unique landscape.

 Chettinad is also known for its cultural ethos and heritage like unique design and
creation of wood and brass artifacts, a cotton saree called Kandangi saree, kottan – a
palm leaf basketry, athangudi tiles, food, special form of a Kolam called nadu veetu
kolam, festivals and functions.
 Recognizing this, the UNESCO has included the Chettinad into the World Heritage
Tentative List of India under the name ‘Chettinad, Village clusters of Tamil
Merchants’ in 2014 based on the recommendations of Advisory Committee on the
World Heritage Matters (ACWHM), Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India.

 The knowledge and eco-friendly thought process behind these architectural

monuments of Chettinad would be the elucidations towards sustainable
architectural solutions of modern era. However, the knowledge is hidden within
these buildings.

 Hesitancy among the inhabitants of the target area to reveal the inherent cultural
ethos behind the settlements of Chettinad due to lack of proper documentation is
one of the factors that leads to tacit knowledge.

 Most of the owners (actually built) of Chettinad buildings are not no more and most
of their successors are settled in metropolitan cities and foreign countries. Hence,
many of the houses are in a decaying state.

 This urges the need for proper digital documentations and mass awareness in order
to preserve the buildings and as well as the inherent heritage and cultural ethos
and transform the same towards sustainable architectural solutions of modern
times.

 Hence, this proposed study is aimed to empirically study and digitalize the inherent
Heritage and Tacit Knowledge of Chettinad Architectural Ensemble using Internet
of Things (IoT), Geospatial / 3D Modelling tools in order to bring them to the
limelight for the sustainable architectural solutions of modern times towards
achieving ‘Housing for Health’.

 Photogrammetry