NATURE AS...

Fall 2022 | UVA School of Architecture
The Yamuna River Project: Jaipur

Man Sagar, a man-made lake at the northern edge of Jaipur, India, sits at the foot of the Aravalli Mountains and is the home of Jal Mahal, the pleasure palace of Jaipur’s king and his royal court. Once filled with curated ecological beauty, the abandoned lake and palace are now visited by 2 sewage canals, feeding trash and fecal matter into the lake, destroying the flora and fauna. However, recently, the lake and palace have been restored with the investment of an upcoming onsite hotel, and with regular cleaning, Man Sagar has been reinhabited by animals with the re-establishment of their ecosystems

Restored, Man Sagar is one of the very few sites of accessible greenery in Jaipur. Jaipur’s average green space availability measures 1.54 sq. meters per capita. The World Health Organization recommends at least 9 sq. meters, and the establishment of a hotel will not help achieve this minimum or democratize the space of Man Sagar, especially for the low-income Muslim and Hindu families that live in proximity to the lake. Alternatively, this is a proposal for a public plant nursery, makerspace, park as a learning landscape that frames nature as park, nature as a resource, and nature as habitat. These spaces are each designed with lessons of sustainability and closed-loop economies and are supported with curated native plants that provide homes, food, and craft material to animals and humans alike while serving as a public amenity that generates private income. Planted habitats also gradate from the main structure, enabling certain degrees of interaction between us and the ecology, ranging from space of close proximity to spaces for binoculars. While learning about coexistence with plants and animals, families and travelers can come to enjoy cafe drinks, or simply a clean bathroom, and find refuge from the sun, while sitting under the shade of a generous roof, in the breeze of the Aravallis, channeled through sequential apertures in thick masonry walls.

Ultimately, this proposal is a hope - a hope that people of the India can stand on grass without being whistled off - a hope that they can return to nature with mindfulness and synchronicity and care for other people, other birds, and five-striped squirrels.