INTRODUCTION:

This project explores an environment which is constantly changing due to natural influxes. As the terrain is constantly evolving any attempt to inhabit it in a static manner would not be sustainable. Research has been focused on a highly restless environment in the Karakoram Mountain Range in Pakistan which connects various environmental forces and inhabitants. This part of the world is geologically active and is prone to earthquakes and landslides. Naturally the question arises whether it would be easier for the inhabitants (due to these natural disturbances) to relocate and live elsewhere? In order for them to stay in their area, is it possible for them to interact and coexist with the ecology of the area and the various events occurring throughout the year. The objective is to connect seasonal natural occurrences in a harmonious way resulting in new possibilities to inhabit such difficult conditions in the near future. This project will try to extract architecture which is time based and constantly negotiates between the landscape and the inhabitants, making its just as important in the present as it would be in the future.
It is an attempt to devise tools by which nature will construct its own architecture, keeping an intimate connection with the inhabitants of the settlement and documenting the events spatially. These tools will act as a bridge between the environment and the people who dwell in it. This approach is essential to keep up with the shifting terrain, spatially mapping the climatic events of the site and reducing casualties in natural disasters. The project does not intend to solve all the problems but it will act as a gateway to new design approaches and possibilities in a developing country like Pakistan.
A set of questions were aroused in Housing and Culture After Earthquakes by Yasemin Aysan. these questions are relavant in this landscape aswell.

“How successful are the investigations into safe building? How suitable are permanent houses that are provided by governments or agencies for accommodation of the homeless? To what extent are resettlements accepted by the people they house?”

Aysan, Yasemin. Housing and Culture After Earthquakes, Oxford Polytechnic, (1987)

After studying the climatic data a certain set of relationships can be made. Landslides occur more frequently during the months of July, August, September and October. These landslides are also connected to the monsoon season in this area during July august and September. The rainfall erodes the surface cover of the mountains resulting in loose rocks eventually slipping and sliding down, endangering human lives. During this period the entire basic infrastructure required for human inhabitation on the mountains and village dwellings are destroyed.