pukka roofing material. The structural material for construction in the south is usually casuarina or the coconut palm, good for roofing and roof beams. Floors can be either compacted earth, or laid with stone. Clay flooring with a traditional, painstakingly prepared red laterite polish is also commonly used in the south.
Variations in Form and Infrastructure
Homes in the hills are usually two-storied, with domestic animals occupying the ground floor and humans the first floor. This ensures safety for the livestock as well as warmth during the cold winter season. In many houses, a verandah runs along one side of the house, and on the upper floors this verandah projects out, resting on brackets or corbeled out. The attic is used to store grain, root vegetables, chillies and corn.
The roofs are always pitched, and in the northeast, with a very wet climate, have deep projecting eaves to prevent rainwater from damaging the walls. The plinths in this part are raised on bamboo poles, to counter floods.
In the high and dry plateau of Ladakh, the pitched roof gives way to a flat one with houses having more than one floor, built close to one another, with connecting passages.
In arid southern Rajasthan, mud is fashioned into dramatic shapes and the walls are rounded, allowing the desert winds to whistle past without damaging them. A cluster of structures faces a common courtyard. Rectangular forms are more common in the northern desert region.
On the west coast, fishing settlements have thatched roofs of coconut fronds or thick, dried paddy projecting over large verandahs, which can be used as a work space during the heavy monsoons.
Village homes have low lintels, made of either stone or wood, ensuring that whoever enters has to bow his head, which not only ensures safety from hostile strangers but is also a gesture of respect. Thick mud walls allow for windows and doors to be inset as well as for simple stone slab shelves to be fixed.
Clay tiles are a popular roofing material for pukka roofs in South India.
A typical hill house with a sloping tin roof.
Elements of Space and Decoration
Modernity is but one of the many overlays that constitute the complex canvas of Indian lifestyles, and in every region the architectural features of buildings have deep cultural resonances of older ways of living. Traditional homes in India share certain spatial and ornamental elements which are common, regardless of where they are located The names of these elements may vary according to the region but their function and character are accepted as indispensable to domestic architecture, just as the zenana (women's quarters) was essential for reasons of purdah and distinct from the mardana (spaces restricted to men).
Elaborate color-filled carvings constitute the façade elements in the havelis of Jaisalmer.
The Courtyard
The Vaastu Shastra defines the focal point of any building as the point of equilibrium. In the domestic dwelling, this is the courtyard, an enclosed private space, open to the sky. Present even in the earliest homes of the Indus valley civilisation, the courtyard is the major spatial element of homes in the plains. In Hindu households, there is a tulsi plant (holy basil) at its center, revered for its healing powers. It is usually contained within a plinth or ornate planter.
The Threshold
The threshold signifies the transition of space from the public to the private. In traditional buildings, the threshold is slightly elevated, both to prevent hostile intrusions as well as to keep out insects and reptiles. Footwear is removed at this point, and one enters the house barefoot.
The Hearth
The cooking hearth, known as the chulha, is the purest space in the traditional house. The area around the chulha is ritually washed before the preparation of the morning meal, and it is essential to bathe before entering it. The women of the house do all the cooking and serving. At all meals, the men are served first, sitting on low wooden stools called chowkis. Sometimes, a second chulha was constructed in the courtyard for boiling water and other purposes.
Not only within houses but between them courtyard-like spaces provide the public interactive area. In hot cities like Jaisalmer, narrow streets open up to provide areas for people to get together. Architectural features include jharokhas and decorated galleries.
The interior of a hut in Kutch shows the women's decorative handiwork with mirrors and relief abstract.
The chulha was designed to use firewood, and the smoke that rose from it was welcome as it killed vermin. Most houses did not have a chimney. In some tribal houses, the apex of the roof was open to the sky and covered by a clay pot that could be lifted when required.
Decorative Elements
The Indian love for color and design is evident in even the humblest of homes. Floors, especially in the areas around the threshold and the family shrine, are decorated with patterns drawn with rice flour, powdered chalk, flower petals or turmeric powder. This ritual decoration, called kolam, rangoli or alpana, whether done daily or for special occasions, is evident throughout the country, although the patterns executed differ from place to place. Walls are also painted or molded in relief with both geometric and iconographic motifs.
Unlike the permanent decorations painted on the façade and on spatially important parts of the house, paintings with washable materials at the entry point celebrate important rituals or festive events, either within the house or outside in the overall context of the community.
Most homes had small niches built into the wall, like the mihrab in mosques, used to keep candles or lamps, to house a shrine, or simply for storage. Kutch homes are covered with such ornate niches. The ornamentation in larger Hindu homes depicted entire scenes, involving figures and deities from mythology, the epics and stories from the Puranas. Usually the location and the subject of the paintings followed a set order. Entrances had auspicious symbols painted on them. The colors used were earth colors. Communities of fresco painters traditionally trained in the art were employed to execute elaborate designs by wealthy patrons.
Structural elements were also exploited for decoration, such as the carved or latticed jharokhas of Rajasthan, brackets and pillars.
Frescoes of religious or mythological scenes adorn the walls of havelis of the rich merchant class in Mandawa, Rajasthan.
An example of Ladakhi wooden pillar capitals painted with bright Tibetan and Chinese motifs which support the ceiling of a traditional house.
Architecture and Science
Indian literary sources provide evidence of the deep and close relationship
