Strengthening the urban form with socio-spatial resilience approach in hill settlements of Shimla

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt in understanding the interrelationship between social and spatial systems, between communities and the geographical landscape of hilly regions of northern India in order to enhance social resilience. The level of urbanization through which these hill towns and cities are going through has had an adverse effect on the physical environment and has led to various calamities. Due to urbanization tremendous development has taken place in these environmentally fragile areas, which has drastically transformed the physical environment and urban form in and around hill towns and cities. Therefore, there is a strong need to facilitate actions in order to maintain the urban form of hill settlements. At present, the traditional urban structure of the hill towns is going through the development crisis in terms of encroachment of newer forms on hilly terrains and enforcement of new regulation guidelines, which are not resilient. Which has impacted the city in terms transformation of urban form due to scattered and unplanned development, loss of identity and scenic beauty due to increase in disaster; and disconnection with social environment. In order to address these development issues in hilly regions, the literature related to urban structure of Himalayan cities (shankar, 2014) and theories of typo-morphology (Rob Krier,1975; Spiro Kostof,1991; Leon Krier,1984; Anne Vernez Moudon,1994) and Sociospatial resilience (Holling, 1973) have been studied along with various case examples in order to understand the existing condition of hill towns and how to make the urban structure of hill towns more resilient. Hence, the urban design domain will include design framework for spatial morphology and its functional diversity within the urban form and space, in a resilient urban system contributing to the adaptive response, offering qualitative strategies for the design of sensitive socio-spatial resilient communities in hill towns and cities. The hill town of Shimla has been considered as the site for exploration, where the urban structure of the town has already transformed in the fragile environment because of the immense human development pressure and it is the need of the hour to design an environment which develops a cohesive relationship between the people and nature.