WITHIN THE LIMITS

All of the vernacular architecture in India (and possibly around the world)have always happened within certain limits or rules, however myriad their architecture may appear to be.

‘The Beats’ in a musical piece that not for one moment fails to continue in the background, which integrates all the sounds, the pauses into finally music. So too these limits like those beats hold together all the varieties and possibilities and this is what makes any vernacular settlement be homogenous.

These limits must be existing not just in the architecture of the vernacular but also in every other aspect. Take for example the ‘saree’ that is the traditional wear for women almost all over the sub-continent. The limit here is that the saree is just a rectangular piece of cloth but how many different ways this cloth is worn? The limit allows such flexibility.

What could be these limitations?

-Construction technology and its limitations

-Material limitations

-Volumetric limitations

-Plan-form limitations

-Limitations that are due to imagery

And several others apart from the generic factors such as topography, climate, socio-cultural, economic etc.

Material remains the same. All elements – the jharookas, the wall panels, the railings all are pre-fabricated but are used where required which gives the architecture an omnipresent organic

character.

A homogenous townscape which has in it a great degree of multiplicity.

Characteristics of these limits.

- They are not restrictive and are flexible.- They allow great variety and thereby also Identity - These limits ensure that the continuity of the architecture is not broken.- These are not written laws that need to be rigidly adhered to but are

rather notional and are hence flexible.

The volumetric limitations of a POL house that dictates the characteristic of each floor and the material and the construction technique that gives the house its linearity .

The limits of today – the NBC and the DCR.

- Written rules that are to be followed faithfully irrespective of where it is to be applied

- Can something be learned from the concept of limits in the vernacular to amend the codes of today into a more regionalised and flexible one?

Limits like the beats of music, in their obvious presence and also in their absence time and integrate all the different sounds and the pauses to finally form music which otherwise will only be a cacophony (chaos). The music of the vernacular architecture and the traditional cities is this concept of limits and the intolerable cacophony of the present day cities is the absence of an integrating order.