Desert Mirage: Excavating Thar Vernacular

Location: Jaisalmer, India

Typology: Cultural

Year: 2021

Team: Santhosh Narayanan ( Graduate Thesis Work )

Deserts are an elusive and ephemeral environment. They are varied in types from coldest and to the hottest deserts and span from Sahara in the west at Egypt to the Thar in the east situated in India. Thar desert is an arid/semi-arid aeolian sandy desert of the Indian subcontinent is one of the major deserts of the world. It shares many climatic and geomorphological similarities with the desert ecosystems, but they are very unique in the way that the people interpret the terrain. Each microcosm has interpreted the desert in its unique way. They have inhabited the desert realm with varied purposes and intents. Their unique culture is also reflected in the architectural styles. But comparing every desert ecosystem there are obvious similarities which denotes that there is a large system at play which is the Arid desert climate and the unique topography