Changes in Vernacular Housing in Uttarakhand

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to increase the importance of the vernacular style of architecture in the upper most parts of the Uttarakhand region specially in Raithal and Siror village in Uttarkashi district; the need of vernacular houses is very much required in these parts of region as this area lies in the seismic zone 5 which means it faces a lot of earthquakes and the vernacular is the style which is earthquake resistant and helps in keeping the building stand for a long period of time which is durable, affordable, easy to maintain and cheaper to construct and all the materials are easily available in the district and which is at cheaper rate. As the earthquake hit the Uttarkashi district in 1991, it causes most of the damaged in the concrete buildings where as the locally materials didn’t get the much affect they did got some of the cracks but not that much affect so that’s the most important reason of using vernacular style architecture as compare to the RCC structures plus the materials are eco-friendly, easily available, cheap and easy to construct and the purpose will be to cover up all the factors of the area to understand why vernacular style is being abandoned time to time and the effect on the typologies caused the RCC structure and what are the different ways to make the area more ecological and the buildings more sustainable and earthquake resistant. In the further paper, we will discuss the ways how this topic can be achieved and what are the various techniques and materials to do so.