Book Title: Echoes from Naggar: Architecture of the Himalayas and Local Lore
Mentor: Dr. Gauri Shiurkar
Editors: Dr. Shreya Das & Ar. Teesha Majumder
Content Contribution: B.Arch Students from 3rd Year Sec A (Batch of 2021 – 2026)
Publisher:
School of Architecture, Urban Development & Planning,
Symbiosis Skills and Professional University, Pune
Publication Date: 2025
Print ISBN: 978-93-343-0746-7
e-ISBN: to be added
Book Synopsis
Echoes from Naggar explores the architectural wisdom of the Himalayan region, focusing on the vernacular traditions of Kathkuni and Dhajji construction. Developed as an outcome of an architectural study tour to Naggar, Raison, and Rumsu, the book blends technical knowledge with lived experiences. It combines interactive learning tools, such as pop-ups, exploded views, games, and sketches with oral histories and folk stories narrated by local elders.
The chapters bring to life the rhythms of village life through tales of shepherds, woodworkers, festivals, seasonal cycles, and family traditions. This layering of architecture, culture, and storytelling creates a holistic resource that is both educational and immersive. The visual illustrations by students further enrich the narrative, allowing readers to engage with Himalayan heritage beyond just its physical structures.
The book transforms the study of Naggar and Himachal’s vernacular architecture into an interactive, multi-sensory experience by blending documentation, stories, and games that engage students visually, culturally, and experientially. The format of the book helps students of architecture, reading this, learn faster and retain information better.
Interactive Board Game – Naggar: Journey of Life
An innovative addition to the book is Journey: Naggar, a semi-cooperative, story-driven board game designed to simulate the life of Himalayan artisans and villagers.
- Gameplay: 2–5 players assume the roles of artisans (potters, weavers, woodworkers, etc.) and progress through a 90-step illustrated path representing seasonal life cycles.
- Mechanics: Players roll dice, move artisan pawns, and draw event cards (Blessings, Challenges, Choices, or Opportunities). These cards reflect real-life dilemmas—balancing nature, community, and livelihood.
- Learning Outcome: Success is not only measured by wealth but by the meaningfulness of one’s journey, gauged through impact tokens and community-driven decisions.
Readers can download and print the board game from the provided link and play it in teams to engage with and better understand the indigenous built forms of Naggar.
Book Title: Sacred Facades and Modern Grid: The Tale of Two Cities
Mentor: Dr. Gauri Shiurkar
Editors: Dr. Shreya Das & Ar. Teesha Majumder
Content Contribution: B.Arch Students from 3rd Year Sec A (Batch of 2021 – 2026)
Publisher:
School of Architecture, Urban Development & Planning,
Symbiosis Skills and Professional University, Pune
Publication Date: 2025
Print ISBN: 978-93-343-0926-3
e-ISBN: to be added
Book Synopsis
Sacred Facades and Modern Grid offers a comparative exploration of two distinct urban fabrics—Chandigarh, a modernist city planned by Le Corbusier, and Amritsar, a historic city shaped by cultural, religious, and social traditions. Through detailed drawings, maps, sketches, and visual analyses, it examines how planned and unplanned urban forms influence human experience.
Framed by Kevin Lynch’s five elements of urban design—paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks—the study highlights how these elements function differently in structured versus organic growth. Chandigarh’s grid-based clarity contrasts with Amritsar’s intricate lanes and symbolic nodes, prompting students to critically evaluate spatial organization, legibility, and orientation.
The documentation also sheds light on wayfinding and tourist navigation, revealing how planned order and lived traditions offer different modes of guidance. Blending rigorous fieldwork, rich visuals, and theoretical insight, this book serves as both a learning resource and practical guide for students of architecture and urban design.
| Symbiosis School of Architecture, Urban Development and Planning | |||||||||
| Sr. No | Name of the Faculty | Publication Title | Name of the Journal/ Conference in which paper is published | Date / Year | |||||
| 1 | Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Ongoing research in Teaching learning Pedagogy ( Role of Multiple Intelligence and Skill Development in Architectural Education) | 2019 till date | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Conservation of Royal Heritage Interiors in Southern Maharashtra | Funded Research by UGC, Board of College and University Development (BCUD), University of Pune | Duration 2009 to 2011 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Documentation of 100 Heritage Buildings in Chennai: Funded by Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, Chennai | Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority | 2017-2018 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Royal Heritage Interiors in Southern Maharashtra‟ in progress, | BOOK Publishers White Falcon Publishing | Under Process | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Guidelines for the Conservation of Proposal of Conservation Guidelines for the Ancient Heritage buildings in South India.‟ in progress, | BOOK Publisher: McGAN’s Heritage Cell. | Under Process | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Heritage of Chennai ( A documentation of 100 buildings) in progress, Publisher: McGAN’s Heritage Cell | BOOK Publisher: McGAN’s Heritage Cell. | Under Process | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | People’s Role in preserving the Heritage cities in India | Amity Global History Review, Volume 1 | 2014 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Center for Built Environment , Calcutta, Theme: Cities under Restoration Title: Public Participation in Conservation and Management of Historic Urban Landscape | Proceedings of International Symposium at Center for Built Environment | 2013 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Proceedings of International Conference at University of Moratuwa, Colombo Organized By –University of Moratuwa , Theme: Cities, People and Places , Title: Tracing the identity of a city | University of Moratuwa, Colombo | 2013 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Published an article on Interior Design | Kesari’s Special Edition on Architecture and Interior Design. | 2008 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Published an article on Conservation of Royal Heritage Interiors | ESEEED , Dimension Next 2008 Issue | 2008 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Published an article on Role of Conservation in Tourism | Journal of Indian Institute of Architects | 2008 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Role of Multiple Intelligence and Skill Development in Architectural Education | National E Conference by Symbiosis Skills and Professional University‘ Skills in Architectural Education: A new paradigm | 2020 | ||||||
| Architectural Pedagogy: Innovative teaching & learning methods to begin the ‘Design’ | National E Conference by Symbiosis Skills and Professional University‘ Skills in Architectural Education: A new paradigm | 2020 | |||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Tracing the identity of a city | International Conference at University of Moratuwa, Colombo | 2013 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Cities under Restoration Public Participation in Conservation and Management of Historic Urban Landscape |
International Symposium at Center for Built Environment | 2013 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | Public Participation in the rejuvenation of Heritage cities in India | International Conference on Research for Resurgence, Nagpur | 2016 | ||||||
| Dr. Gauri Shiurkar | People’s Role in preserving the Heritage cities in India | International Conference on Global History in Amity University New Delhi | 2016 | ||||||
| 2 | Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | Engineering Sciences International Research Journal Volume 6 Issue 1 ISSN 2320- 4338 Sept 21-22,2018 | RESILIENT CITY PLANS AS IMPORTANT ASPECT OF FUTURE DEVELOPMENT PLANS OF INDIAN CITIES | 2018 | |||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | INCLUSIVE STIMULATING SPACE PLANNING FOR SUSTAINABLE URBAN AGGLOMERATION | Engineering Sciences International Research Journal Volume 6 Issue 1 ISSN 2320- 4338 | 2018 | ||||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | OVERVIEW OF IMPLEMENTATION OF DEVELOPMENT PLANS IN INDIA | Engineering Sciences International Research Journal Volume 6 Issue 1 ISSN 2320- 4338 | 2018 | ||||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | Technological Intervention for Effective Strategies formulation and Implementation | International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT),Volume-9 Issue-4, April 2020 in Regular Issue ,ISSN: 2249-8958 | 2020 | ||||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | Risk,rescue,reduction:reinterpreting urban floods | 2019 | |||||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | Smart CSR participation to promote citizen ownership | the ‘International Conference on Construction, Real Estate, Infrastructure and Project Management (ICCRIP– 2019)’ to be held during ‘December 13 & 14, 2019’ at National Institute of Construction Management and Research (NICMAR), Pune. | 2019 | ||||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | Revisiting ‘Site Visits’- With an Innovative Perspective | National E Conference by Symbiosis Skills and Professional University‘ Skills in Architectural Education: A new paradigm | 2020 | ||||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | Significance of Development Control Rules as a tool for the Controlled Development of a City | 6th International Conference Energy & City of the future, EVF2019 .,Dec18 to Dec 20,2019 ,MIT School of Engg,MIT Art, Design & Technology University,Pune,India | 2020 | ||||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | Planning Aspect of balancing Sustainability and Green Form for 21st Centuries Mega Cities | International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE) ISSN: 2278-3075, Volume-8, Issue-10S, August 2019 | 2019 | ||||||
| Ar. Rutuja Jagtap | OPEN SPACE AS A NATURAL REMEDY TOOL TO ENHANCE HEALTH AND QUALITY OF LIFE THROUGH PLANNING INTERVENTIONS |
Journal Of Natural Remedies (JNR) Vol. 21 No. 7(S2) (2020): November, Special Issue-2320-3358;Pg 71-75 | 2020 | ||||||
| 3 | Ar. Shahid Rahmat | A multi model approach to assess the relative weights and sensitivities of the factors of competitiveness | Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis (Scopus, ESCI) | 2021 | |||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Examining the effects of green revolution led agricultural expansion on net ecosystem service values in India using multiple valuation approaches | Journal of Environmental Management, (ESCI, Scopus) | 2021 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | 3. Jain, S., Sannigrahi, S., Sen, S., Bhatt, S., Chakraborti, S., Rahmat, S., (2020). Urban heat island intensity and its mitigation strategies in the fast-growing urban area. (Published). | Journal of Urban Management (Scopus, ESCI) | 2020 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Ecosystem service valuation of a natural reserve region for sustainable management of natural resources | Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Indicators (DOAJ) | 2020 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Estimating global ecosystem service values and its response to land surface dynamics during 1995–2015 | Journal of environmental management (S.C.I., Impact factor 4.9) | 2018 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Analyzing the role of biophysical compositions in minimizing urban land surface temperature and urban heating | Urban climate (S.C.I.E., Cite score 4.25) | 2018 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Changing dynamics of urban biophysical composition and its impact on urban heat island intensity and thermal characteristics: the case of Hyderabad City, India | Modeling Earth Systems and Environment | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Cluster analysis-based approach to delineate homogeneous regions, for the assessment of regional competitiveness | Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering Science Studies | 2016 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | A methodology to assess relative weights and sensitivity of the factors of regional competitiveness | International Conference of Annual European Urban Research Association, Tilburg, The Netherlands. | 2018 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Spatially explicit exploration of interrelationship between level of infrastructure and trend of urbanization in India: An application of spatial computation and automation | American Geophysical Union, New Orleans, USA (Virtual presentation) | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Changing dynamics of urban biophysical composition and its impact on urban heat island intensity and thermal characteristics: A study on Hyderabad city, India | the 38th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing, New Delhi, India | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Efficiency of Economic infrastructure in enhancing Regional Competitiveness of the districts of Indo-Gangetic plain: A GIS based approach | the 38th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing, New Delhi, India | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Application of GIS in exploring spatial dimensions of Efficiency in Competitiveness of Regions | European Geosciences Union, Vienna | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Effects of active forest fire on terrestrial ecosystem production and greenhouse gas emission | European Geosciences Union, Vienna | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Quantitative assessment of the impact of causative human drivers on urban ecosystem productivity using MODIS and Landsat data: A case study of Hyderabad city, India | National symposium on recent advances in remote sensing and GIS with special emphasis on mountain ecosystem, Dehradun, India | 2016 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Quantitative assessment of the effects of forest fires on terrestrial ecosystem productivity in the Uttrakhand Himalayan region, India | National symposium on recent advances in remote sensing and GIS with special emphasis on mountain ecosystem, Dehradun, India | 2016 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Qualified Graduate Aptitude test in Engineering (GATE) – AIR 63, AR-Architecture and Planning | 2010 | |||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Certification in Business Analytics | Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur | 2018 | ||||||
| Ar. Shahid Rahmat | Certification in Big data Hadoop and Spark developer | Simplilearn | 2020 | ||||||
| 4 | Ar. Manisha Wagh | Revisiting ‘Site Visits’- With an Innovative Perspective | National E Conference by Symbiosis Skills and Professional University‘ Skills in Architectural Education: A new paradigm | 2020 | |||||
| Ar. Manisha Wagh | Cities and biodiversity: Nurturing the Symbiostic Relationship | International Conference on Built Environment, Science and Technology | 2021 | ||||||
| Ar. Manisha Wagh | Recycling And Reuse Of Wastewater: A Landscape Approach For Conservation Of Water As A Natural Resource | National Conference on Emerging Trends in Architecture, Technology and Allied Fields | 2016 | ||||||
| Paving the Way towards Smart Cities through Nature | National Conference on Architecture and Beyond, Vidya Pratishthan’s School of Architecture | 2017 | |||||||
| 5 | Ar. Minal Palve | Artificial Intelligence: The Futuristic Approach for Architectural Design | Multidisciplinary International Conference on “Transformation and Survival Post Pandemic” | 2020 | |||||
| Ar. Minal Palve | Environmental design consideration for streetscape for Marine Drive, Mumbai | National Conference ‘Design with the Environment – Smart Cities and Environmental Consideration in Architecture and Planning’ | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Minal Palve | Urban design consideration with special reference to sustainable streetscape in smart city planning | National Conference ‘Smart Cities: Approaches, Opportunities & Challenges’ | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Minal Palve | Architectural Pedagogy: Innovative teaching & learning methods to begin the ‘Design’ | National E Conference by Symbiosis Skills and Professional University‘ Skills in Architectural Education: A new paradigm | 2020 | ||||||
| 6 | Ar. Preeti Pujari | Skills to revamp History of Architecture & Theory of Architecture into live activity A new paradignm for Architectural Pedagogy | National E Conference by Symbiosis Skills and Professional University‘ Skills in Architectural Education: A new paradigm | 2020 | |||||
| 7 | Ar. Pritishma Kakoty | Skills to revamp History of Architecture & Theory of Architecture into live activity A new paradignm for Architectural Pedagogy | National E Conference by Symbiosis Skills and Professional University‘ Skills in Architectural Education: A new paradigm | 2020 | |||||
| 8 | Er. Sushant Magdum | Significant role of skillful pedagogy for Theory of Structure in Architectural curriculum | National E Conference by Symbiosis Skills and Professional University‘ Skills in Architectural Education: A new paradigm | 2020 | |||||
| 9 | Ar. Niharika Choudhary | International Journal of Engineering Research ,ISSN:2319-6890 (online),2347-5013(print) Volume No.7, Issue Special 3, pp : 307-311 | Certificate of appreciation for contribution and presentation on the paper titled – Precast Element’s Erection & Installation At Site in NCETA 2018 , | 2018 | |||||
| 10 | Ar. Mihir Vakharia | International Journal of Engineering Research, ISSN:2319-6890 (online), | Potential of Mixed Mode Buildings in Hot-Dry Climate, Ahmedabad” International Journal of Engineering Research | 2018 | |||||
| Ar. Mihir Vakharia | National conference on Sustainability in Built Environment Organize by Aurora Group of Architecture Colleges Hyderabad | Rethinking of Shelter Design in the form of Deployable Shelter for Pilgrims | 2018 | ||||||
| Ar. Mihir Vakharia | International Journal of Research in Civil Engineering, Architecture and Design, ISSN online: 2347-8284 | Analytical Study of Parameters Influencing Extinction of Vernacular Traditional Architecture in Vidharbha Region | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Mihir Vakharia | National Level Conference on Design with the Environment with Special Focus on Smart Cities Organize by D Y Patil School of Architecture Charholi, Lohegaon, | Transformation of Traditional Vernacular House Form of Vyara | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Mihir Vakharia | National conference on Smart Cities Approaches, opportunities and Challenges Built Environment Organize by Sinhgad of Colleges of Architecture Pune | Natural Illumination of Factory Buildings: Light Pipe | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Mihir Vakharia | International Journal of Research in Civil Engineering, Architecture & Design, ISSN Online: 2347-2855 | Impact of Thermal Mass on Indoor Environment and Cooling Consumption in Composite Climate | 2016 | ||||||
| Ar. Mihir Vakharia | 30th INTERNATIONAL PLEA CONFERENCE organised by CEPT University, Ahmedabad | Assessment of Air Velocity Preferences and Satisfaction for Naturally Ventilated Office Buildings in India | 2014 | ||||||
| Ar. Mihir Vakharia | INSITE magazine, issue September 2017 | Thermal Performance of Courtyard in Pol House of Ahmedabad | 2017 | ||||||
| Ar. Mihir Vakharia | Indian Architect and Builder magazine, Vol. 28(2) Oct. 2014 | Summer in Ahmedabad: Pol House Performance A Thermal Analysis of three Ahmedabad pol houses | 2014 | ||||||