Apart from the sloped roofs everything else is seen in a new shape.
Earlier mud bricks covered with mud plaster were used to build up structures. Rooms especially the ground floor had low ceilings and less ventilations. Low ceilings helped to heat up the room more quickly; mud walls helped to retain the temperatures for longer time and less ventilation restricted the flow of cold waves in the rooms, says Sameer Hamdani.
Sameer advocates improvising the traditional architecture rather than adopting a completely foreign out of place designs for building up houses in Kashmir.
The most common excuse for not having mud walls anymore is that they are unhygienic and are not pleasant to eyes. But Sameer rubbishing the excuses say that it depends upon the personal hygiene of the person who lives in the place.
“Mud walls are as hygienic as the concrete walls and my room at home has mud plastered walls,” he says. “And as far as being pleasant is concerned the outer surface of the mud walls can be painted and if not painted it can easily have designs carved into it.”
Advocating reverting to traditional architecture Sameer says the traditional designs and their intelligent usage of material is centuries old and is the result of their thorough research seeing the climatic changes of the place. “It is better to improvise the traditional architecture rather than adopting new designs and materials,” he says.
