Jaisalmer is a historical town located in the arid planes of west Rajasthan in the midst of the Thar desert. The compactly built town has many tall buildings, giving it a fairly dense and vertical effect. The organic, but well organized public spaces and streets is strongly guided by the orientation to generate shade. The transition from public spaces to the street and then the houses depend on the direction in which the street is oriented.
In this series of sketches, the section through the east-west orientation street and house shows the narrowing down of the opening to the sky, keeping the width of the street wide, but cutting the light/ heat entering the street keeping the street shaded through the day. The section also shows how the courtyard of the house adopts the same technique, with jharokas projecting into the street and courtyards, with layers of shading screens into the living spaces. The parapet walls are raised to shade the terrace which forms the series of beautiful courtyards of different scale and sizes for various functions.
I was trying to understand the kind of drawing, sketches to be made to express my understanding of a place or a space. This drawing was made on site, then traced with pens and alcohol markers to express what I understood in the year 1996 during one of the travels. The same sketches were scanned, digitally altered and refined.
WCFA Graphic Collective 