Chand Baori, Step Well – India

“On an unexpected side trip, 30 years after, while in India our driver took us through a massive wall into the very space I had dreamt of and drawn. I realized I had lived there before or I had even designed and participated in building it centuries ago. Ideally, the result would be a perfect crystallization, as in a dream, of everything pertinent to the context, the moment. And the architecture, like a dream, contemporary, timeless and irreproachable. Gold.

The Section peeled back the skin into a 35-meter depth – a Community gathering space, conserving water, a fresh water source filtered through the earth, leisure, washing, drinking, social gathering and worship, in an arid desert.

Indigenous, vernacular infrastructure generating sustainable nature-based millennia-old technology living in symbiosis with nature, ala Julia Watson Lo-Tek Design by Radical Indigenism. Digging while building, the stairs have multiple purpose. Shoring, while creating construction access and future access. A climate action necessity made beautiful and inclusive long ago.” (Booklet Positive Lived Experiences of Quality in the Built Environment 2023, p.99).

Google map link: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chand+Baori,+Abhaneri,+Rajasthan+303326,+Inde/@27.0073226,76.6039238,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x3972718f62c4fffb:0x419ae3b65838220c!8m2!3d27.0072667!4d76.6064803!16s%2Fm%2F04gncgp?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxOC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D