July 01, 2013
Cities grow,
Cities build,
The rock is cut,
The mountains are diminished.
The Western Ghats are located along the western coast of India and separate the high Deccan plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. The mountain range starts from Gujarat and covers a total length of around 1600 km; culminating eventually at Kanyakumari district. Along the entire length, it forms large catchment areas for a number of lakes and water bodies. The many sided landscape and the heavy rainfall have made certain areas inaccessible and have helped in preserving the diversity of the region, making it one of the world’s critical biodiversity hotspots.
For a landscape of an office building terrace, we saw on site a deep cut in the rocks exposing the basalt face; a tribute to the ecology of Western Ghats in this context seemed apt.
The rock and the tree.
Clinging in these rocks,
The horizons expressed,
Is the lone tree,
Holding on to a memory.
-Aniket Bhagwat
The project then sees along the drive way the restored retaining wall, designed to express the horizons of the earth.
And on the terrace cafe are recreated large boulders, each planted with a rare tree of the Ghats.
People can sit around these boulders, in their shade even, feel the texture of the rocks and reflect about the narrative of a great mountain range that traverses the greater part of the country.
Detail of the recreated rock for the planter.