The document discusses the urban traditions and sustainability practices of the historic towns in Kathmandu Valley. It summarizes how the towns were planned and managed as bounded yet interconnected social, economic and ecological entities. Key lessons highlighted include managing urban-rural dependencies through festivals, community ownership of resources, social cohesion in diverse societies, and planning with future generations in mind through ritual and philosophy.

1. Sustainable Eco-city
Learning
from
Urban Traditions of Kathmandu Valley

2. Urban Sustainability
• Town system consists of Society, Settlement
and Nature
– Has a innate tendency to cause distancing from each
other with ‘development’ leading to unsustainabilty
– Has a concentration of people and economic activities
• With material and energy inputs and waste outputs also
dense and concentrated
• In an open continuum with the hinterland ( urban/rural)
• Town needs to be seen
– as a social entity
– as a economic entity
– as a ecological entity in the scheme of Nature

3. Eco-sustainability of Urban System
• Urban system is not closed, it can’t sustain by itself
– Because of Its resource dependence on ‘hinterland’ (basically for food,
water and energy), whose extent is ever increasing with time!
– Its waste environment that pervades into water, air and land around
(fire/thermal and ether/space also?!)
• In addition to Resource and Waste environments, Urban eco-
sustainability has to consider
– Socio-cultural environment (understanding and set up for sharing)
• Current as well as Future generations
• Unsustainable urban system DECAYS!
• Urban ecological unsustainability happens when it decays or causes
decay in one or all of its environments
– Physical, Economic or Social > go to urban ecology schema

4. Urban Culture: Urban Ecology
NATURE:
Physical
Environmental
Chains
SOCIETY:
ECONOMY: Social set up
Resources & for Sharing/
Waste Chains Competition

5. Urban Decay
• Decay in urban systems occur due to
– Failure of the supporting capacity (a sum total
of resources and regenerative gains)
– Failure of the assimilative/recycling capacity
of Nature (a sum total of waste disposed)
– Failure of distribution of wealth: urban poverty
and social degeneration
– Social order: fragmentation and loss of
community behavior

6. Lessons of History
• Kathmandu Valley has a long history of
sustained urban settlements
• Kathmandu Valley is almost a closed eco-
system (micro-global character)
• Towns of Kathmandu in History would have also
faced threats of social, economic or physical
unsustainability.
– Review experimentations/technologies in successful
approaches towards sustainability
– Social agreement/ dialogues in urban culture
– Nature and extent of individual/community behavior
over the ‘period of sustenance’
– Social/cultural/human foresight

7. Kathmandu: Natural Characteristics
• Bowl shaped topography, valley 25 Km
across and 1.5 Km deep on average.
– Lake deposits, high fertility soil
– Rain fed, all rivers originate within the
valley
– Single drain off outlet
• Water and Land sub-systems at Micro-
equilibrium > go to Valley outline map

8. Legendary City: MANJUPATTAN
Budanilkantha Manichur
Jamacho
Ichangu Legendary City:
Narayan HANDIGAON BISHAL NAGAR
Guhyeswori
Svayambhu
Changu Narayan
Kathmandu PASHUPATINATH
Sankhamul
Patan Bhadgaon
Chandagiri
Shikhanarayan
Bisankhu Phulchoki N
Narayan

9. Kathmandu: Urban Peculiarities
• 2000 years old tradition of Dense settlements
• Towns as old and continuously Lived-in
– Always located on Higher Grounds within the
Valley > go to Bhaktapur picture
– With a pond at its Higher Level > go to Gahanapokhari picture
– Public Water Supply System of Pit Conduits
– Temples at Street Crossings > go to Nyatapola/Jaisidewal pictures

12. Cross Roads Marker of Kirat days
from Jaisideval/ Tegvala

14. Kirat make a start at Urbanism!
• The idea of a Settlement
– Sitting on fallow ground in a fertile valley
– Served by pit conduit water supply system fed by a reservoir
pond at its highest level
– Dense and contained within a defined boundary
– With Cross-road spaces marked for Urban socialization
• Was basically of the Kirats (before 78 CE)
• And Not of the Lichchhavis (78 -879 CE)
– Who came from Gangatic plains with the classic
Vedic/Hindu/Buddhist ideals and know-how of planning
– Riverbank flatland pattern of settlements
– Well system

15. Eco-urbanism of the Kirat
• Dense and bounded settlements on high ground:
Preservation of economic base/agricultural land
• Integration of nature, economy and society
– Dyochhe, pith and norms of social behavior > go to pics of d/p
• Pith located at ecologically sensitive spot such as Water
holes, Springs, Land humps, Clump of trees
– Divine presence = ecological variance
• Festivals – sharing resources and recognizing the
urban/rural continuum
– Imprint the rules in the minds of people
– Carry the rules over time/ future generations
– Socio-cultural nurturing of the hinterland > go to schema

16. Pigan Festivals (Mar-Apr) display Social Agreements on
Natural Ecology and Settlement Economy
&
Ritually Mediate the agreements over space and
generations

17. A pith: Numinous Stones, Family of Siva

19. On to 2nd Cultural Period
• Population increases
– Resource base is expanded
– Towns reach out to valley foothills for Water supply sources
– Social/cultural mediation of new ecological realities,
understandings and responsibilities
– Town Festivals extend out to the resource locations.
• Settlements get enlarged
– Andipringga > Bishal Nagar
– X8 to 1 sq. km. in extent
– Lichchhavi image the town as a Vedic microcosm, geometrically
as well as philosophically
– Vaastushastra and Environment of the five elements > go to schema >go
to Lichchhavi pattern >go to Daxinkoligram pattern

20. Everything consists of
Pancha-tatwa, the five
transformation
modes/elemental
Earth principles. With the sense
Water (bhuta) of Sound, Touch,
Fire
Air Form, Taste and Smell, the
Ether
fifteen characteristic
quality-nature (guna) of
elements are formed – that
is universal (nitya).
… There should be no
tampering of the tatwa
Environment – This has to
be the universal ecological
imperative.

21. Lichchhavi
Pattern
• Daxinakoligram
• Dandaka pattern
• Ikhapokhari
Jalasayanarayan?
• Onde Narayan
• Ikha Narayan
• Chikanmugal N
• Makhan N

22. IKHA POKHARI
IKHANARAYAN
JALASAYINARAYAN
CHIKAMUGAL NARAYAN
JAISIDEVAL
HYUMATNARAYAN
ONDENARAYAN

23. Eco-urbanism: 2nd Cultural Period
• Guthi: a community based management
– Surplus Private wealth as “Public Endowment”
– Community ownership and operation of land
– Community engagement in maintenance of services
• Recognition of water supply as a urban service
– Socio-cultural mediation of urban rural continuum
– Closing the ‘urban-hinterland distancing’
– Playing out interdependencies
– Festivals extend out to sub-regions
– Become almost global by 10th century ( eg Matsendranath)
>go to wastewater treatment

24. Moderating Water Pollution
• Lichchhavis start
septage/waste water
recycling
• The reeds garden
(Natapata vatika of
the Lichchhavis)
south-east outfall and
treatment area

25. Departures of the 2nd Period
• Imaging the city: visioning
• Surplus private wealth to public service
• Community ownership and operation of
land
• Circular regenerative track:diffusing
concentrative system
• Regulating mechanism spanning current
and future generations: Framing universal
rules/ reaching agreements on values

26. On to 3rd Cultural Period
• Towns become still larger: Bhaktapur is laid out
for 12000 houses at start of 13th century
– Social heterogeneity of the town increases
• Urban Ecological problem build up
– Economic competitiveness for ‘plenty and surplus’
and disparities in sharing of gains, developing urban
poverty
– Over-exploitation of resources
– Heavy waste generation/little assimilation/ land and
water pollution and towns spilling boundaries
– Further distancing of man from Nature.
– Towns are drier and warmer

27. Eco-city: 3rd Cultural period
• Development through a Mix of
– Kirat ecological prototype > to schema
– Lichchhavi’s urban planning principles
• Eco-sensitive ritual bounding and structure
– Bounded urban development, Dune and Pine >to schema
– Ritual/Social mediation of Wider urban-rural
continuum (resource base)
– Tole sectorization, homogeneous neighborhood >to
schema

31. Eco-city: 3rd Cultural period
• Responding to 'micro-heat, dry regime & waste
sub-structure’
– Capitalizes positive aspects of 'new nature‘
– Potentially mitigates negative results
• Micro-heat:
– High Density/Low rise dev.: warmer micro-climate
– tight layout with small courtyards > Itum Bahal
– predominance of paved streets/ heat gain > Itum Bahal
– "No-Greenery-inside” – Was this a wrong move?
– Lachhi – setback for a sunny spot in narrow lanes
– Lung space: peripheral Khyos

34. Eco-city: 3rd Cultural period
• Responding to 'dry regime’
– Use of water-accepting technologies
– Pervious paving, open joints
– Surface collector drains separated from deep drains –
irrigating the dula or recharging kuwa
– Use of wells inside tole and pit conduits between
neighborhoods > recharge through own waste water
> protecting from pollution >go to well

36. Eco-city: 3rd Cultural period
• Responding to 'waste sub-structure’
– Communal toilet streets, night soil collection and raw
sewage manure agri-practice- ‘output-input’ > Schema
– Waste management:garbage and Sagah
• Capitalization of micro-heat: composting
• Health hazard management: periodic cleaning through
seasonal rituals: Lukumadyo/Pasachahre (Chait) >go to pic
– Sithi: Cleaning and maintaining water supply systems
in the driest season (Baisakh/Jeth)
• Water for seeding
– Sithi: Maintaining other ‘urban services’ – public
buildings
• Lean agricultural season

37. v]tsf]] k]6df k]6sf] v]tdf
sf Recycling
Through
Use
FARM FOOD of
Extra
Urban
Heat
*
MANURE WASTE Compost
and
Sagah

40. Eco-region: 2nd 3rd Cultural period
• Eco-region goes ‘global’ or valley-wide
• Further away, agricultural land and
forested hillocks protected and preserved.
• Watershed areas and sources of rivers
given religious image as a preservation
primer
• Ecological responses cover PES
environment and actors MSN in totality

41. Lessons of History
• Setting up the new motives and evolving ethical
behavior: ritually mediated plan
• Cities planned and patterned after a perceived
image of cosmos/ use mediated by rituals
• Accommodating growth but remaining complete
and balanced at all times as a mental construct
• Plan in the mind of the user
• Exploiting human ethics, individual faithfulness
and emotionally guided inner discipline

42. Lessons of History
• The Target of Future Generation
• In contemporary society with notoriously
shortsighted present/ development paradigm
centered on the present man
• ‘Future generation’ is not a fixed ‘time span’.
• Plans of indefinite time frame/process objectivity:
karma, dharma and philosophy of rebirth: rolling
present and future into infinite time/one entity.
• Buddhism and material frugality, 'virtuous
behavior and observance of social order' as a
life-principle in Confucianism

43. Lessons of History
• Bounded but Interacting Urban and Rural
systems
• Kathmandu Towns conceived as bounded
entities with set of perimeter gods and
goddesses defining physical boundary: taboo to
build outside
• Towns of Kathmandu on less irrigated tar: Utility
of bounding mundane: save the economic base.
• Distinct and protected hinterland for ecological
sustainability

44. Lessons of History
• Rethink the urban metabolism
• Reverse the concentrative, dry and hot by
Use of diffusive, localized, water accepting and
heat using technologies and techniques
and Keep the earth
• Moist
• Nourished and
• Green!

45. Lessons of History
• Managing Dependencies
• Urban-rural linkage/ two inter-dependent
systems managing dependencies
– Containing overexploitation of resources, exclusive
exploitation and consequent deprivation of the rural
area and lack of commensurate return of the benefits
or other inputs back to the hinterland.
– Interacting activities seeking participation of both the
dwellers of the city and the hinterland in preserving
and maintaining the resource
• Festivals: ritual play or exercises in regionalism,
preservation and citizen participation

46. Lessons of History
• Land Donated in Perpetuity/ Community
ownership
• Effective tool of building sustainability through
community participation
• Creation, maintenance and operation of
elements and processes of providing public
good/ decentralized participatory management
• Appeal to philanthropic instincts to canalize
individual wealth into community good.
• Most precious and permanent of properties/
healthy association of land and community

47. Lessons of History
• Social cohesion in Multicultural society and
the town
• Saving sustainability in societal heterogeneity
• Efforts at making pockets of homogeneity.
• Sustainability of cultural diversity within multi-
cultural societies: Mosaic scenario & not
religious neighborhoods
• Well within tole & Conduit between toles!
Graded community behavior?
• Other defined acts/ Karma and process
objectivity