Hathi-Gaon –
‘The Elephant Village’
(Housing for Mahouts
& their elephants)
Presentation by:-
Nandini S. Nahata
B. Arch- II, Sem.- IV
DP21BRAR046
ABOUT THE ARCHITECT
• “Architecture is the physical manifestation of
society’s aspirations in the broader sense.” –
Rahul Mehrotra
• “Our country certainly should not unthinkingly
adopt western ideas when it comes to an
architecture competition and instead look for
local solutions.” – Rahul Mehrotra
• Rahul Mehrotra is one of India’s leading
architects. He is the Principal Architect and the
founder of RMA Architects located in Mumbai
and Boston.
• He also believes that when it comes to buildings,
there shouldn’t be any restrictions on the color or
shape of a building as long as it fits the context.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
• The concept of Hathi Gaon emerged while doing a
competition organized by the Rajasthan
Government. RMA Architects won the competition
and developed the structures near the Amber Fort in
Jaipur.
• The Hathi Gaon is a community or housing project
designed for 100 elephants and their caretakers—
Mahouts—working in the famous Amber Fort as
tourist guides or for tourist attractions.
• Rahul Mehrotra’s ideologies inclined more towards
the use of traditional techniques and merging them
with western ideas that got him the recognition he
has today and helped him create this well-thought
community village for housing elephants and their
riders.
LOCATION & BRIEF HISTORY
• A housing project for a 100 elephants and their Mahouts (care-
takers), “Hathi Gaon” (or elephant village) is situated at the
foothill of the Amber Palace and Fort near Jaipur.
• Amber Fort outside Jaipur is a popular tourist attraction. The
mahouts and the elephants live in nearby Hathi gaon, at the
base of the fort.
• The process begun with the state-governmental initiative of
identifying such a setting and showing immense interest in its
preservation. They floated a country-wide design competition
with careful analysis of the context and stakeholders. The
competition was won by RMA Architects, and they made no
further delay in moving towards the project with care.
Mapping out the environmental conditions of the site, added
by the degradation from sand quarrying, the architects seek
assistance from the government on various bureaucratic levels.
DESIGN STRATEGY
• The design strategy first involved structuring the landscape that had been
devastated by its use as a sand quarry by local sand suppliers, to create a
series of water bodies to harvest the rain runoff, as this is the most crucial
resource in the desert climate of Rajasthan.
• With the water resources in place, an extensive tree plantation program
was carried out together with seeding the site to propagate local species -
all at an extremely low cost, using local labor and craftspeople.
• The idea of the site planning was to mould a structure and system that
would help regenerate the landscapes, that are the natural habitat for
elephants.
• The sewage system is proposed to be fed into a reed bed and native
species be planted along the edge of the water bodies to stabilize them
and to seed the site with vegetation.
• So clearly the first step was to put the lake in place. Once revived and
ready, it was imbibed as one of the most important components of the
entire strategy.
DESIGN STRATEGY
• The Gaon was constructed over land that was
destroyed because of the exploitation of sand
quarries. Due to this design, the land was
developed again with water bodies existing on the
borders. Trees were planted and the exploited sand
quarries were converted into water reservoirs.
• Using the remnants of sand quarry pits in the hills,
the design strategy is based on the need to improve
an area devastated by indiscriminate exploitation
of sand quarries. The quarries thus become
reservoirs to collect rainwater, an extremely
precious resource and fundamental tool for
improving the entire region with regard to the
environment and microclimate.
• Unlike other projects, Hathi Gaon is a project that
revolves around the landscape.
SPATIAL ORGANIZATION & SITE PLANNING
• The ’thans’ (housing units) are organized in clusters
and situated on portions of the site that are not used
for the landscape regeneration.
• Courtyards and pavilions supplement the otherwise
small area of 40 sqm that was allocated in the budget
for this essentially low-income housing project.
• The site planning thus employed a system of clusters
to create shared community space at different
hierarchies to build a sense of community among the
inhabitants.
• The water body was a critical component of the
design, as it also facilitated the bonding between
the mahout and elephant, through the process of
bathing.
• The small dwellings are of 200 square feet. These are
arranged in sets of four, wrapped around communal
courtyards, connecting the small housing cluster. The
courtyard becomes part of the living space. All the
houses have electricity and running water.
SPATIAL ORGANIZATION OF A UNIT
• This community had inward-looking structures with
one big courtyard in the middle where most of the
major life activities take place.
• There are regular, simple houses for the Mahouts and
then garage-like structures with only one exit on the
outer, non-courtyard-facing, sides of the buildings, in
the back where the elephants are kept.
• These garages have a wide opening on the inner side
of the structure which overlooks the central
courtyard.
• This opening allows for Mahouts to interact with
their elephants by providing them with the food
required.
• The location of the dwellings was such that it
allowed passive cooling and natural ventilation which
is a response to the context and the climate.
SITE CONTEXT, PLANNING & LAYOUT
• The topographical knowledge
provided a certain pattern of
development that would allow the
entire site to be developed in an
accretive as well as an open ended
manner.
• The built fraction and the unbuilt
components were equated and
correlated through common
understanding of site potential and
landscape system integration.
• The site was articulated through an
instrumental engagement with
ecological processes.
• The overall zoning of entire site was
done in a way such that ‘built’ spaces
could be clustered in ways that they
don’t hinder flow of water naturally
across the landscape.
SITE CONTEXT, PLANNING & LAYOUT
SITE CONTEXT, PLANNING & LAYOUT
CLIMATIC RESPONSE
WATER REQUIREMENT
• A series of large, interlinked reservoirs at the central low-
lying region of the site were fed by a network of vegetated
swales, punctuated by retention basins and larger ponds.
• Elephants require 300 liters of water per day; therefore,
100 elephants x 365 days x 300 liters = 10,950,000 liters.
Due to the successful implementation of design strategies,
the approximate quantity of water retained on site per year
is 20 million liters, approximately double the yearly
requirement for 100 elephants.
• The various water reservoirs are designed to guarantee an
adequate monsoon rainwater storage capacity and to cover
the water requirements of the new settlement, besides
providing an ideal place for elephants to bathe, essential
for their health and a ritual which reinforces the emotional
bond with their mahouts.
• The resulting water was available to initiate an extensive
planting program involving local plant species,
fundamental to create a habitat to develop biodiversity
and a suitable environment to accommodate the new
settlement.
MATERIALITY
• The limited budget
available to construct the
housing, led to use of
simple building
techniques and common
materials available on site
– local stone masonry
walls.
• Light corrugated metal
roofing and open MS
(mild steel) framing is
used. The elephant’s feed
is stored underneath,
insulating it from the
harsh sun of Rajasthan.
PLANS
SECTIONS
ELEVATIONS
CULTURAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
• The dwellings were worked with socio-economic and environmental constraints considered. To create a sense of
belonging in the mahouts, they were further involved in the design efforts, so much that each of their housing cluster is
expected to be spatially transformed by the mahouts themselves in personalized ways over time.
• The mahouts provided the designers with a paradigm shift in the view point of necessities – like the community-shared
spaces, veterinary clinic and essentially, the man-made pond.
• The participatory design doesn’t stop here. An extensive tree plantation program was carried out together with seeding
the site to propagate local species, another effort to keep the harsh sun away from tropically-proliferating elephants. All
this was carried out at an extremely low cost, using local labor and craftspeople. This portrayed the importance of
closely knit collaborative work, taking community into consideration.
• While the effort was of building a ‘village’ from scratch, the incentives and new location were incomparable to the
previous conditions. And to make it success and sustainable - it was important that landscape design made mahouts’
settlement cohesive right where they have lived since time immemorial. In the entire process, movement patterns and
postures of elephants were also looked into, before creating simplified unhindered spaces for their resting and revival
after long day of work.
• The thread that links this multi-level collaboration is ‘water’. It was imbibed that the beauty – both tangible and
intangible – could be restored, and made sustainable, by making water the prime design element. The architect has
focused on creating a tropical environment for the elephants, with the help of water bodies, routes and forest cover.
• Activities such as cooking and eating food take place in the central space of the community and this increases
interaction between the families. This courtyard also allows the children to play around, a little away from the elephants.
CHALLENGES FACED
• The challenges of working through the bureaucracy in a project sponsored by
the Government and executed by the equivalent to the Public Works Department
were overcome by focusing on the landscape and using the precious resource of
water as the central instrument around which decisions were facilitated.
• This was a humbling experience, as clearly the lives of the inhabitants, and what
was crucial for their needs, were privileged in the budgets with the investment
in architecture being minimal.
• The intent in the design was to leave room for the inhabitants to transform their
own homes incrementally and appropriate them through visual and spatial
transformations over time.
• The first thought could have been to source water from the closest
perennial/man-made source. But to reduce external dependency, design
initiatives encouraged the retention of the surface water and its recharge. This
shows the importance of context, and the will to not keep it ignored.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT & MODERN TECHNOLOGY
• How can Hathigaon develop in the future?
➢ “Once the housing and the landscape has settled into a state of equilibrium—perhaps in a
couple of years—I think for the government to develop light tourist infrastructure on the
site would be a way to supplement the income for the mahouts and their families. Already
tourist are finding their way to the site and creating an interesting supplementary income
for the mahouts. They come to participate in bathing the elephants, feeding them, etc.”
says Rahul Mehrotra.
• How can modern technology mesh with village wisdom?
➢ “Refraining from fetishizing the local as an end in itself is not productive. So in this case,
for us it was more important to focus on water and contemporary ways of doing things to
improve the lives of the mahouts. Evoking the architectural splendor the Mughals used to
house elephants in, would be a non-productive or irrelevant approach, which would not
sustain. So while we built on local wisdom about how to hold water or ventilate the
buildings, we were not constrained by the traditional images that went with those
practices.” says Rahul Mehrotra.
PROJECT GALLERY
References
• https://rmaarchitects.com/architecture/hathigaon/
• https://architectureindevelopment.org/project/583
• https://www.designboom.com/architecture/rahul-mehrotra-of-rma-designs-hathigaon-elephant-village/
• https://www.archilovers.com/projects/85903/hathigaon-housing-for-mahouts-and-their-elephants.html#info
• https://www.world-architects.com/en/rma-architects-mumbai/project/hathigaon-housing-for-elephants-and-their-mahouts
• https://www.archdaily.com/381679/housing-for-mahouts-and-their-elephants-rma-architects
• https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/case-studies/a3296-hathi-gaon-by-rahul-mehrotra-an-unusual-
village/#4dbc47aa769b3d00cde4f0d046484b4a6990cc53#207417
• https://www.slideshare.net/avi/hathi-gaon
• https://www.slideshare.net/shubhamharlalka3/hathi-gaonppt
• https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-projects/mmpe/hathi-gaon-elephant-village--project-pages.html
• https://www.designboom.com/architecture/rahul-mehrotra-of-rma-designs-hathigaon-elephant-village/
• https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/570oqHdiGbWdiVd2hO4nBK/Rahul-Mehrotra--Elephantine-vision.html
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