Shaping the Shapeless: New Formulations for Emergent Settlements in Kerala

Abstract

The settlement-form of the state of Kerala can be described shapeless based on prevalent unregulated land-markets and blanket floor-space-indices. This thesis seeks the causes and effects of Kerala's shapelessness and examines potential-roles for urban-design to formally influence emergent settlement-patterns. Kerala’s settlement-form is defined by the processes of myth-making and laissez-faire space-making rather than deliberate urban-design-strategies – manifesting as discordant land-right-schemes and the discombobulation of built-form. Contemporary Kerala exhibits high-degrees of equality whereby formal-land-tenure predominantly lies in the private-realm. However, the consequent dearth and acute-fragmentation of the commons is interfering with prospects to integrate, perpetuate, and preserve vernacular-settlement-forms, cultural-infrastructures, open-spaces, and natural-systems. The city of Kochi/Cochin will be a proxy to discern settlement-form at ground-level and propose urban-design-strategies to establish the commons as armatures that disincentivizes incongruent-large-scale-infrastructures, while coherently propagating and consolidating vernacular-settlement-forms, cultural-infrastructures, open-spaces, and natural-systems – reifying identity, fostering inclusivity and promoting sustainable-development within an otherwise incoherent and disjointed pattern of emergent settlements in Kerala.