Sarakshit Ghar: A Safe Home

Abstract

Being a highly earthquake-prone country, Nepal gets hit by a major earthquake roughly every 80-100 years. The recent major tremor in 2015 showed how the houses in the Kathmandu Valley were not ready: 9000 lives and half a million houses were lost.
This thesis describes the changes in earthquake-resistant elements in the residential architecture of the Kathmandu Valley. By highlighting three time periods: the late-Malla Newar architecture, the Rana architecture and the modern architecture of concrete and corrugated sheets. Through the use of literature research, interviews with reseachers and photography, several changes can be seen throughout recent history. The current thinking is: concrete is strong and safe, older houses are weak. This thesis aims to give space for new perspectives in the prevalent discourse on the earthquake-safety of residential architecture of the Kathmandu.
A couple of conclusion can be drawn. Most importantly, the usage of wood inside masonry has drastically dropped to protect the Nepali forests, but this has impacted the strength and flexibility of walls. Traditional materials and techniques have made place for cheap and readily available materials like concrete. This has added to the loss of knowledge about tradtional methods of safeguarding houses against tremors. Moreover, it was concluded that mostly a lack of maintainance made older houses weak, not their constructional quality.