An Architectural-Morphological Analysis of the Mughal Gardens of the 16th and 17th Centuries: Engaging Cultural Forms as Strategies for Passive Design for Urban Sustainability

Nurul Syala Abdul Latip^1*, Puteri Shireen Jahn Kassim¹, Mustaffa Kamal Bashar Mohd Fauzi¹, Shaukat Mahmood²

1. ¹International Islamic University Malaysia
2. ²University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

Published in The First NZAAR International Event Series on Natural and Built Environment, Cities, Sustainability and Advanced Engineering, Putrajaya, Malaysia, 26 June 2016, pages 172 to 180. New Zealand Academy of Applied Research. ISSN 2463-5979 (online), 2463-5960 (print).

Abstract

There have been discussions on how sustainability must eventually imply ‘back to basics’ and relive lessons from the past approach rather than employing ‘high technology’ add-on features. With that, there has been a resurging interest in the role of water in urban design and how it may have an impact on the climatical situation of an area rather than only for aesthetic and recreational activities. The paper summarises the outcome of a series of morphological ('shape and form') studies to analyses the 2D and 3D archetypes of enclosed Mughal Gardens during the 16th and 17th century of the Mughal period; and assess these in terms of links and relationships with sustainability parameters such as sustainable urban water design and passive cooling impact. The aim is to relook onto the use of Mughal models for both cultural and climatic strategies in the urban design of cities in hot climates. Historically the 16th-century Mughal design achieved its peak in the urban design phase and assumed a more monumental role with proportionate rules and hierarchical order. The paper goes into the detail description of such archetypes especially based on Shish Mahal in Lahore Fort and links with critical passive cooling impact as an urban mechanism and lessons learned for the modern context of cities that has the plaza and open spaces in between blocks. It is argued that the garden constituted not only a cooling but symbolic mechanism evolving from open to closed type. Significantly, the need to identify the structural relationship between garden archetypes and its role in cityscapes are very much crucial to the modern world in context. Through the abstraction analytical and descriptive relational morphology of the spatial configurations, the studies can suggest the idealized spatial system that can be used in urban design and complexes which later became a methodological and abstraction tool of sustainability to suit the modern contemporary world.

Keywords: Archetype; Mughal Gardens; Water features; Morphology; Urban Sustainability

Rights

Copyright © New Zealand Academy of Applied Research Ltd 2016. All rights reserved. Reproduced in the GDI Academy archive from the original proceedings without change to the authors’ text.