The Northern walkway
- chet kamat
- Aug 27, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 19
Many of the national parks in Rajasthan have remnants of forts and hunting lodges inside them. One always dreams of being able to spot a leopard or a tiger lounging on the ruins of the ramparts or fort walls. You can therefore understand why the idea of a rampart at my site appealed to me - while I wasn't expecting any wild life, one could always hope that the local peacocks or monkeys would pass by.
There was also a more pressing reason for a rampart - I would need a way to prevent the soil on the north border of the plot eroding! Another consideration was my desire to make the iconic tree on the boulder and the north eastern rock cluster accessible - both had the potential to be cosy sit-out areas if one could reach them.
There was a 12-15 feet height differential between the base of the boundary wall and the general level of the site, especially on the eastern end. A retaining wall with an elevated walkway started to sound like a good idea !
In my subsequent research into natural retaining structures like berms , I also discovered that to be effective the berm would need to be at least six feet wide - effectively this sloping land would be unusable for anything other than some grass or similar surface to hold the soil in place. This was effectively about a thousand square feet of land that would become unusable.
On one hand, building norms required the constructed structure be setback 10 feet from the plot boundary - so in that sense, this was not going to impact the footprint of our structure. However there is limited landscaping one can do on inclined land.
Another consideration was my desire to make the iconic tree on the boulder and the north eastern rock cluster accessible - both had the potential to be cosy sit-out areas if one could reach them.
A vertical concrete retaining wall, approximately six feet south of the boundary wall was therefore the preferred way forward. And that's how our northern walkway came about.
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