Changing built form and implications on urban resilience: loss of climate responsive and socially interactive spaces

A resilient city is a sustainable network of physical systems, constructed urban form, and human communities. Traditional or vernacular built form evolves to achieve higher human comfort by using locally available building materials and construction technology and is more responsive to the geographic conditions. In contrast to the highly bureaucratized building process in modern built form, vernacular architecture is more climate responsive. A typical traditional building of earth emits fewer greenhouse gases, consumes less energy, and maintains a high level of internal thermal comfort. Resilient urban systems must also have resilient communities. Traditional built form results in the creation of social spaces, promotes adherence to socio-cultural value systems and imbibes a feeling of social cohesion. Modern construction techniques, greater energy consumption and the loss of diversity of architectural forms would have significant implications on urban resilience. The paper aims to trace the changing built form in a small settlement of West Bengal and the resultant loss of climate responsive and socially interactive spaces. Based on primary data sources and field observations, the paper also looks into the implications of the loss of such spaces on urban resilience and assesses the perception of the locals who prefer modernization of built form.