Resilient Wayanad

This project was designed to investigate sustainability and adaptive practices in Wayanad, on its own terms, and demonstrated how it aligns, or not, with the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2015.

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As part of the Climate Resilience component of the project, the DEL Laboratory engaged in a studio at Srishti in 2018, that focussed on documenting places, people and practices, in creative and constructive ways in order to uncover and understand local practices that are ‘sustainable’, and dependent on rain, treating rain as a resident rather than a visitor.

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The anchors for the studio were water and paddy cultivation. The methodology of the studio was to combine a landscape approach with grounded theory to engage in the field, through the lens of seepage.

The studio culminated in a summer internship with the DEL Laboratory, where the project team produced a detailed planning report of the research, analysis, case studies (global and local), site studies, recommendations and alignment with the SDGs. The hope is that the report, particularly in light of recent dramatic changes in the landscape (August 2018), will offer new ways of understanding the monsoon terrain of Wayanad towards greater climate resilience and community adaptive capacities.

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The project was directed by and housed at the Forum for Law, Environment, Development and Governance (FLEDGE), with the DEL Laboratory as a key studio partner that brings new approaches and methods of design research and practice.

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Ground collaborators include the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation – CABC and the District Administration of Wayanad.