PLANNING & DESIGN FOR VOLUNTARY RELOCATION – A CASE STUDY IN THE PAMIR MOUNTAINS

This design workshop, carried out with the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH), developed a design process and alternatives for voluntary relocation for the village of Basid in the Pamir Mountains of Takijistan, incorporating the villagers’ tools, skills, and deep knowledge of their land.

  • James L. Wescoat, Jr. and Sheila Kennedy James L. Wescoat, Jr., Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Geography
    Sheila Kennedy, FAIA, Principal KVA MATx, MIT Professor of Architecture

    PROJECT SITE
    Basid Village, Bartang River Valley, Pamir Mountains, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, Tajikistan

    PROJECT TEAM

    AKPIA@MIT
    Professor James Wescoat
    Workshop Participants: Charlotte D'Acierno, Melika Konjicanin, Clarence Yi Hsien Lee, Joude El-Mabsout, Jitske Swagemakers, Jaehun Woo
    Teaching Assistants: Dorothy Tang, Lily Bui

    KVA MATx
    Sheila Kennedy, FAIA, Principal KVA MATx, MIT Professor of Architecture
    Ben Widger, AIA, Senior Associate, KVA MATx
    KVA Design Research Team: Xio Alvarez, Karaghen Hudson, Will Qian, Patrick Weber

    Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH)
    Onno Ruhl, Hadi Husani, Kira Intrator, Ruslan Bobov, Tohir Sabzaliev, Amiraidar Ghulomaidarov

    Government of Tajikistan
    Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast
    Rushon District
    Basid Jamoat

    PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
    Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH)
    KVA MATx
    MIT LCAU
    Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT (AKPIA @ MIT)
    Government of Tajikistan

Introduction / Framing

In mountain regions that hold 12 percent of the world’s population, rural villages face a devastating array of natural hazards: avalanches, earthquakes, rockfalls, landslides, mudflow, flooding, and drainage problems. The lower Bartang River valley of Tajikistan has a vast unstable reservoir that poses catastrophic flood risks. With additional risks of climate change in this glaciated region, the narrow floodplain of the Bartang River in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan has become a precarious place to live. Following a major earthquake in 2015, a Pamiri village sought assistance in relocating to a safer place. For this Bartang community, the common challenges of voluntary resettlement—self-governance for cultural, environmental, and economic change—are compounded by the difficulties of bringing people and water up to the proposed new location known as Khabust (which means a Good Place), a nearby plateau approximately 300 meters above the existing village. The villagers reached a consensus that they want to move to the new location, which due to its constraints does not have existing settlements.

Village relocation is generally the last alternative to consider in disaster-resilient design. It involves leaving ancestral lands and can involve risks that require rigorous analysis, care, and mitigation. The Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) has been working with hundreds of communities and the Government of Tajikistan to mitigate natural hazards in the region. It developed a Habitat Planning approach that involves extensive consultation with communities and government agencies to ensure that village-led initiatives help improve safety while preserving cultural heritage and livelihoods.

AKAH’s preparatory drone photography helped the MIT/KVA team undertake GIS analysis of large-scale conditions at the existing and proposed sites. These base maps were employed in on-site field work, information gathering with AKAH environmental scientists, and semi-structured interviews with villagers and building craftspeople. The team identified four main design challenges: 1) improving access, 2) providing water supply, 3) enriching the land, and 4) creating a ”safe place” of village layout options and a multi-purpose community center. This work extended the planning process to include village interviews, field research, and collaboration with AKAH scientists and engineers, and it resulted in promising design alternatives for all four of the major design challenges.

The Story of Basid, Kira Intrator, AKAH

Devlokh-Dara Tributary and surrounding plateau

AKAH

Context

The Pamir region’s rugged mountains provide a spectacular landscape but can be challenging places to live. Villagers report that they are afraid to sleep whenever it is raining, as that can trigger rockfall events in which large boulders cascade down steep talus slopes, bouncing across the river valley into the village. In addition to individual hazards like landslides, Pamiri villages face many interacting hazards. For example, the same rain event that loosens high-altitude rock boulders can initiate a debris flow, cause river flooding, and wash out the regional river road that provides supplies and evacuation. In the winter, these events are coupled with cold temperatures, avalanches, and snow drifts that can block the river road for months.  Upstream, the massive landslide-blocked Lake Sarez is unstable, which poses existential risks for floodplain villages downstream. Climate change is increasingly understood to cause glacial lake outburst floods, changes in the volume and seasonality of snow and ice melt, and associated geomorphological hazards.

Concerns about this array of natural hazards reached a turning point after two recent events: a mudflow event that destroyed several homes and irrigated farms in 2010 and an earthquake that damaged houses in 2015. The village had at several points in its modern history considered moving to a higher plateau above the river, called the Khabust or “Good Place.” A previous effort to divert a canal to the plateau during a period of severe economic distress proved unsuccessful. In 2015, the villagers communicated to AKAH, which has been active in the region for decades, their collective desire to relocate.

The AKAH and MIT/KVA team saw this project as an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the positive potential for voluntary planned relocation alternatives. The village had developed a consensus for great aspirations at the future site, and this site might serve as a potential hub for nearby villages in the lower Bartang River valley. If successful, the project might also serve as a model for other villages that face similar problems in the Pamir region.

In this context of vulnerability to multiple hazards, the project identified four main design challenges for achieving the Basid community relocation aims: 1) improving access to the site, 2) providing a water supply, 3) enriching the land through soil and vegetation conservation, and 4) creating a safe place that includes village layout options and a multi-purpose community center. The photos below present both the challenges and opportunities for adaptive relocation design on the Khabust plateau.

Devlokh-Dara Tributary, with the Basid Hydel Hydropower station and a view of the upper plateau in the distance

AKAH

Bartang River Valley, Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan

AKAH

Bartang River at the center of Basid Village, summer 2019

MIT and KVA MATx

Old car road (Machine Road) linking Basid Village to the plateau. The road is frequently washed out due to erosion and rockfall.

MIT and KVA MATx

Existing pedestrian footpath connecting Basid Village to the plateau

MIT and KVA MATx

View of Basid Village from the adjacent plateau, 2019

MIT and KVA MATx

Community meeting with Basid village women

MIT and KVA MATx

Approach

Our approach to Voluntary Planned Relocation Design built upon a previously-developed AKAH Habitat Planning Framework, which involves extensive outreach and collaboration with stakeholders. AKAH completed pre-planning and vision steps (1-5) prior to the design process. That involved extensive interviews with community members and government agencies. The project team undertook further studies of consultative steps 4-5, and detailed design studies (6) in collaboration with stakeholders. The team interviewed a wide range of community members, including about 20 percent of all households, and conducted village “town halls” with male and female groups. Interviews were also conducted with village leaders such as the rais (local political leader), khalifa (spiritual leader), women’s leader, teachers, and shopkeepers. The team also spoke with builders (carpenters and masons), local engineers, and local micro-hydro plant operators. In addition to identifying current living conditions and needs, these interviews identified promising programming and engineering concepts, such as an early education program and potential use of an inverted siphon for water supply. In the spirit of working with government, the team had meetings and presentations with officials and departments from local to national levels.

The design component of habitat planning was less fully developed than other parts of the relocation planning methodology, though it had identified innovative seismic risk reduction measures. Our project sought to build upon that by expanding the range of architectural and landscape design alternatives worthy of consideration. We took a place-based design approach focusing on four key scales: 1) architectural surveys of the distinctive Pamiri chid house type, each component of which has religio-cultural as well as functional and material significance; 2) mapping existing village settlement patterns and multiple hazards in the local floodplain environment, which helped develop interview sampling strategies; 3) GIS analysis and field transects of the larger-scale Khabust plateau relocation areas; and 4) regional analysis of village settlement geography along the lower Bartang River Valley in the Rushan district of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast.

The architectural survey and interviews with craftsmen shed light on construction methods, common structural failures, and novel local building uses. They drew upon AKAH’s experiments with seismic mitigation techniques in adjacent regions and identified ways that traditional tools could be coupled with low-cost portable milling methods to improve construction and generate potential economic opportunities.

By carefully mapping existing village settlement patterns, we were able to see how homes are arranged in relation to adjacent garden spaces and surface irrigation channels, often following irregular linear layouts and in some cases clusters around small common spaces. Maps indicated how the Basid Jamoat (local government) includes several different settlements, as well as well as local dwelling patterns in adjacent and opposite floodplains of the main village landscape.

For the proposed relocation site, the AKAH team provided high resolution aerial imagery and a detailed digital elevation model.Our team then created maps of topography, slopes, sunlight, hydrology, vegetation, and site potential. Soil and vegetation scientists carried out field research on the ground to analyze potentially buildable locations.

We also analyzed the larger region, combining field surveys with satellite imagery and AKAH surveys of village demographic conditions and vulnerabilities in the lower Bartang valley. This analysis identified villages close enough to the village Khabust to provide various emergency and economic services, which helped refine and expand the design program. AKAH development economists identified and discussed potential business opportunities. And larger scale mapping showed how the proposed project could fit within a larger district hazard mitigation and development strategy.

The key criteria for assessing design alternatives were that they be:

  • Strategic – including some readily implemented low-risk options;
  • Flexible – allowing for multiple alternate sequences of actions;
  • Scalable – focusing first on vulnerable groups and expanding to cover the full village and even multiple villages;
  • Phased – deployed over time as experience, evidence, and resources increase;
  • Networked – drawing upon experience, expertise, and needs in local and regional settlements; and
  • Replicable – adaptable to other villages and valleys in the region.

We presented our design approach and conceptual framework, along with the materials generated, to villagers and government officials for additional feedback and refinement.

Proposed Khabust (Safe Space) community center, viewed from the new Basid Village following relocation

KVA MATx team

Design Outcomes + Transformations

The design team elicited future visions of the “safe place” (Khabust) from and in collaboration with the community. Community members stressed several shared values: family connections, a garden culture, hazards reduction, and an affinity for the Khabust Plateau. Design alternatives were generated to address the four major relocation challenges mentioned above: improving access to the site, supplying water, enriching the land for cultivation, and creating a layout for a village and multi-purpose community center. We developed a relocation gradient to show how these design alternatives could be staged and combined to move from a critical relocation (a short-term, emergency response) to a partial relocation (a medium-term and selective move) to a full relocation (long-term village resettlement of most domestic structures but not all of the valued functions of floodplain cultivation and sacred shrine visits). These design concepts culminated in the “Moving Together” Exhibit for the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Access: Three access solutions appear very promising for the near term. The first would improve trail safety and facilities along the steep walking trail from the village up the east side of the plateau, known as the Shepherd’s Trail because shepherds use it daily to take flocks to grazing sites. The other side of the plateau has an important but deteriorating jeep track, known as the “Machine Road” for the vehicles that formerly used it. The design team identified potential improvements in the alignment, slopes, surfacing, and rock protection walls. The third access improvement involves a “Multi-Purpose Truck” that would: 1) provide transportation to and from the Khabust, which would be useful for ordinary travel but vital in emergency situations; 2) provide a water tank attachment for near-term domestic water needs on the Khabust; and 3) deliver goods, materials and equipment to the Khabust.

Water: The Multi-Purpose Truck could supply minimum water needs. Larger-scale village relocation depends on larger, less energy-intensive methods for continuous water service. After considering several design alternatives, we converged on an “inverted water siphon” that would divert water from a perennial upstream tributary above the Khabust plateau. The siphon would follow the riverbed until it neared the plateau, where it would rise to the elevation of the plateau and deliver water under hydrostatic pressure. There are technical challenges of pipe alignment, materials, rock mechanics, and controls, but the prospect of delivering sufficient water to the community under gravity flow is highly appealing.

Land Enrichment: Field research and soil tests pointed us to an initial site plan for the most buildable areas and building constraints on the Khabust plateau. The most promising area in terms of slopes and access was named the “Protected Valley.” It encompasses about 7.4 hectares of land with gentle slopes, good solar exposure, vehicular access, proximity to the proposed water source, and protection from west winds. Its arid soil and vegetation require improvement through a combination of check dams, rainwater harvesting, precision irrigation, and animal manuring of cultivable areas. These features would also help establish new patterns of household orchard and garden cultivation valued in the historic village.

Village Layout and Multi-Purpose Community Center: Within the Protected Valley, a catalog of home and garden layouts were developed, which could fulfill resettlement alternatives ranging from 20 percent (AKAH’s initial/emergency resettlement criterion) to 100 percent relocation. These configurations would strive to maintain traditional village structure while ensuring that each home has access to the vehicular road, piped water supply, irrigated land, and upgraded two-pit latrines for sanitation. Local construction techniques can be adapted with minimal intervention to improve the safety of the traditional Pamiri home. In improving safe construction, the capacity of existing skilled craft traditions and local building practices can also be preserved and enhanced.

At the north edge of the site, the team designed a multi-purpose community center that in the near term could function as an emergency shelter and also as a flexible space for programs that villagers are interested in seeing, including early childhood education, women’s workshops, community gathering, and visitor accommodation. The community center buildings are designed to make use of local stone and wood, utilizing local building expertise and traditional Pamiri crafts. To meet and facilitate the construction needs of the relocation project, the team proposes the introduction of specific wood milling and stone working tools. These tools would expand the village’s capacity to serve as a Pamiri building ‘hub’ for the surrounding Bartang villages.

Conclusion + Lessons

The AKAH/KVA and AKPIA@MIT design workshop was completed in fall 2019. KVA continued work with MIT students over the following year and, with collaboration from AKAH and LCAU at MIT featured the Pamir case study in the 2021 Venice Biennale for Architecture. This work generated the following conclusions and lessons for voluntary planned relocation design in the Pamir region:

  • The creative collaborative arrangement between a leading development organization, a professional architectural firm, and university program successfully demonstrated state-of-the-art planning and design methods and concepts for voluntary relocation projects in the Pamir region.
  • The added value of expanding the range of design alternatives was demonstrated by building upon AKAH’s Habitat Planning framework, which foregrounds community consultation, social mobilization, and technical support. The MIT/KVA design approach helped expand the relocation alternatives for site access, water supply, landscape improvement, village layout, and architectural design. It did so through design investigations at four key scales: refinements in traditional building design, ecological landscape design processes, community and infrastructure layout, and regional planning linkages.
  • Developing a gradient of voluntary relocation design helps situate each alternative within a larger set of implementation phases and options. The team identified basic design steps that could be undertaken in the very near term with local skills and resources – for example improvements in access and land enrichment. At the next level of design interventions, modest technical, logistical and/or financial support would be needed over a several year time span – for example constructing a community center and acquiring the multi-purpose truck. Full implementation would include design components such as the inverted water siphon that would require more substantial support and time for completion.
  • The AKAH Habitat Planning framework strives for equitable resilience in voluntary relocation planning through a comprehensive consultative approach with all members of a community, including explicit consideration for those with limited means and vulnerabilities (e.g., disabilities). Care is also taken to include members of diverse communities as beneficiaries of the planning process. This pluralistic planning approach was complemented by considerations of equity in the gradient and range of choice approach to relocation design. Villagers and supporting organizations can pursue collective options strategically as opportunities arise. This approach helps protect against unanticipated and inequitable risks, such as maintaining the safety and security of floodplain agriculture and related livelihoods while relocating new residential and community uses to the Khabust plateau. Increasing the security of tenure and livelihoods at the existing and new locations requires multiple redundant strategies of risk reduction and close coordination and commitment among support organizations and government agencies. In each of these ways, the gradient and range of choice design approach to Habitat Planning helps fulfill the criteria of being strategic, flexible, dynamic, adaptive, scalable, replicable, and equitable.

 

  • James L. Wescoat, Jr. and Sheila Kennedy James L. Wescoat, Jr., Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Geography
    Sheila Kennedy, FAIA, Principal KVA MATx, MIT Professor of Architecture

    PROJECT SITE
    Basid Village, Bartang River Valley, Pamir Mountains, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, Tajikistan

    PROJECT TEAM

    AKPIA@MIT
    Professor James Wescoat
    Workshop Participants: Charlotte D'Acierno, Melika Konjicanin, Clarence Yi Hsien Lee, Joude El-Mabsout, Jitske Swagemakers, Jaehun Woo
    Teaching Assistants: Dorothy Tang, Lily Bui

    KVA MATx
    Sheila Kennedy, FAIA, Principal KVA MATx, MIT Professor of Architecture
    Ben Widger, AIA, Senior Associate, KVA MATx
    KVA Design Research Team: Xio Alvarez, Karaghen Hudson, Will Qian, Patrick Weber

    Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH)
    Onno Ruhl, Hadi Husani, Kira Intrator, Ruslan Bobov, Tohir Sabzaliev, Amiraidar Ghulomaidarov

    Government of Tajikistan
    Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast
    Rushon District
    Basid Jamoat

    PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
    Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH)
    KVA MATx
    MIT LCAU
    Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT (AKPIA @ MIT)
    Government of Tajikistan