spiti valley, himachal pradesh. case study

4. Festivals

6. Celebrated in Dec or Jan in Lahaul and Spiti districtcelebrated in the tribal belts in the last week of February

13. •Spiti, originally
pronounced “Piti”, means
“The Middle Land”,
reflective of its position
between Tibet and India.

21. • Agriculture is the main source of livelihood.
Potato farming is common. Occupations
include animal husbandry, working in
government programs, government services,
and other businesses and crafts that include
weaving.
• In farming they produce maize, potatoes, millet, buck- wheat,
peas.
• Animal farming they produce milk, cheeze, butter, meat etc.
•The people in this region carry on barter trade with the people
ofTibet.They also carry their local products like carpets, hides,
herbs, fruit and wool to the terai and big towns of the country.
They sell these and buy salt, cloth, kerosene oil and utensils.

22. • There are low rooms and narrow corridors. Dimly lit
passages, difficult staircases and small doors lead to
prayer rooms which themselves do not conform to a
single design.
• The monastery is famous for its architecture
called Pasada style. Pasada style is
characterised by two or more stories and often
plays the role of a fort-monastery
• Houses are constructed in theTibetan
architectural style, as the land in Lahul and
Spiti is mountainous and quite prone to
earthquakes.
• Old royal palace are built in sun dried bricks and finished with mud
plaster.
• The monastery has a collection of ancient murals and books of high
aesthetic value and it enshrines Buddha images and idols, in the
position of Dhyana.

24. COLD and SUNNY type of climate is experienced here.
TEMPERATURE VARIATIONS
• Summer
during day : 17 - 24°C
during night : 4 - 11°C
• Winter
during day : 7 - 9°C
during night : -14 – 0 °C
Relative humidity – consistently low : 10-50%
Winds – occasionally intense
Sky is fairly clear throughout the year
Cloud cover is less than 50%
Mountainous region
Little vegetation
Considered to be a ‘Cold Desert’

25. Resist heat loss
Decrease exposed surface area
Increase thermal resistance
Increase thermal capacity (Time lag)
Increase buffer spaces
Decrease air exchange rate
Increase surface absorptivity
Promote heat gain
Reduce shading
Utilize heat from appliances
Trapping heat
Orientation and shape of building.
Use of trees as wind barriers
Roof insulation, wall insulation and
double glazing
Thicker walls
Air locks/ Lobbies
Weather stripping
Darker colors
Walls and glass surfaces
Sun spaces/ green houses/ Trombe
walls etc

26. TREES –wind barrier
Roof & wall
insulation
Thick walls
Heavy walls (mud) and a well insulated roof (timber & mud) dampen the
variations of indoor temperatures.

27. Use of glass and trombe wall – heat is stored in the building mass during the
day and warm during the night

28. City of some 25,000
inhabitants
Population triples in size
during summer tourist season
OLD LEH
• 200 stone, mud and timber
houses sandwiched between
thick rammed earth walls
• Most well-preserved traditional
Tibetan city in the world
• Most significant ensemble of
historic Tibetan architecture

29. • One makes the walls for the first floor, piling up stone and sun-dried brick,
• and then places wooden beams and floor joists across the walls to support the second
floor walls above them,
• and repeatedly adds more wooden beams across them.
• Floors and roofs are made of mud treaded on wooden boards.
• Roofs are basically flat, being unnecessary to waterproof, since it scarcely ever rains.
• Columns are needed midway across larger spans

30. • First floor - used for stables
• Second floor – for family rooms, such as a sitting room, a kitchen, bedrooms,
and a Buddhist altar room
• A larger house often consists of three floors.

32. Leti 360

36. View from the room

38. • Shivani Desai
• Shradha Revenkar
• Shreyans Bhandari
• Sourabh Patil
• Vaishnavi Kulkarni
• Nikita Sonwalkar
• Puja zele
• RohitVernekar
• Shamika Kalghatgi
• Shaunak Nakadi