Kedarnath Redevelopment Project

When Kedarpuri town, 3553 m high in the Himalayas, was ravaged in 2013 by the flooding Mandakini and Saraswati rivers flanking it, the unfolding disaster caused massive devastation of life, property, and the local environment. The Shiva temple of Kedarnath dates back to the 8th CCE, was legendarily built by the Pandavas, revived by Adi Sankaracharya, and is also one of the 12 Jyotirlingas and a Char Dham Yatra venue.

This primacy warranted an immediate post disaster revival, prompting the Govt. of Indian and Uttarakhand state governmen to commission a redevelopment plan. This was also supported by some corporate entities including the JSW group. The implemented Master Plan for redevelopment and detailed design conceived by INI Design Studio integrated the sustainability measures with aim to sustenance and resilience.

The design for Kedarnath revolves around declaring the immediate areas around the temple as ‘forever open, clear and free’; and defining the approach along a central axis leading from an arrival plaza for tourists at the base up to the Temple at the top. Spanning the width of the approach, steps paved with stones cut from boulders washed down by the flood are laid along the terrain’s natural gradient. This ecologically sensitive and programmatically cohesive design to redevelop Kedarnath earns the distinction of being the first hill-town development plan to receive a Platinum IGBC rating. INI’s sensitive and cohesive plan offers an adaptable framework which can universally be applied to develop other mountain towns in India.

Location: Kedarnath, Uttarakhand
Project Area: 23 acres (Kedarpuri Island)
Services: Visioning and Master Planning, Architecture, Landscape Design, MEP Engineering, Infrastructure Engineering, Sustainability
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