It’s a sunny afternoon in the Indian capital, and amidst the flowering avenues, precious Mughal structures, and banyan trees where monkeys doze, Sunder Nursery is as bustling as ever. This glorious city park, which literally provides breathing room for a Delhi choked by pollution, was once used for propagating trees and other plants destined for the new capital, as well as for experimenting with species from other parts of India.
It was the perfect location to host, until a few days ago, a striking ecological art and architecture pavilion by Aranyani, an initiative that combines ecological regeneration and creative arts. This project is the brainchild of scientist and creative director Tara Lal, in collaboration with TM Space. The name itself, Aranyani, evokes the forest deity from the Rigveda, a sacred Vedic text that shaped early Indian conceptions of nature. Opened in early February for the city’s Art Fair and titled Sacred Nature, in collaboration with TM Space, the pavilion rose in the vast urban park as a terracotta-colored spiral, a refuge from the city’s heat and chaos, topped with wild plants. Lal explains: «The pavilion was built through unpredictable conditions, rain, pollution, and heat. It was never meant to exist in perfect circumstances. It is a response to the realities of our climate. It does not fight those conditions; it absorbs them and adapts. The structure allows air to flow naturally through the lantana and bamboo, and the planted roof creates insulation against both heat and cold. It works with the environment, not against it.»
The reference to ancient sacred forests is also evident in the presence of native plants covering the structure, including jasmine, neem, tulsi, and bakul, found in many city and village homes and gardens. The heart of the project (the intricate construction was carried out by The Works) is the external shell of the spiral-pavilion, spanning over 600 square meters, made from repurposed lantana wood – a particularly aggressive invasive species introduced by the British to aesthetically enrich the landscape, which still suffocates local ecosystems and soil today. Lantana thus becomes a building material, re-elaborated into a reticular form by Ekarth Studio, and a reminder of the violence exerted by colonial powers on the territory. Inside, the spirals host a stone monolith at their concentric center, a contemplative *sancta sanctorum* that seals the meeting between earth and sky, thanks to a precise cut in the overhead covering, flooding the stone below with light.
Lal reflects: «Regenerative design in India and much of the global south isn’t new, it comes from tradition. Growing up I remember that reusing was our first option always. We learnt to never throw but creatively reuse. For centuries, our communities practiced cyclical building, water harvesting, seed saving – systems that gave back more than they took.» Mindful of this, after its presentation at Sunder Nursery, the Aranyani Pavilion will be permanently installed at the Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls’ School in Jaisalmer, in the heart of Rajasthan’s Thar Desert, to become a living classroom for female students, researchers, and young naturalists. The edible and medicinal plants are also being transferred to various Delhi communities, such as the Basti Gardens of Hope in Nizamuddin (an initiative to transform small urban rooftops into vertical gardens) and the urban reforestation initiatives of the NGO Swechha. «For Aranyani, regeneration means continuity and reclaiming knowledge systems and combining them with contemporary design».
Photo credits: Lokesh Dang, Courtesy of Aranyani
