Newar house – Kathmandu , Nepal

LOCATION AND DETAILS:

- Kathmandu valley in Nepal.

- Newa architecture is an indigenous style of architecture used by the Newari people.

- The breadth of the plan is usually aboutsix meters with façades of various length but most commonly about four to eight meters

- The houses are divided into two parallel bays (front and rear) locallyknown as "dyā " which measures approximately 8 feet depth, divided by central load bearing.

TRADITIONAL HOUSES OF THE TRIBE :

- SHAPE : narrow, rectangular shaped

- CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS:

1. WALLS : exposed brick with finely detailed wooden carvings

2. ROOFS : tiled roof

3. OTHER MATERIALS : clay , lime , stone

ABOUT THE DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE

FEATURES :

- Resided by a dense population, these houses are built following the perimeter of a courtyard, known as 'Chowk'.

- It is a style used in buildings ranging from stupas and chaitya monastery buildings to courtyard structures and distinctive houses.

- The style is marked by striking brick work and a unique style of wood carving rarely seen outside Nepal.

- The traditional Newari houses are constructed either in quadrangular style forming courtyards or inrows leaning one with another facing towards the street.

- The entire roofi s supported by number of load bearing wooden columns called baigathān or malāthān,the king post,on which dhuri, the ridge beam rests. On the either side of the baigathān the principal rafters ( bhyāsin)are erected diagonally joining the upper end of the bhyāsin with special kind of connection.

- The lower end of rafter rests on the front and/or rear load bearing walls which are raised up to approximately 2.5 feet above the attic floor level.

- Two horizontal rafters are placed approximately atthe middle of the rafter, above the horizontal rafters, several roof joists are spread across the entire roof length

CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE :

- The foundation of the traditional houses built with few layers of natural stones with clay mortar.

- Above the foundation, walls are raised with two layers of wall made of kiln baked bricks or speciallybaked brick called dachiappā at the outer layer and baked or sun-dried bricks in the inner layer joined with clay mortar.

- The cavity between these two leaves is normally filled with the brick bats of sun-dried bricks.

- The thickness of wall on the ground floor is normally not less than 50 cm which diminishes on the succeeding floors.

- The massive wall structure, together with the heavy foundation of the building was supposed to make the house earthquake resistant.

- A staircase is usually a single flight to one side of the plan generally at the rear bay making clock-wise circumference while ascending to upper floors considering the house as a sacred temple.

- The traditional tiled roof is made with combination of timber and thick layer of clay.