Suruchi Shah^1,, Tejwant Singh Brar¹, Mohammad Arif Kamal²

Delhi's urban history has been shaped by its unique historic water architecture which is embedded in an interdependent ecological, built and cultural system. This system is illegible today in the urbanscape owing to historic water structures being viewed as isolated monuments. Our understanding of water architecture is informed by the shifting view of water as a commodity rather than a shared cultural resource. The paper uses a case study of Delhi's Hauz Khas to define a conceptual framework of positioning historic water architecture as a cultural resource and use it as a tool to achieve heritage- led sustainability. The study identifies agents and patterns of transformation of site and surroundings of Hauz Khas that impacts historic urban development trajectories. The study employs qualitative research methods and uses archival research, historical studies, field-work, community interviews and documentation to analyse the cultural associations in the past and the present. This makes a case for why and how historic water architecture should be conserved by taking into account both its morphology and its spirit- of-the-place, leading to cultural regeneration as a process to inform sustainable development.

historic water architecture, sustainable development, traditional knowledge system, cultural regeneration, New Delhi, India