Havelis and Jharokas of Rajasthan: An Architectural Amalgamation Story

Prolonged history of wars, trade, and settlements in the harsh arid weathers of the northwestern India and southern parts of Pakistan has amalgamated its own architectural styles. Rustic carved sandstone courtyard havelis, with high regards to privacy, were built in this area by its wealthy settlers. These havelis were designed to provide a high level of privacy and climatic responsiveness to withstand the harsh climate. Our paper focuses methods to collect data on one such element of the traditional façade treatment called ‘jharoka.’ Havelis planned with Mardana Chowk and Janana Chowk with jharokas overlooking the streets and these courtyards for privacy and to avoid direct sun. Through our research, we plan to devise a method to trace various such architectural styles throughout northwestern India and deduced a method to precisely convert them into 3D printable or machine-able construction elements so that they can be easily created and widely used again in the region.