Human-Lion Territory : Negotiating Territorial Borders

Abstract: This thesis explores the interaction between natural and urban life through mutual recognition, viewing the clash of territorial borders as dynamic conditions rather than exclusion zones. Gir area in India has been investigated as a unique case where humans and lions for centuries have lived together and established a mutual respect. Rasulpara village is used as a local situation to analyze the relationship between humans and animals with the intention to understand how such relationship can be maintained. It has led to the recognition of the in-between as intermediate zones mediating exchange between the two systems. With humans relating to settled form as territorial constrains, the language of architecture becomes a messenger of a respect playing with a time-based system; mediating the balance between safe and unsafe. Learning from the existing relationship of mutual understanding aims to extract lessons for how to intervene in the context and other mediation areas between human and wild. Exploring these attributes through design has shown that built form can act as solid borders to classify and preclude, but also to invite cohabitation by respecting means of existence. Territorial conflicts can then be dealt with more sensitively, thus obtaining the equilibrium within a changing world anchored in traditional knowledge.