Kashmir's Earthquake-Proof Homes Are Disappearing

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
File photo of a traditional Kashmiri home

By Peerzada Mohsin Shafi

I still remember the first time I saw a Dhajji Dewari house come apart, and then stay standing. It was during my undergraduate research, when I chose to study Kashmir's traditional architecture. I didn't expect it to change the way I saw engineering.

These homes, built from timber, stone and mud, were never drawn on formal blueprints. There were no engineers or consultants involved.

And yet, they were marvels. Earthquakes didn't flatten them. Harsh winters didn't hollow them out. They bent, they breathed, and they stayed.

Growing up in South Kashmir, I had passed these houses all my life. Sloped roofs. Heavy wooden frames. Walls that looked like patchwork. I never gave them much thought. But when I started learning about seismic design in college, something clicked.

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The same principles we studied in class-flexibility, energy absorption, structural integrity-were all quietly embedded in the homes my grandparents once lived in.

The Dhajji Dewari system, for example, uses a timber skeleton filled in with small masonry units. During an earthquake, the walls crack, but the timber frame holds everything together. It's controlled damage, not collapse.

The Taq system, another technique common in older Kashmiri homes, uses thick masonry walls reinforced with horizontal wooden bands. That timber works like a shock absorber. It's brilliant, and it was designed by people who never went to engineering school.

What fascinated me most was how these homes responded to their environment. They were cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and remarkably low-impact. The materials-mud, brick, pinewood-were all local. The carbon footprint was minimal. Repairs were easy, often done with leftover pieces from the same structure. It was a system built in conversation with the land.

Historical records back this up. As far back as the 12th century, Kashmiris were building tall wooden homes. Kalhana's Rajtarangini mentions mansions that reached the sky. Later, the conqueror Timur wrote about wooden buildings that survived quakes he witnessed in the valley.

Mughal chroniclers admired the cityscape of Srinagar, with its pinewood structures rising above the Jhelum. These weren't stories, they were observations of lived experience.

And yet, today, these homes are disappearing.

Steel rods and cement blocks have taken their place. CGI sheets cover rooftops that were once shingled with hand-cut wood. Reinforced concrete is everywhere-advertised as strong, permanent, modern. But it rarely performs as well in seismic zones like ours. Concrete is brittle. It cracks. It fails. And when it does, it does so without warning.

I don't oppose modern materials. They have their place. But what troubles me is how we've dismissed centuries of resilience as backward or outdated. These homes didn't vanish because they failed, they vanished because we stopped believing in them.

What we're losing isn't just architecture. It's memory, identity, and a working knowledge of place. These homes carried stories. They held together families. They taught us how to build in a valley prone to shaking and freezing.

As a planner and researcher, I now find myself asking the same question over and over: Can we afford to keep building in defiance of the land?

The answer, I believe, lies in balance. We don't need to abandon technology or progress. But we do need to listen, to the past, to the terrain, to the wisdom already etched into our villages. We need to build smarter, not just faster.

I often go back to those early field visits, to the smell of damp timber, the touch of cool stone, the silence of a house built entirely by hand. There was nothing flashy about it. But it stood. It endured.

And maybe that's the kind of strength we need to return to.

• Author is a civil engineer and researcher from Anantnag, Kashmir.

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