Kathmandu is aching, its border neighborhoods stretching out, moving up to the rim of the valley. The city is soon reaching its limits for urban expansion, and perhaps it already has: most agricultural land has been replaced by urban settlements, and the city’s population keeps surging. The architecture is changing rapidly and houses are being replaced one after another, every house a bit more slender and a bit taller than before. The turnover rate is so high that Kathmandu’s streets feel like perpetual construction sites, tirelessly building and constructing and demolishing again. Open spaces are disappearing, as well as the rich cultural qualities of Nepal's urbanism from before. These changes seem to happen without a greater plan in sight, and many say the city is become worse, not better.

Perhaps these issues are just part of a city in development: a Kathmandu that is struggling with its growing pains and the inevitable effects of urban boom. But to move forward from these pains, a couple of things are crucial: experimentation with alternative ways of building, closely working together with craftspeople and inhabitants, documenting and archiving the past architectures, and telling stories about a different city: one that is not pestered by pollution, built smartly to house everyone safely, and one that can resist the earthquakes to come.
These four ideas are the starting point for the design phase: the People’s Earthquake Museum of Kathmandu. This initiative was started after 2015 by a small community in Nepal, but has sadly been discontinued due to a lack of resources. The building aims to connect tradition with modernity: vernacular techniques with the modern needs of Kathmandu’s residents. At the same time, the building, located inside the commercial block in Gongabu Bus Park, is giving space to exhibit stories about the earthquakes, architectures that have been lost, and to showcase ways of moving forward. With museum spaces, an archive and library, auditorium and workspaces, the building revolves around reflection, mitigation, and experimentation.

This thesis is divided in four chapters:
1. Stories from KTM - photographic travelogue of Kathmandu and the Nepali rural
2. The architect, the builder, the researcher- a documentary of three interviews
3. Growing Pains - a short essay connecting the findings in Nepal with existing literature
4. The People's Earthquake Museum - a design proposal that visualizes the research results ... Read more

Being a highly earthquake-prone country, Nepal gets hit by a major earthquake roughly every 80-100 years. The recent major tremor in 2015 showed how the houses in the Kathmandu Valley were not ready: 9000 lives and half a million houses were lost.
This thesis describes the changes in earthquake-resistant elements in the residential architecture of the Kathmandu Valley. By highlighting three time periods: the late-Malla Newar architecture, the Rana architecture and the modern architecture of concrete and corrugated sheets. Through the use of literature research, interviews with reseachers and photography, several changes can be seen throughout recent history. The current thinking is: concrete is strong and safe, older houses are weak. This thesis aims to give space for new perspectives in the prevalent discourse on the earthquake-safety of residential architecture of the Kathmandu.
A couple of conclusion can be drawn. Most importantly, the usage of wood inside masonry has drastically dropped to protect the Nepali forests, but this has impacted the strength and flexibility of walls. Traditional materials and techniques have made place for cheap and readily available materials like concrete. This has added to the loss of knowledge about tradtional methods of safeguarding houses against tremors. Moreover, it was concluded that mostly a lack of maintainance made older houses weak, not their constructional quality. ... Read more