Arkora: Rethinking Resilience in Flood-Prone Architecture
Rasika Savalekar is a recent MSc graduate from the Architectural Association’s Emergent Technologies and Design (EmTech) programme, where her dissertation Arkora tackles the growing challenges facing flood-prone communities. The project sits at the intersection of advanced design, material innovation, and social sustainability, and is set in the context of the River Brahmaputra delta.
Genesis of Arkora: Responding to Water’s Dual Threat
Arkora began as a critical inquiry into the rising frequency and severity of urban flooding — a phenomenon driven by climate change, urbanisation, and ecological mismanagement. The research focuses on computational tools and environmental analysis to design built environments that can thrive, not just survive, in the face of water’s unpredictability.
At its core, Arkora is less a singular building than a smart, modular system. It asks how architecture might withstand extreme hydrological events while also cultivating resilient forms of community life. Answering that question required a multi-disciplinary investigation that combined parametric design, environmental simulation, and hands-on material prototyping.
Computational Strategies: Designing for Uncertainty
Rather than relying on static solutions, Arkora is grounded in computational workflows that help structures anticipate and respond to shifting flood conditions. Iterative parametric design embeds adaptability into each component’s geometry and connections. Digital simulations map a range of flood scenarios, allowing modular elements to adjust for stability, buoyancy, and functional flexibility.
The resulting system is built on redundancy and modularity: units can be interconnected, detached, or rearranged to suit site-specific flood risks or community needs. Advanced environmental analysis — through CFD (computational fluid dynamics) and microclimate modelling — informs decisions on structure orientation and envelope performance, targeting both resilience and comfort.
Material Experimentation: Bridging Concept and Craft
A decisive feature of Arkora is its commitment to experimental fabrication. Computational models set the groundwork, but iterative physical prototyping moved the project from theory to viable prototype. Locally available, lightweight, and recyclable materials were tested across floatation systems, joinery strategies, and envelope assemblies, all contextualised within the ecological and cultural landscape.
Material selection became a vehicle for embedding sustainability into the project. From bio-based composites to reclaimed plastics, the approach minimises embodied energy and supports on-site assembly and repair. Technical finesse, in other words, is paired with real-world pragmatism.
Community and Urban Resilience: Architecture as Catalyst
Arkora’s ambitions extend well beyond the technical. The project is conceived as infrastructure for regenerative settlement — self-organised clusters that scale up or down with community needs. Flexible modules accommodate housing, shared facilities, and productive landscapes, encouraging new patterns of collective living, resource management, and spatial equity in sites often marginalised by policy and investment.
This positions adaptive architecture as a social catalyst, empowering residents to repurpose, repair, and expand their environment. It shows how research-led design can intersect meaningfully with questions of equity, agency, and long-term sustainability.
Recognition and Future Directions
Arkora has attracted attention for its methodological rigour and practical foresight. Within the EmTech community at the Architectural Association, it was recognised for its synthesis of computational design, climate analysis, and prototyping. More broadly, it stands as a proposal with real potential for deployment across diverse hydrological and cultural contexts — from river deltas to Pacific archipelagos.
The dissertation is emblematic of a new wave of architectural research willing to grapple with complexity and to bridge digital abstraction with hands-on making. Though currently in its research phase, Arkora has the makings of a platform ready for academic collaboration, pilot implementation, and partnership with NGOs, local authorities, or forward-thinking developers.
Connect with Rasika Savalekar
Rasika is actively seeking new avenues for collaboration, mentorship, and bringing Arkora — or future innovations — to life. She welcomes dialogue with architects, engineers, researchers, and community stakeholders invested in a resilient, equitable built environment.
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rasika-savalekar-68b0b319b
- Email: rasika.art31@gmail.com
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