PLANNING TYPOLOGY OF URBAN DWELLINGS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT PROCESS FOUND WITHIN A VOTARY AREA TO THE HOUSE GUARDIAN DEITY AND DISTRIBUTION OF INHABITANTS' SURNAME (2017)

This paper aims to discuss fundamental units forming urban settlement blocks and their development process which demarcate urban fabric with respect to the combination arrangement of urban dwellings types. Bhaktapur is known as one of the historic cities of the World Heritage Site in Kathmandu Valley. The analysis focuses on the house distributions that have common votary areas of the house guardian deity called chetrapatra and the aerial extent of the same surname (thar). Considering these into account, the authors classified urban dwellings into 9 types. We try to submit a hypothesis on the development process of planning type clusters of urban dwellings as fundamental units forming urban settlement blocks. chetrapatra is an iconic ritual artifact made of stone slab carved in a form of eight-pealed lotus, and it is placed in front of a house entrance or in a courtyard. People worship this stone when they go out to the street from their house or a lane. There are also cases when this type of chetrapatra is common to inhabitants who go in and out at the lane. We classify chetrapatras into 7 types based on ownership and locations. The areal extent for worship to chetrapatra is sub-divisions in the areal extent for worship to Ganesh shrine. But they must be owned respectively on either side of the street. The Newar population may be classified into various social status according to the traditional profession, caste, or other form of socio-religious associations. In Bhaktapur, their social status are divided into 3 categories. These are the Macrostatus system, thar and phuki. as proposed by Levy (1990). We conducted survey on the distribution of thar for our analysis to have information of kinship. We found five areal extent of a same thar in the case-study area. They all spread the both side of street but have the different plot depth perpendicular to the street. Next we classify urban dwellings into 9 types whether they have a common chetrapatrs or individual one and their locations, which we call ‘Planning Types of Urban Dwellings’. It should be noted that ‘Courtyard Dwelling Units’ is relatively old compared to the other types of urban dwelling units. In addition, this type has one common chetrapatra shared by all the residences surrounding the same courtyard. chetrapatra is placed in front of the entrance of a ‘Courtyard Dwelling Units’. On the other hand, ‘Detached houses facing the street’ tend to have their own chetrapatra. Finally, we analyze the distribution of ‘Planning Type Clusters of Urban Dwellings’ in the case-study area. The analysis indicated dominant arrangement patterns which are the one that include ‘Courtyard Dwelling Units’ on one side of the street and ‘Detached houses facing the street on the other side. Taking that into account, we found the particular arrangement patterns of ‘Planning Type clusters of Urban Dwellings’ developed across the street. Another important arrangement pattern is the one that ‘Incomplete Courtyard Dwelling Units’ often found on the plot backside of ‘Detached houses facing the street’. We regard them as two important typical cluster types of urban dwelling units. We suggest that the development process of such cluster types underwent 3 stages, giving great influence to the urban development in the earlier period.