The Khoai is a fragile stretch of forest in West Bengal that the poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote about nearly 100 years ago. In the recent decades, as parts of the Khoai have begun to allow development, the vision and ownership of this land have become contested.
This project recognizing the forest as an asset to many stakeholders, and seeks to balance these perspectives through a strategic planning and design framework that proposes a new linear park system through the Khoai.
1. Increase the ecological and cultural value of the less maintained areas of the Khoai.
2. Preserve the shape of the culturally significant elements of the landscape.
3. Discourage human pressures on the ecologically valuable and fragile areas.
Afforestation: The Forest Department’s afforestation program has dramatically changed the landscape in the last decades.
Gully Erosion: Some gullys have increased in width and depth, while others have disappeared entirely.
Urbanization: Encroachment of second-homes illustrates the high market land value and failure of rigid control mechanisms when combined with weak institutions and corruption.
Wood Cultivation: Rapid growing species of trees have been cultivated and cut.
The limits of the Khoai will be consolidated by natural features, institutions, and a development buffer zone.
The maximum capacity of the park at a single time, broken down by activity type, is 36,400 visitors.
Collaborators: Andrea Baena, Marcela Angel, Ricardo Campos
Partner Organizations: IIT Kharagpur