Sacred landscape and

Green Pilgrimage network

YALAMANCHILI SAICHARAN, SIDHARTH BAIJU, T PERIYASAMY SARAVANA

1210700072 1210700071 1210700066
Introduction

A sacred natural site is a natural feature or a large area of land or water having special spiritual
significance to peoples and communities. Sacred natural sites consist of all types of natural features
including mountains, hills, forests, groves, trees, rivers, lakes, lagoons, caves, islands and springs.

Mount kailash - Sacred landscape The Sacred Landscape of Braj, India

Sacred Landscapes

Sacred Landscapes are geographic areas that have special meaning for people who have a longstanding or
historical association and relationship within a region.

an example of how sacred sites,

Sacred landscapes are
places, and landscapes are the foundation of
related: cultural resilience.

Sun dance is a ceremony practiced Stories of sacred

by several tribes in the United States environments are
and Canada. The ceremony brings weaved into the
community members together in cosmologies, world
prayer and healing. A Sundance views, and cultural
ground is a sacred site. The hill where practices of
the Sundance ground is held is a Indigenous peoples.
sacred place. The geographical area
that the hill is a part of is a sacred
landscape. All of these are The Sun Dance is a ceremony practiced by
some Native Americans and Indigenous
independently sacred and peoples in Canada,
interconnected.
Sacred natural sites and global change
Verschuuren et al. (2010) identified significant global changes, many of which affect sacred natural
sites and their custodian communities. These include,
● global human population increase,
● modernity and erosion of traditional culture,
● biodiversity loss, habitat and species declines, species extinction and ecosystem damage,
● industrialization of agriculture, forestry, fisheries or other types of land and sea use,
● extractive and energy industries,
● growth of cities, urbanization and transport networks,
● increased conflict over natural resources,
● weakened livelihood systems and poverty,
● social and political changes and conflicts in the geopolitical realm,
● globalization of the dominant economic model based on continual growth, detached from
ecological realities,
● decline in spiritual values,
● climate change.
Sacred groves

Sacred groves of India are forest fragments of varying sizes, which are communally protected, and which usually
have a significant religious connotation for the protecting community. Hunting and logging are usually strictly
prohibited within these patches.

Banyan Tree at a temple in Kannur,

India
How are sacred sites, sacred places, and sacred cultural landscapes defined?

Sacred sites are found within a larger geographic landscape. Sacred Places are sites, areas, and/or
landscapes having one or more attributes that distinguish them as extraordinary or significant,
usually in a religious or spiritual sense. Sacred Landscapes are geographic areas that have special
meaning for people who have a longstanding or historical association and relationship within a
region.

Mount kailash - Sacred landscape

 Green Pilgrimage

Green pilgrimage is combination of all

actions that strive to initiate changes in
religious pilgrimage behavior and reduce
climate change impacts with due
emphasis on the belief that humans have
a responsibility to protect our planet.

This includes developing sustainable

solutions for pilgrim cities for greening
waste, sanitation, buildings, transport, food
and accommodation and strategies to
make the hosting of large scale
pilgrimage more sustainable and
environmentally friendly.
Green Pilgrimage Network
The Network will inspire Pilgrims to

● The GPN is a global network of 28 pilgrim

● Prepare mindfully for their pilgrimage.
cities and other sites sacred to many
different religious traditions around the
world. They are all united in wanting to be ● Travel responsibly in the spirit of their faith.
models of green action and care.

● Choose sustainable tourist agencies.

● Members of the GPN share a vision of
pilgrims on all continents, and the pilgrim
● Eat and drink sustainably and ethically.
cities that receive them, becoming models
of care for the environment and leaving a
positive footprint on the earth. ● Minimize their water use.

● Dispose of their rubbish and pick up after others.

● Support a fund to green the city they are visiting.

● Bring greener ideas for living home with them.

The Network will inspire Pilgrim Cities to
● Receive and accommodate pilgrim visitors sustainably.

● Green their religious buildings, energy and infrastructure .

● Safeguard their wildlife and parks.

● Create a green pilgrim fund.

● Create ‘green maps’, highlighting the environmental projects

● Enable achievements and opportunities for volunteering in their cities.

● Bring faiths and local authorities together to create sustainable cities.

● Provide clean, accessible drinking water .

● Improve sanitation for pilgrim routes.

● Work with tour operators, airlines and other transport providers to provide carbon neutral travel.

● Spread greener living habits among their own population.

● Publicize their status as Green Pilgrim Cities.

● Celebrate their pilgrims and green their faith festivals .

Landscape Architect: Halvorson Design Partnership
Project Size: 2.5 Acres
Cost: $5,300,000 (approx.)
Location: Minneapolis / Minnesota / USA
Mausoleum Architect: HGA Architects and Engineers |
Minneapolis
Historic Landscape Planning: Elizabeth Vizza Consulting
Awards and Publications:
National Award of Excellence | American Society of
Landscape Architects | 2013
Honor Award | Boston Society of Landscape Architects |
2012
A+ Popular Choice Award | architzer.com | 2013
Architect Magazine | Cover Story | October 2012
Lakewood Cemetery in
Minneapolis has served as the
foremost resting place for
Minnesota’s distinguished
citizens.

Trustees of Lakewood Cemetery

asked Halvorson Design
Partnership
to take on the challenge of
integrating
a large new mausoleum in the
historic
garden landscape. The result,
completed in 2012 is a highly
integrated landscape and
building featuring a zero-edge
reflecting pool, accessible green
roof, groves of native trees, and
outdoor commemorative
spaces.
A large central lawn anchors the
space and accommodates
Memorial Day events for
upwards of 350 people.
Comfortable, contemplative
spaces have been designed
around the perimeter for more
intimate gatherings.
Laid over 250 acres of rolling landscape and adjoining the city’s historic Grand Round’s parkway system,
Lakewood’s historical importance and impeccably manicured grounds make it a treasured landmark and
community asset in the City’s Uptown neighborhood.
Mature trees were preserved through air spading, root pruning and shoring with sheet piling in order
to build the back wall of the mausoleum. Terraced walls ease the transition between building and
landscape and offer opportunities for future memorialization.
 The new garden
mausoleum at twilight.
The low ground plane
focuses attention on the
powerful mosaic motif
around the windows.
Exterior columbarium
niches are designed
between the projecting
crypt rooms permitting
interment in a garden
setting.

Circulation was shifted away from the building to allow for the creation of a series of sacred zones defined
by raised bronze or granite curbing.
The new reflecting fountain is a zero- edge pool with
a 1” deep “scrim” of water over a layer of pavers on
pedestal mounts. When drained in the winter, it
becomes an active plaza space.

Close attention was given to coordinating views from

interior spaces to the landscape beyond. Subtle
articulations on the ground plane and a simple plant
palette create a sense of enclosure while extending
the building’s geometries into the landscape.
The Symbiotic Matorral is a landscape installation Built 2018
recently implemented on a site of the Parque Typology Cultural and Heritage
Ecológico Chipinque in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Landscape
Mexico. The installation is the culmination of a larger
research project that fathoms the relationship
between urbanism and nature in the contemporary
built/landscape continuum by combining the
metabolist (cognitivist) and culturalist
(geophilosophical) models into a ‘symbiotic
landscape construct’.
Installation

The project converts an abandoned service road

into a floro-faunistic route that crosses through the
highly-diverse ecosystem of the matorral
submontano thicket and scrubland, transitioning
into the high mountain woods. Construed as a
spatial transcription interfacing Deleuze-Guattari’s
geophilosophy of the ‘becoming-animal’ and Almo
Farina’s cognitive ecology of the ‘eco-field’, the
environmental infrastructure aims at destabilizing a
conventional anthropocentric perspective. The
visitor is immersed in a multifocal exploration that
merges the synesthaetic spheres of the humans and
animals inhabiting this highly diverse ecosystem. This
light environmental infrastructure reconnects man
with the delicate ecosystem to reformulate a novel,
more sustainable, and ethic relation.

the portal
Raising Awareness
The Symbiotic Matorral installation is meant to
raise awareness of the forgotten richness of the
matorral submontano and its exceptional
biodiversity among the schoolchildren of the
metropolitan area of Monterrey.
Levels
The installation converts an abandoned trail for the
maintenance of a high-voltage line, which violently
crosses the area, in a 500-meter-long journey through
the luxuriant ecosystem. The travel through the
matorral is orchestrated on different levels of
interpretation. The ‘portal’, the ‘path of the animal
trails’, the ‘glade of becoming’, the ‘floral abyss’, the
‘circle of contemplation’ are the main components
of the route.
 References

https://www.google.com/search?q=mount+kailash&sxsrf=ALiCzsZ5dlT9gPfwgBpTHaSJyPjQbZB9uw:1652329788753&source=lnms&tb
m=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi45vCQkNn3AhVpT2wGHbgzBGwQ_AUoAnoECAIQBA&biw=1280&bih=625&dpr=1.5#imgrc=OMTvEy9
K7h0XgM

https://www.google.com/search?q=sacred+groves+in+kerala&sxsrf=ALiCzsaMDsXyNYOhnY6f-Mhl4hiCJRIqPg:1652329973658&sour
ce=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj5j4bpkNn3AhUVTWwGHT3pDboQ_AUoAnoECAEQBA&biw=1280&bih=625&dpr=1.5#imgr
c=iz3IrPLQZpLW0M

https://hga.com/projects/lakewood-cemetary-garden-mausoleum/

https://landezine.com/lakewood-cemetery-garden-mausoleum-landscape-by-halvorson-design-partnership/

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