Drawing from the unique context and climate of the Himalaya, this book highlights several innovative design interventions, shaped by a myriad of social, cultural, environmental, and political factors that have been employed in villages to combat climate change.

Climate-Adaptive Design in High Mountain Villages focuses on Ladakh, an outpost on the front lines of climate change, and the region’s creative responses to the pressing issues of food security, water management, energy efficiency, design aid, and material resources in the Anthropocene. These strategies – from artificial glaciers to tree armor – showcase the breadth of creative solutions already underway. In doing so, the research addresses the broader concept of climate-adaptive design and how it informs the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning.

An ideal read for academics, researchers, and students in these fields, this book presents a focused investigation into climate-adaptive strategies that could provide transferable solutions for the rest of the world.

Carey Clouse is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at UMass Amherst. She is the author of Farming Cuba: Urban Agriculture from the Ground Up (2014), the recipient of a Fulbright-Nehru senior scholar award for research on climate change adaptation in India (2014–2016), and is a National Geographic Explorer grantee (2017–2018). Clouse holds a post-professional degree (SMArchS) in Architecture and Urbanism from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BArch from the University of Oregon.