Sacred Landscapes

Vikas Chand Sharma is an Associate Professor at Chandigarh University and a researcher at Guru Nanak Dev University, India, with 13 years of experience in architecture and urban planning. He specializes in sustainable urban design for historic cities, developing resilient frameworks through phenomenological inquiry and digital mapping. His research appears in the International Journal of Construction Education and Research, Landscape Research, and Journal of Architecture & Urbanism. He serves on the Scientific Committees for Contesti. Città, Territori, Progetti (University of Florence, Italy) and Anales de Investigación en Arquitectura (Universidad ORT Uruguay) and is an Editorial Board Member for several journals, including Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Cities (WSSET, UK).Dr. Anurag Varma, an academician, architect, and consultant, brings over 25 years of diverse professional experience. Currently, as the Executive Director of the Liberal Arts and Humanities cluster at Chandigarh University, he concurrently leads his self-owned design and planning consulting firm. His expertise spans spatial planning, urbanism, heritage conservation, and architectural design, showcased in leadership roles at a top-100 ENR rated International Design Firm and a leading workshare firm. His academic journey includes Doctoral research from TERI School of Advanced Studies, focusing on sacred cultural heritage and its intersection with urban planning in pilgrimage towns, alongside interests in sustainable built environments, architecture pedagogy, and advancements in education.Dr. Qiuhua (Lisa) Duan is an Assistant Professor specializing in sustainable built environments, building performance, and advanced materials. Her research develops innovative solutions for energy efficiency and occupant well-being within resilient communities. Dr. Duan holds dual PhDs in Architectural Engineering (Pennsylvania State University, USA) and Disaster Prevention and Reduction Engineering (Tongji University, China). She has led some research projects funded by NOAA, the DOE and participated in US National Science Foundation initiatives. With over 50 peer-reviewed publications, her work focuses on energy-efficient building envelopes and indoor environmental quality, offering high-performance technical frameworks for contemporary spatial practice.

• Part I: Experiential Frameworks.- Chapter 1. Afrocosmology and Sacred Design: Towards a Decolonial Spatial Imagination (Johannes Bhanye).- Chapter 2. The field and the knower: understanding sacred landscapes through the Bhagavad Gītā (Umberto Baresi).- Chapter 3. Reconciling Geometries and Geographies of the Self (Karim W. F. Youssef).- Chapter 4. The 'Relational Turn' in Sacred Space: A Phenomenological Mapping Framework (Vikas Chand Sharma, and Sandeep Dua).- Chapter 5. Spiritual Tectonics: Integrating Yogic Principles and Sacred Architecture for Meditative Stillness (Ines Consuela Essen).- Chapter 6. Samādhis as Cultural Landscapes: Remembering Saints in Contemporary Bhakti (Leena Taneja).- Part II: Indigenous Frameworks.- Chapter 7. Deriving the Indigenous Proportioning System of Ek-Ratna Temples of Bishnupur (Peu Banerjee).- Chapter 8. Recursive sacred space and multiple emotional resonance: development model of Thai Chinese temples based on symbolic representation (Huiying Wang and Warunee Wang).- Chapter 9. Reimagining Traditional Water Systems in Sacred Landscapes: A Planning Framework for Govardhan, India (Aman Sharma, Anurag Varma, and Shiva Ji).- Chapter 10. Reviving the Sacred Through Self-Rule: Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj and Festival Space Planning (Nimai Sarkar).- Chapter 11. Rethinking Conservation Frameworks of Living Religious Heritage Sites (Samidha Pusalkar).- Chapter 12. Village Voice: Reimagining Development through Sacred Ecologies in Goa (Ginella George and George Jerry Jacob).- Chapter 13. Tir Aikym: Creating an environmental stewardship framework for a living eco-spiritual centre (Anoup Kerrai, Girija Shettar, Hiral Patel, and Mohan Siyani).