Dharmadam, a socio-cultural enclave
It was as part of the project entry for the Annual NASA Design Competition (ANDC), that I visited Kannur in June 2016, along with my friends. Being an architecture student, the ANDC Trophy was the most glorious one, winning which was even beyond our dreams. On being given the task of conceiving a unique representation of a city, we chose to showcase the essence of folk culture, using the symbols and colours of Theyyam, an indigenous art form of Kerala. The idea came from one of us who had a buzz about Theyyam. And thus we set out to Kannur, the land of Theyyams. The first two days we roamed about in Kannur and Kasargode, visiting temples where Theyyam is performed and conducting discussions with Architect Syam Kumar, an alumni of our college, but remained clueless of what we where searching for. We had not come across anything that had so much off essence to evoke thoughts or something that we could deeply study on. Yet we had fun eating and playing carroms at our friend's ho...