Field Trip to Zanskar 2025
In July 2025, Studio Nyandak embarked on a third field trip to Zanskar, northern India, to continue documentation and preservation design at eight centuries-old Buddhist monasteries. On this trip, we were accompanied by an international team of experts in the fields of heritage conservation, art and architectural history, historical geography, and structural engineering.
This team included Dr. John Harrison (Honorary Research Fellow, University of Liverpool), Dr. Ingun B. Amundsen (Independent Researcher, Norway), Dr. Robert Linrothe (Art Historian, Northwestern University), Dr. Javier Ortega Heras (Researcher, Spanish National Research Council), Marieta Núñez García (Co-Founder, FENEC), Paul Laroque (Structural Engineer, Paris & NYC), Dr. Karl Ryavec (Professor, UC Merced), and Sandeep Sikka (Principal, Architectural Preservation Studio).
Each architect and engineer from Studio Nyandak’s Dharamsala office spent a week at one Zanskar monastery/nunnery, drawing floor plans, sections, elevations, site plans and existing conditions. Throughout the week, the team of experts visited each of the nine monasteries and nunneries to study their structures, learn from their monks and caretakers, and offer consultation to Studio Nyandak’s members.
Like many other vernacular mud-brick buildings in Zanskar, every monastery/nunnery that Studio Nyandak is documenting has suffered significant water damage. This damage is largely caused by the region’s changing climatic patterns, such as increased precipitation. Some monasteries, especially Karsha Monastery, suffered severe damages from seismic activity. Through the first project phase of architectural documentation, we aim to create a record of the threatened built heritage that Zanskar’s Buddhist monasteries embody. In the next phase, started during this most recent field trip, we will identify and analyze damages at the monasteries with the goal of informing future repair work.
Aside from advising documentation and damage mapping, Studio Nyandak’s collaborators contributed invaluably to deepening our understanding of these sites and their historical contexts. From analyzing murals, mapping the local cultural landscape, soil testing for material analysis, radiocarbon dating key timber structural elements, and conducting non-destructive structural testing, the Zanskar 2025 team consultants supplemented Studio Nyadak’s project with in-depth and multidisciplinary research. We look forward to continuing contextualizing our documentation through these enriching research collaborations.
Tenzin Nyandak shows a Karsha Gonpa treasurer Studio Nyandak’s architectural documentation of the Monastery.
Dr. Rob Linrothe and a Gen Rigzin Samphel la at Bardan Gonpa analyze the murals in the main assembly hall of the Monastery.
Architect and earthen materials expert Sandeep Sikka conducts a workshop on local soil and clay.
FENEC co-founders Marieta Núñez García and Dr. Javier Ortega Heras conduct sonic testing as part of a nondestructive structural analysis at Bardan Gonpa.
