‘Living Monsoon’ was conceived in 2015 by the Indian Institute of Architects Cochin Centre. It is a series of carefully curated deliberations on authentic cultures of architecture & urbanism in the Monsoon climatic regions of the world – the cultures of building appropriate to the climes, environs and socio-cultural dynamics of these regions with high precipitation and its specific bio diversity.

Here, the ‘Monsoon’ as a physical context refers to regions formed by combining the tropical monsoon and tropical rainforest climatic zones prescribed by the Koppen Geiger climatic classification system. It includes all major regions adjoining the Indian Ocean such as the entire west coast of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Philippines, Fiji, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore as well as the central and south eastern regions of Africa such as Madagascar and North western areas of South America.

Climate change, along with growing urbanization and environmental degradation, poses an unprecedented risk to the monsoon way of life. Though monsoon regions across the world have woken up to this challenge, there are very few sensitively scaled solutions to draw lessons from. IIA Cochin Centre in 2021 extended the Living Monsoon programme under the sub-theme of Resilience Next to gather insights on the phenomenon of climate change and towards building resilience in the architectural and urban fabric of these climatic regions – with respect to materiality, habitats, public spaces, urban systems, economy, etc. The events comprising & contributing to this series are envisaged in several forms: design talks, technical sessions, city level workshops, live projects, awards, exhibitions, etc capable of initiating meaningful engagement from the fraternity across the region.

The Monsoon Architecture Awards 2023 will be held to identify exemplary architectural projects and to promote solutions that are resilient and sensitive to these climatic zones. The series will culminate in April 2023, with the MONSOON ARCHITECTURE FESTIVAL a global congregation of architects, scholars and students from the said regions.

The 2017 program was followed by a publication featuring the content and reflections over the period, devised to be a valuable storehouse of knowledge for the reference of present and future generations. The whole exercise is intended to be of an academic bearing to equally benefit the profession, academics & research in the region.