This map was developed through a student workshop conducted as part of Maharashtra Water Stories, the second edition of our water heritage initiative after Rajasthan Water Stories – Paani Ki Kahaani. The workshop brought together architecture students from BVCOA, Navi Mumbai, to document water structures, architecture, and culture in Nashik through visual storytelling.

In Nashik, the students studied the Rahads, underground water tanks in the old city that open once a year during Holi. While they are celebrated as cultural landmarks, the Rahads are also part of a larger ecological water system that once helped store water, but is no longer used in the same way today.

Instead of creating a comic, the students produced an isometric map that captured the Rahads, their surrounding urban context, and the activities that unfold around them at different times. The map used spatial storytelling to show how water, culture, memory, and the city continue to intersect.

A parallel group, guided by Celia Lebarbey and Marylène Negro, produced a 21-minute film documenting the same context through moving image.