A place growing along with its relics persevering through time, Orchha is known for its palaces and temples built after its establishment in the fifteenth century. Walking through the town, these elaborate buildings often centres one’s attention onto themselves. They make you pause, blanketing themselves around you and carry you through it's spaces. Then, one comes to a stop; a point between the present and the past-  in this in-between spaces, the life of the town flourishes in the form  of settlements, markets, hotels and shops.

To understand how the settlements are spread across the town, one has to look closely at the inhabitants of these spaces. The caste system has carved the configuration of the town. The upper class, richer families live together in clusters, in a close proximity to the market and the temples, and this caste hierarchy grows radially with the Ram Raja Temple as its centre. This difference can also be seen in the form of the houses in these settlements. The houses closer to the temples are bigger, with more than one floor to them and they are always in a state of renovation. The house becomes smaller as we move away from the centre, along with their conditions deteriorating and services decreasing.

Though, even with these hierarchies shaping the form of these structures in the terms of size, the primary shape of the houses remain similar to each other, with their method of construction remaining unchanged. The houses here are load bearing rectangular structures with flat roofs, built using bricks, stones and cements. These houses have varying levels of plinths, which often run into the adjacent building, joining them together and giving a playful feel to the space. The harshness of these structures are complemented by the gentle, uneven fences made by the people. 

Long chains of temporal markets can be seen within the cluster of the temples and along the roads, occupying two sides of the street and creating smaller alleys between them. The stream of color and textures enlivens the whole street, managing the large crowds and fabricating an avid experience for those present there. Sometimes, the alleys become narrow, making the overhangs of the shops overlap each other, providing shaded, intimate spaces with an experience contrasting the open space.

With the rising commercialization, there is an influx of tourists and pilgrims in the town, which has led to the emergence of new hotels and shops; though they have a form completely alien to the locals of the town. These new buildings are made of cement and concrete; their typologies not complementing the overall fabric of Orchha. These structures are a part of the larger development scheme, which does not take the intrinsic and peculiar characteristics of the space into consideration, resulting in the construction of entirely shallow structures which gives nothing back to the space it is in.   

In a larger picture, the town is a wonderful amalgamation of the past and the contemporary architecture, which has allowed life to grow organically within it. It would be interesting to see what Orchha would be in the next few decades, what all the current interventions will provide and afford for, and how the lifestyle of the town will respond to it.