Perplexed about a lack of imagination...

I have always fretted and fumed about this, but two things triggered this impulse to write about this. One was the inauguration of the 2010 Commonwealth games at Delhi, and the other was an article by Suhel Seth in the TOI (writing for Lavassa Cities).
The former example was resplendent with imitations of what others had done, and the usual repetitive themes of pan-Indian culture. The latter waxes eloquent on the sheer lack of imagination amongst architects and designers.
Do we really suffer from a lack of imagination? How? or rather, Why?? In a country that needs over 256 million colours to paint it and a land of innumerable stories we suffer from a interesting themes to paint and stories to tell!!! Our airports, our stadia, our shopping complexes, our offices, the homes we build, our parks, our streets, all are examples of rip-offs from the shiny west.
What drives us emulate imported models without questioning their appropriateness? Clients? The big bad market? Or, is it simply an easy alternative to what we perceive as reinventing the wheel?
What if:

• Bangalore resurfaces as the city of tanks, valleys and hillocks?
• there hot-dry regions had courtyard homes with pedestrian streets?
• informal market places became integrated to add texture to our cities?
• Spaces and corridors for rituals, festivals and celebration were given their rightful urban space?
• Maidans and playgrounds (not 'hands-off' and fenced landscaped parks) were an imperative?
• glass gave way to screens, jaalis and verandahs that performed the same job of reducing dust, letting light in and also formed thermal controls?
• building blocks varied from district to district... depending on soil, stone and other raw material?
• craft of the region found space in all buildings?
• what if pavements got bigger and roads narrower..... (have to think this one through).?
• what if orchards, and mini forests dotted our city-scapes?
• what if agriculture was part of urbanity?

I am sure you can add much more to this list.
Without a doubt there is a great deal of national pride in who we are, but the expression that we lend to our architecture does not compliment that position. I would not want to sermonise anyone on how we can dream of architectural expressions, forms, types, etc for the various regions and sub regions of this country, and would only hope that we find our ways to do our bit.

Seeking the language (reasons) for an appropriate architecture

In the context of finding that all elusive architecture that belongs, while it addresses both regional needs and global aspirations, we often find the built around us are compromises.

Village House fore court near Nurthyang, Meghalaya

The new found Green rush has thrown up various building solutions to achieve a version of buildings that are responsible to the environment. But are they? Just glance back at the past 50 years or so, and we see a transformation of our urban scape. Roll back another 50 and the differences are glaring. As a parallel exercise, venture out about  50 km from wherever you are in the city and you start seeing examples of a building tradition that seem vestiges of a past in the context of this rapidly changing urban form. Should we construe that the past, which continues to exist even today in subdued forms are passe, and not relevant?
Apply the same filters of assessing their environmental impact from today's green building perspective on them, and we find that they occupy a category that is difficult to emulate.... in other words, as green as it gets. On an other thread look at urban developments across the country and across the world and all this new architecture seems related... country cousins aspiring to follow a trend.
So why do we continue with this inertia of propagating this borrowed architectural model? While it is not hard to see that they do reflect a growing global community, it is difficult to trace a path of transformation, a rationalised process of closure of (or change from) what was, on to the emergence of a new urbanity. Any acceptable change, is a process of evaluating the reasons for change, adopting new ideas that satisfy the reasons for change and discarding those that don't apply, in the process effecting a familiar (understandable) transformation.
Let us look at some of the traits/requirements of the traditional buildings that occupy one of the sub regions of India.
Let's start with the obvious one, climate-  At a macro level, India demands a tropical architecture (with regional variations and exceptions).... an architecture that is designed to keep the insides of the building cooler... not letting heat creep in. However, there are various sub requirements of doing the same....

• keeping the insides cooler, but in a region of high humidity
• keeping the insides cooler, but in a high rainfall area
• keeping the insides cooler, but in a dry and arid area
• keeping the insides cooler, but tackling a saline and corrosive air
• keeping the insides cooler, but managing a high glare factor.

Surely, the solutions and the resulting architecture would vary for each of these situations.

New Wood construction house at Malkota, HP

Add another trait layer, natural resources-  the western ghats (Kerala, coastal Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra have laterite rich reserves, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have rich granite reserves, Andhra has limestone and a variety of slates, Rajasthan has innumerable sandstones and marbles, the north-east is an explosion of a bamboo, cane and other grasses, Most of the Central and Gangetic India has quartzite, sandstones, Himalayan architecture is a mixture of adobe, slate, and wood. Bricks made all across India, were traditionally of different sizes, shapes and hues... reflecting the soils of the various regions. Carpentry skills vary where timber use was prevalent. True, there was a difference between Institutional and the vernacular.... but the vernacular was even more rooted. The vernacular sees employment of the most local and prevalent of skills that are associated to the natural resources of the region, a building system that is rapidly renewable, and materials for construction that can be carted from nearby. The building methods were kept simple and used no polluting energies... only human, or animal.

We see ourselves stepping into another trait, culture and building traditions-  In traditional buildings, we see people and culture entwined with the architecture. We see the work of artisans and crafts persons, and not merely contractors. Wonder why? There connect between the crafts person, his craft and the region from which he hailed was umbilical in nature. Every region's buildings reflected a stamp left by the craft persons who worked on it, that was unique. Such craft also reflected a connect with both the natural resources strengths and the climatic attributes of the region. For example, the stone jaali work of Rajasthan and the hot-dry central northern plains, play the dual role of both providing privacy to women inhabitants and cooling hot air as it swept through these stone screens. The Internal courtyard reflected the private usage of an inner-outdoor space and also ventilated the stale air from the rooms surrounding it.The tiny earthen and wood habitations of the Himalayas reflected both the outdoor culture of it's people, and also kept the inner spaces warm at night. The densely packed urban conglomerations of the northern plains indicate the need for shade in the streets. Similarly, the loosely stacked homes in coastal Tamil Nadu demonstrate the need for air to circulate freely to tackle high humidity.

We see that all these aspects of climate, natural resource strengths, cultural needs and building traditions result in a multitude of architectural styles and sub-styles uniquely linked with the sub regions of this country. So what about the architecture of today? More and more, we are accepting trends, dimensions, expression and material thrown up by a global community, rather than seeking a honest (honourable) transformation (connect) vis-a-vis our building heritage. Why? Maybe in this age of quick-fix solutions, when we continue to seek for that elusive language of architecture that would be deemed appropriate, we actually seek reasons to belong...be a part of this emerging global village... uninterested in the consequences of this change.

Where do we start if we were to design an architecture that is appropriate to place and time (place representing natural resources, skill sets and culture, and time representing the changing cultures and new aspirations)? We could start by asking questions like these:

• What building material groups would I choose to ensure that the building gains less heat? (Doesn't a predominantly glass facade defeat the basic premise of that choice?)
• What building form would I employ that addresses other climatic attributes of the sub-region like humidity, rain, etc?
• How were current uses of the building addressed by traditional counterparts, and are they relevant today from a socio-cultural point of view?
• Which natural resources are available for me to employ sustainably, or more honestly, with lesser environmental damage? For example, excessive laterite mining for construction in the western ghats is today an environmental issue..... so what would be the alternative?
• Do I have a responsibility towards current livelihoods linked to building traditions? How do I employ those valuable skills?
• How would I balance the issue of glare and the desire of a more social people, without compromising on heat gain?
• Traditional vernacular architecture occupied a minimal resource/skill footprint, and a near zero carbon footprint.... Since a large ecological footprint is undesirable (within this 'climate of change'), then how small a footprint can I make?
• .... and more!

What is more dangerous when exaggerated? Global aspirations negating tradition and the associated identity, or, negotiated change. Choose wisely.

Are current green initaitives only half measures towards sustainability?

Are current green initiatives only half measures towards sustainability.... merely postponing the inevitable?
Essentially all human activity revolves around the extraction of virgin material, energy production/usage and the generation of waste.
Much of today's 'green' activity focusses on the following:

• Material- Here the focus is keeping things as local as possible and to consume only low energy products. 
• Energy- Here the focus is on producing cleaner power and increasing the usage of renewable energy for our power needs. When it comes to engine fuels, the focus is on moving away from fossil fuels and opting for more non-polluting alternatives like bio-fuels. On the demand end these initiatives have resulted in technology that consume less power or fuel to give us the maximum output.
• Waste- Here the focus is on cleaner non-polluting technologies.

These are well meaning methods towards a greener future, but is it enough to become truly sustainable. That begs the question- what is being truly sustainable? I would imagine that it would mean that we consume material in a manner that there is enough left for posterity... for future generations and other species to live quality lives on this earth. It would also mean that we consume energy/fuel in a manner that there is enough to go by for posterity, or, that any residue of our activities does not result in a toxifying of our air, ground or water.

Now, what would be the steps that we would have to take to ensure that we satisfy the above conditions of sustainability? Let us consider the current 'green' measures:
Materials- By consuming local or consuming low energy products would we meet those conditions? I believe that it all depends on the rate of consumption. The stresses are already showing, with a running out of various stones and timber alternatives, or, the astronomical price increases that we have been seeing. It looks to me that to change to a non-consumerist community would be far more challenging (it's kind of an addiction). The answer would be to reach a near net zero virgin resource consumption situation. The focus would therefore have to be on the development of technologies in nearly all fields that see the use of reused or renewable raw materials. Since at IGH we focus on the built environment, the examples would be along the lines of technology to reuse steel without hampering its brittleness (a result of its carbon content), the making of reconstituted concrete/blocks/tiles that bring the use of cement down to zero, low-energy woody materials/ composites, non-toxic resins and polishes, and so on. Does this mean the end of conventional construction? These are the debating points.... whatever it leads to, one thing is for sure... we would need a radical re-think on the business as usual processes.

Energy- The answer is not whether we should use renewable energy or non-fossil fuel energy. What we ought to be focussing on is whether the overall resources that is used in the production of energy can be sustained for ever? Yes, the sun's energy will last us many millennia, but what about the life of technology like PV... they currently have a shelf life of about 15 to 20 years.... what then? Have we figured out methods to manufacture PV technology in a manner that we dont spend more than what we expect the PV products to produce? Can we design systems that are perennial? What about bio-fuels? Can we be sure that we would have enough land for growing the bio-fuel without eating into our forests or adding pressure on our regular food crops?
Waste- Here is quite a crucial component that defines how badly we have tilted the sustainability balance. Be it materials we use for all production/building activity, or, everything we consume as food and other daily consumables, or the fuel we burn to power our transportation, cities and industry..... we leave something behind. Can we endeavour to work on technology that produces no residue, or, renders all such gaseous, liquid or.solid residue into re-usable materials or inert enough not to cause any problem whatsoever to our air, water or land?

The earth's population is slated to settle around the 10 billion mark. While it means that there would only be that many mouths to feed, another phenomenon, which is the increasing global urban population, would have a pronounced impact on what resources we have left. Along with this comes a greater hunger and greater 'want' from a basic 'need' based society. The pressure will be on us to consume less, and pollute less.... which is as much a measure of attitude/s as it is a challenge for technology. Like I mentioned earlier, the former has led us to where we are... and while we do our utmost to bring change in lifestyles, the focus would equally be on gearing the latter to meet the stringent sustainability demands as mentioned above.

I do agree that current 'green'measures are probably the first steps towards such a change, but it only seems prudent that we know where we are headed and what, at best, will suffice.