Harbingers of Sustainability

A gem by Scott Adams

We have been dabbling a bit in sustainability for a few years now. We hope to help clients (three categories that are discussed here are: individual homeowners, corporate houses and developers) design and build structures that are meaningful, healthy, less wasteful on resources, and have a low carbon footprint. But alas! All three categories of potential customers have views on sustainability that are either uninformed, or myopic, at best. This makes for a difficult permeation of the sustainability trickle that is no doubt imperative to bring about a small revolution in the built environment (read Real Estate) in India. 

Though I speak in jest and list only typical situations, there are quite a few who are fairly knowledgeable, and they should be rightfully anointed as ‘harbingers of sustainability’ for bringing about the change desperately required in the building industry.

Individual Homeowners:
Perhaps the most receptive group amongst all three, they are nonetheless all at sea about the concept of sustainability. While one or two individuals delve into the subject of ‘green’ with an overarching thesaurus and a digital microscope in hand, most are in a state of ‘little-knowledge-is-not-so-dangerous-a-thing’. They see-saw between the subjects of design, building materials, water and energy independence, cost of construction, aesthetics, and built-up area without any holistic approach, and seem to want the best of all at the cheapest price. Many of them feel that gleaning the internet or reading a few articles will turn them into an architect, contractor, materials expert, energy expert, and sustainability guru, all rolled into one, overnight! While a few will trawl through trash to find waste that can be converted to a building material (for a wall or door), they are rarely willing to sully their hands in the mire of understanding required to build the right home for themselves while keeping the local and environmental aspects in the balance. And finally, while some of them do not mind forking out megabucks when buying from a ‘known’ developer, they seem to tighten their purse-strings to their detriment when they deal with an architect or contractor. The result is either a house-that-jack-built or severe delays in construction which eventually inflates the cost of construction anyway.

Corporate Houses:
This group’s story is a story of two protagonists. One is the CEO, or head honcho by whatever name, who inevitably has a vision about everything his organization does. The other comes with the non-flattering title of ‘Facilities Manager (FM)’. Even honchos who have disedified the Bangalore skyline with bizarre steel-and-glass monstrosities have a perspective on sustainability. They appear in unending articles on eco-sensitivity just because they are corporate captains of IT, pharmaceuticals, mining, media, fashion technology, or any industry for that matter. The fact is that some of these leaders are so devoid of sensitivity to the environment, and people as well, that they usually lump their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities under the awkward stewardship of the HR department! Now if have got your message somehow past the CEO you have to contend with the FM. Unfortunately, the FMs in many corporates are not a professional lot. The FMs I have met all have at least three of these four attributes:

a) They are complete yes-men to their CEO
b) They want an idea for free so that they can get it done from their contractor
c) They have usually failed at all other jobs in the corporate hierarchy
d) They are taking a cut from every vendor that enters the premises

Again, the outcome is institutional structures that are eyesores, as well as resource insensitive. Of course, there are exceptions, but who is to find them amongst the thick haystack of corporate greed and incompetence.

Developers:
Easily the most despised lot, not only amongst the three listed here, but also amongst all business categories listed in India. Developers, the chieftains of the real estate industry, are a motley crew of desperadoes from all walks of life. They span a wide gamut from being front-men of politicians; criminals, even; to foreign returned technocrats, and from village rustics to architects who have abandoned their almost Hippocratic ideals to the lure of the lucre. One tawdry developer in Bangalore, after hearing a presentation, said, “You see, I am a businessman,” in a tone that refused to acknowledge that the others present in the room (architects, consultants, contractors, and suppliers) were also businessmen. For some reason, all developers feel that they are the only ones who should be raking in the moolah while their technical partners should be happy to fork out ideas and advice at a fractional cost! While expecting developers to forefront the cause of sustainability is not inappropriate; the developers themselves will only incorporate any aspect of sustainability so long as it is on paper only, or is decreed by law, or is a minor cost element, which if adopted, can be touted with blaring bugles in the next ad campaign.

The result, friends, is again, buildings that are shoddy and unhealthy, flout all sorts of building codes, and bring disrepute to many aspects of sustainability. And, as for tom-tomming the cause of sustainability, for now, let’s keep piping plaintive little notes and hope that the strains reach a crescendo sometime in our lifetime!

Trapped in the commonplace

A drain being laid by the municipal authority in Bangalore.
Notice that the bottom level of the drain is the same as the road.

In my opinion this term seems to both define and limit us folks in the subcontinent.

When you look at developmental works being undertaken by govt agencies in your city what do you see? Beyond the obvious addition of flyovers, underpasses, pavements, roads, medians don't you see shoddy work? For that matter, most construction (including private ones) that dots the urban landscape is sub-standard. When you confront this it triggers the usual blame game insinuating everything from a poor workforce, substandard materials, poor compensation for work done and so on.
The government is a reflection of the people governed.... and by state of our public works our appreciation of what is 'good design' is poor at the best. Look at our development body and municipality driven initiatives, our parks are fenced off with a sad meshing painted green; public walls are rendered in the most atrocious paintings that are meant to reflect 'our culture'; pathways which cater to pedestrians are made like mini check dams, making them impossible to get onto by the elderly or the physically disabled. Or for that matter, what is considered permissible urban interventions by the authorities; billboards cluttered along roads, shrouding skylines; parks are made but with boards denying almost any kind of use apart from staring at the greens; traffic signage and lights placed awkwardly where one cant see them, or, altogether missing. One could go on..The important point to note though is there is minimal resistance by US the users of this infrastructure to all this.

A painting on a Bangalore city wall... as apart of a
cultural initiative by the city municipal body
Image source: images.worthview.com 

Where does the problem lie? Of course it takes a lot to create such a deep infliction, but could it be more to do with US than THEM or THAT? What exactly do I mean by that? By now most of us are familiar with the famous 'chaltha hai', or 'will do' attitude of us Indians. We seem to accept almost anything that is dished out at us. Move beyond the built environment and we see the quiet acceptance of everything from the kind of governance, education, television content, cinema, medical care, quality of commercial products, and so on. Perhaps it is this 'live and let live' kind of 'dharma' that we follow which allows all kinds of mediocrity to thrive along with rare examples of brilliance. This has also lead to a social culture that seems to depict a breakdown of society... you see this in our civic sense; love thy neighbour has been hit out of the park. Rules are almost meant to be broken... traffic, pedestrian, building violations, encroachments.... this is what we have become.
But there is change. We miss it because of the din of the commonplace, it engulfs us. There is a change in some sectors like telecommunication, computers, automobiles, apparel, footwear, etc, and that is in turn resulting in lightning speed changes in other industries like advertising, sales and marketing.
To see if this is a sign of better times to come, let us examine it.
What has driven this change? Predominantly the triggers have been external commercial forces tapping into a vast market pool, post the liberalisation efforts in the late 80s and 90s. This has had a domino effect in spawning a glut of entrepreneurial ventures across the nation. This includes the birth or growth of numerous design houses.

Hoardings mar the very facade that lends a character to the city

Has this change been good? From a sustainable perspective, I think not. Some direct impacts have been pollution and a gorging into our natural resources. While a plethora of opportunities seem to await our nation's youth, it has also created wider chasms between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'. From a design perspective, while there have been some truly innovative indigenous examples, the bulk of design from all fields have been imitations (both good and poor) and are touted as a global/contemporary trends. More local design innovation is desperately needed. From a built environment perspective, our cities and towns are rapidly transforming themselves in this global mould encouraged by the political-commercial shouts of Shanghai-ing or Singapore-ing this place or that. Technologies have changed, but the same does not reflect in how we execute work. Take for example the laying of underground cables along city roads; 'trenchless' machines have now been in use for over a decade, but the mess created, the closing up, etc have not changed.  'Pre-cast' kerbs and medians are now more in use, but the design and eventual laying is still harsh and pedestrian unfriendly. Power systems have changed and billing privatised, but power lines are drawn in much the same haphazard manner.
Will such change lead to an eventual rising above this rut? In my opinion, there has been a greater myopia with this change.  Consumerism has lead to a hoarding mentality with no sensitivity for sustainability. Real estate is an investment because of land value and not because of the quality of product, therefore people buy anything that is sold as long as the location is fine! For sure, consumer awareness will lead to an improved product quality, but driven more by sales rather than by consumer pressure. To add to our woes, better quality products are priced higher, which means that there will always be a market for shoddy lower priced products. In the real estate industry though, one can carry on regardless with shoddy products as long as the promoter has the right land, the proverbial golden goose!
What then is our ticket out of this mediocrity? There is no quick fix solution and the process of change is bound to be challenging and long. But a strong will to see a marked improvement and proudly set a renewed subcontinent standard is necessary. If I absolutely should take a shot at some possible ways out, then my bet would be to set a vision/road-map of where we want to be as a first step, where every individual would see themselves as an integral part of nation building. Today, such a all-encompassing vision does not exist.... only in such a context can smaller vision statements/action plans for industry, growth, technology, education, and so on can thrive. The next step would be to try and change attitudes of a nation starting with the setting in place effective mediums of education (to address the development of civic responsibilities to skill sets). We need to be able to set benchmarks for ourselves and have an opinion of good acceptable work, driving a change in our outlook. Only then can we begin to hold ourselves and others accountable.  Finally, instilling a keen sense of purpose in organisations, supported by a zero tolerance for poor standards at all levels. The more we allow mediocrity to flourish, the lesser are our chances that we will ever redeem ourselves. A high expectation from designers, products, governments, etc..... this should traverse all spectra.  I am aware that all or any of this is a tough ask and may span generations to achieve this, but try we should... all of us. 

From used packaging wood to a picnic table

The informal court gets a face lift

A couple of months ago we were asked to design a working picnic table of sorts for Fisheye, this leading brand & creative solutions company, who incidentally has graciously lent us space to work out of (and as a consequence with whom we share an office space with).
The office space is set in a pre 70s bungalow from the older version of Cooke Town and as a result, offers a number of interesting spaces around the building to use. The folks at Fisheye have left their mark on the insides of this building as only they could and wanted to create their outdoor meeting/lunch/evening party space as an extension of themselves. Therefore, they came up with a casual model to base their seating requirement on.... a picnic table. Dave, the seed of all these projects at Fisheye, handed us a couple of downloaded images of picnic tables from the Internet as reference.

One thickness and modular sizing creating a range of parts

Herein lay a challenge- a typical picnic table is a two-sided table with benches attached to either side. The Fisheye requirement was to seat a minimum of 8 and if possible more at this table. A conventional picnic table that could seat that many would have meant something that was longer than 9 feet!. Further, a conventional picnic table was held together by a cross truss at the edges, and this prevented anyone to slide into their seats. Nearly all had to climb over the benches to park themselves down.
While Fisheye were fine with that, we wanted to work for people beyond their team (and us) to include visitors, some of whom may find the process ungraceful. Any redesign though could not topple the qualitative experience of a picnic table.

Krishna the carpenter inspecting the packaging wood

Without a doubt, the material choice had to have a sustainability angle. Our choices were to do it in some sort of reclaimed timber, so we focussed on used packaging wood. So in keeping with what have stated in earlier post on packaging wood, we went to the dealers of this often neglected resource. Design could not begin, and in retrospect the table could not have turned out the way it has, if we had not done such surveys.

Normally, one gets much smaller cut sections of this wood... mostly 5 odd feet lengths and about 4 to 5 inch widths. We had desired sections of at least 6 inches in width for two reasons... one to reduce the number of build-ups, joints and nail usage, and two to keep with the feel of an outdoor, sturdy picnic bench (not a delicate indoor cousin). There are a few places across Bangalore where one can source packaging timber, but only a few stock larger sizes.... usually used to carry heavy machinery for companies like Volvo, etc.
The process involved careful selection of the timber, hauling the wood to a nearby mill to cut it down to desired sizes, and then transporting this across town to our office space.

Assembly architecture

We also wanted to keep a relatively simple structural assembly and perhaps as powerful a system as the traditional picnic table.We used a uniform thickness for all components to keep cutting simple, and used just four basic sizes- one for the bench legs, one for the table legs, one for the table top & bench seats and one for the cross beams that held it all together. Only the table top and the bench planks had some nailing done to hold the individual plans together and the rest of the table was put together used nuts and bolts. So essentially, the table was an assembly of various parts making the table and bench tops, the legs and the cross beams. All of which could be removed and put back where needed. Because of the uniform thicknesses of all components we ended up limiting this to just two lengths of bolts.

Most packaging woods bear the scars of their past... holes where bolts were driven through, recesses that seated metal washers, air cracks and perhaps even some gouged out portions. We decided to keep most of this and as a result it has lent immense character to this picnic table. This also offers various opportunities for creative use by the folks at Fisheye.

The Table top with gaps for expansion and drainage

Not opting for a toxic surface coat, we finished the entire table and benches with a liberal rubbing of linseed oil... This takes the place of the natural oil inherent in the wood.

Packaging wood is mostly pine and comes in a range of shades, from a pale pinkish brown to a deep reddish brown. The deeper the shade red, the greater the natural wood oil content. The oil gives the wood fibre strength and makes it water resistant to a great extent. Of course, one would need to repeat the process of linseed oil application every year or so.
The process of application is laborious and one should take care not to miss any surfaces, and also gauge the absorption of oil by the wood leading to the use of appropriate quantities. The linseed oil was applied with a pinch of an ochre colour mixed in which made the grain stand out beautifully.

The remainder wood after completion of the table

In the process of design many other ideas for the directions that this table/bench could have taken sprung up.... maybe more on that will appear soon on the horizon as sub projects.
What we were most excited about at the end of this exercise was the minimal amount of wastage in the entire process. While very little waste was generated at the sawing mill due to the size of timber reapers and sections chosen, we kept the waste during the carpentry works to the barest minimum. Even these small pieces will find use somewhere soon I reckon.
While it took us about a week to complete this entire exercise from sourcing to finish, it takes only 10 minutes to dismantle the table and about 15 minutes to put it back. The table ensemble is in now in full use and seats about 12 people with great comfort. Feels like a mission that has been more than accomplished.