What's the deal with deal wood?

It is known more commonly as packaging wood, but has earned a common name of deal wood.... maybe because it forms the main packing material for all trade deals. Considering that, there must be a lot of timber that is going around as part of packaging worldwide. Check out some of these figures:

• The European pallet and packaging industry consumes about 20 million cubic metres of timber annually
• Packaging is a huge consumer of wood and as a disposable product accounts for one third of municipal waste streams.
• A report shows that containers and packaging ranked as both the most generated and most recycled municipal waste in 1999, according to Waste News 'September 3, 2001 article. "Economy waste generation soared in late 1990s, an EPA Report says. "Americans generated 76 million tons of both containers and packaging, and of that 37 percent were recycled. EPA's study also revealed that while municipal garbage (one indication of consumption patterns) reached a high of 230 million tons in 1999-- a 7 million ton increase from 1998-- the recycling rate remained flat at 28 percent over the same period.
• In 2003, the wood packaging represented about 3% of the woodworks industry of the EU.

There are apparently no specific type of wood that is in use, but a predominant volume is pine and other soft woods. The choice is primarily cost, easy to nail, and density. The intention of this post is not to complain on the quality of wood in use, but more on the quantity in use and the need for looking at this material as a potential material for reuse in different applications. Yes, the primary effort should be at reducing this enormous consumption to reduce the up-the-chain load on forestry (considering that none of these can be considered sustainable plant species).

Every tonne of dry wood stores about 1.8 tonnes of CO2 and by letting this resource go to waste and decay, we ensure that much of this is released back into the atmosphere.

You could buy packing wood (or deal wood as it is know here in India) in many of our older wholesale market areas. Considering the huge quantities being generated as a result of our growing economy, we need to start looking at this as a good resource. This wood is susceptible to borers and termites, but simple treatment and only specific uses should resolve that matter. For example- for internal door shutters and for interior woodwork. We find that this wood can also do decently well in outdoor use, with simple linseed oil treatment and similar such methods. Take care to pick the redder of the varieties, which indicates a high content of natural oil already in the wood. The paler versions only mean greater treatment.
Of course, the Indian situation is better- in the sense, we recycle much of this waste. Already, much of poorer India uses this material for their meagre furniture and other woodwork needs, but surely we can put it to better use...

This very argument can apply to the reuse of reclaimed timber from demolished homes, discarded furniture, and many other kinds of waste. All one needs is an open mind, and the intent to reduce our collective ecological footprint.

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.