Quick Guide to Sustainability and Green Buildings

                      

            The other day, I was in a virtual meeting with some friends. This group of mine has entreprenuers from various walks of life. Soon subject of discussion turned to “business life after Covid19”.

When it was my turn, I said,” Architects like me will continue to incorporate sustainability in our designs of buildings as well as interiors and landscapes.”

“And what does that mean?”, someone asked immediately.

“ Are you talking about the materials you use for the construction?”, another friend.

“How will buildings look like?”,somebody was curious to know.

I realised that Sustainability is still a vague idea for many of us. Even though our future is closely related to this concept. Dictionaries like Merriam-Webster define Sustainability as “relating to or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged”.

Broadly speaking we may say,” Sustainability is ability to last.” It speaks about ability we need to create in our environment to endure all the demands we make on mother earth’s resources. Actually Mother Earth’s life. It is but natural that she will continue to support us if we cause minimum possible damage and try to return what we borrowed, if ever possible.

Experts define Sustainability in many ways. For instance,

Incorporating sustainability in all of our projects of developments or activities means creating and maintaining conditions under which people can exist with Nature in harmony. Harmony that promotes growth and progress of both, human beings and Nature. These conditions also fulfil our social, economic and many other needs of not only present times but also of future times.

Sustainable development is the one that meets our present needs of natural resources and it also leaves behind a world where our future generations do not have to compromise in meeting their needs.

We must bear in mind that Sustainability is not a one-time and one-point treatment. It is a process that applies to our buildings, their sites, their interiors, their operations and the people among which they are situated.

It is a process which has come to be called “Green Building”. Beginning right from the inception of any project idea, this process continues smoothly, without any break, till the project reaches the very end of its life and its parts are then recycled and reused.

Green Architecture, Ecological Architecture and Environmental Architecture are labels which point to the same common notion that the design of buildings should take into account the relationship of buildings with not only their immediate surroundings but also of impact on global natural environment. Needless to say that such impact is generally negative. 

Most of the people till recent times thought that “Good Architecture” was a building that was adequately protecting its inhabitants from elements of Nature like climate. However, now it is the environment that is needing protection. The concept of good architecture has changed. It now means a building that is sensitive to its environment. One that will protect the environment from the potential pollution and degradation caused by human habitation. Built environment which created secure conditions for us is becoming a source of danger and threat.

British sociologist Anthony Giddens has said that at a certain point of time, not long ago, we started worrying less about what Nature can do to us and more about what we have done to Nature.  In his opinion this is a transition from “External risk” that we faced from natural elements to “Manufactured risk”.

All of us would wish to avoid the more catastrophic prospects, at least during our own, our children’s and our grandchildren’s lifetimes. Buildings contribute directly and substantially to manufactured risk because of the amount of raw materials, energy and capital they consume and the pollutants they emit and architects therefore have a specific and significant professional role to play in reducing this risk.

Since the subject is vast and all-encompassing, I would like to invite contributions by way of unique observations and useful facts and figures.