Sustainability in Housing through Vernacular Building Materials

Rural Housing as an area of work, despite its large-scale implications, huge potential, and the attention it has received in research, has limited implementation to show at the ground level. Mass housing projects have conventionally focused on urban & peri-urban areas, with standardized designs and materials utilized all over the country irrespective of climate, culture and prevalent building materials. Usage of Local materials, designs & indigenous construction skills has always proved difficult under the purview of centralized governmental policies which tend to unify and equalize the country under a single system, disregarding local variations.

Now with the advent of the sustainability movement, through a visible debate on climate change, there exists a new opportunity for furthering vernacular building systems and materials from the perspective of environmental friendliness and low energy solutions emanating from the local context.

This develops from the construction of a dwelling unit based on local parameters of climatic comfort, using indigenous materials which possess durability and resilience, recycling local waste streams to create additional material resources and the possibility of utilizing local construction skills and thereupon contributing socially and economically to indigenous societies.

But can traditional principals and methods be part of a modern governmental building criterion where constraints of Space, Science and Speed are to be always given priority? The talk would be focused on the possibilities of how these traditional materials and systems can be valued within the gamut of the sustainable building movement which can both help recognize & revive their usage.