Text and Photo by Kalyani Majumdar | Published in Domus India | 2013
The rapid growth of cities has led to increasing demand for more residential, office, commercial and retail spaces and the core area of older town and mega cities are saturated, it is estimated that more than half to 95 per cent of the new buildings will come up in resource stressed suburbs and new townships, not to forget that the lack of sound infrastructure and planning coupled with ad-hoc construction in Indian cities have taken its toll. A workshop organised by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on Urbanscapes: How sustainable are our buildings and cities, stressed on issues of affordable housing and the notion of what is a sustainable building. According to the 2013 Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA) the number of obsolescent dwelling units (excluding those that are less than 40 years old and those aged 80 years or more) was estimated to be 2.27 million in March 2012.
Mega cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Chennai have seen maximum urbanisation and that is effecting water, land and other natural resources. Creation of new towns in green areas have further accelerated the perils of striking a balance between demand and supply. With changing lifestyles, cities are and will use up more and more of precious water and energy and will generate massive amounts of waste. So what is the way forward? How do we provide a city that has sustainable housing which works on a two-pronged manner in serving the needs and comfort of the city dwellers on one hand, and not creating pressure on the environment? What are green buildings and are they really a solution? These are some of the questions that surfaced at the workshop. CSE executive director (Research and Advocacy) Anumita Roychowdhury, took the example of traditional Chettinad homes which have sufficient cross-ventilation with big verandahs and courtyards as common feature in most traditional homes in Chennai, as the climate there is hot and humid and hence, it does not require air-tight glass buildings. However, quite a few tight glass buildings in Chennai are being constructed.
City planners and architect need to look back at traditional wisdom and techniques to find design solutions for modern Indian cities. She also added, “What is worrisome is that Indian cities use more of precious water and energy and generate massive amounts of waste. The construction boon can be a bane as unfettered growth can have a damaging impact. In India, buildings are responsible for 40 per cent of the energy use, 30 per cent of the raw material use, 20 per cent of water use and 20 per cent of land use. At the same time, they generate 40 per cent of carbon emissions, 30 per cent of solid waste generation and 20 per cent of water effluents. With almost 70 per cent of the building stock in India yet to come up, the country is looking ahead to a critical situation.” Sunita Narain, the director general of CSE, cited a very valid problem in terms of the certification of a building being green when she pointed out that there is no clarity on the parameters for a building to be a “green building” also, how do we retrofit modern innovations to an already existing building? These were some of the thoughts to ponder upon.
Kalyani Majumdar
www.cseindia.org
