A house that sustains
How green is your house? While not many would question the logic of constructing green buildings, there are very few people who live in them. As Zeenat Niazi, Programme director for habitat, Development Alternatives puts it, “The same government which promotes green buildings will not live in them.” And it is not just the government. Even people in rural India (long celebrated for their ecologically sustainable practices) are being lured into all-brick construction. As any ecologically sensitive architect will tell you, fired brick is an un-green and an unsustainable building material. But, as the same architect will tell you, all the so-called unsustainable materials will always find a place in the greenest of buildings.
What is sustainable construction
Clearly, the concept of sustainability needs to be demystified. According to the Brundtland Commission, sustainable development “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The elaboration and implications of this simple phrase is, however, complex.
So, a sustainable building must be long lasting. With that as a goal, in building it you should use materials that embody the least amount of energy, both in their production and application. And above that, you should avoid using anything that is finite and non-renewable. That means, use of aluminium, glass, steel, and fired bricks is out. It is worse if sitting in Mumbai, you have to transport your steel from a factory in Jamshedpur. Transporting exotic material over long distances is also a no-no. Therefore, a yellow sandstone façade in Pune is a disaster, in terms of sustainability.
The other caveat is that the building should use the least amount of energy operationally. This means that the air conditioner is definitely out. It also means that you should not have to use artificial lighting during the day time.
Keeping the above in mind, it may seem that the only manmade structure that fits these conditions is a mud hut, in the middle of a desert.
But the concept of sustainability does not end here, it goes a lot further. Advocates of sustainability insist that your building a house must contribute socially and economically to your society. You should use local artisans so that you contribute to their livelihood and also help them to propagate their traditional skill acquired over the generations. And of course, all this has to be done in an aesthetic and ethical manner.
Before you fold this paper and return to Sudoku, globally there are many (if not hordes of) public and private buildings that are close to all these principles.
Sustainability is easy
And that is what sustainability demands of you. It is not a dogma, it is usually enough if you sincerely try to achieve these goals and it is okay if you prioritise and skip a few in favour of the others.
Of course you need to use steel, glass, cement, and fired bricks in any building that you build today. But you need to recognise that these are finite resources, it takes a lot of energy to convert them from their raw state to the finished stage, and therefore they should not be used indiscriminately. There is an optimum amount to which they must be used, and there are plenty of alternatives available.
Of course, some materials will be more green than others. But if you go for a less green material because procuring it will be beyond your means, it’s okay too. The firebrand activist shouting for sustainability will understand your predicament and not hold it against you.
Ashok B Lall, an architect who heads Asia-Pacific jury of Holcim Awards (which are given for designing sustainable buildings) says, “Prefer to use biomass products, stone and sand-based products, earth-based products.” But he adds, “I am not saying that stainless steel, glass, and ceramics are a complete no-no.”
What the activist in Niazi expects of you is a change in mindset. She says, “The only factor people consider in buying a house is whether I can pay the EMI. The problem is we are not agitated over the other parameters. We need to realise that these parameters are connected to wider issues. You may talk a lot about climate change, but when you build your own house, you will not connect climate change with the mundane things of making a decision for your house.”
What to ask
In choosing the materials for your house, please note that fired bricks are not an absolute must. Ashok Lall, principal, Ashok B Lall Architects says, “Materials like fired brick, stainless steel, and aluminium are all old age materials. They are like dinosaurs, and are going to die soon. The new age material is a high performance timber product, high performance modified stone product, high performance compressed earth block.” Lall call them high performance because they achieve their full potential when produced on an industrial scale. And these products should not be confused with blocks of mud, stone, or wood. The person making them has to ensures a certain quality and reliability of performance. He has to control the quality, control the product, and test it before putting it into the market. So, ask you builder if he is using an old age material or the new age ones.
Unfortunately, these new materials have not been mainstreamed therefore their procurement could be an issue. Niazi points out, “Constructing a sustainable building with as many parameters as you can put in, would cost you about 20 per cent more.”
And she clarifies, “The increased cost goes into sourcing the right material and paying the contractor because for him, everything is new. The knowledge is in very few heads, although the tribe is growing. So, you have to pay the cost of saving the environment, to the specialist and the contractor.”
However, Lall maintains that these high-performance material are much cheaper. “The compressed earth block can be made on site. The earth dug out to construct a single basement is enough to provide all the bricks for a two-storey house. However, industrial-scale production of doors and door frames, windows and window frames is more sustainable.
And the material of choice for these is wood. Both Lall and Niazi are unanimous that biomass is the only sustainable choice for doors and windows. There is variety here: wood, bamboo, particle board, coir board, etc.
Both agitatedly add, “No matter what the sellers tell you, plastics, steel, and aluminium are unsustainable.” Even if these are made from recycled materials, the energy required to recycle them is much more than embodies in a timber window. The only case in which they are okay, is if the aluminium window frames or steel doors are reused, i.e., lifted from an old building in installed in a new one.
Next, look at how the building has been designed. If the building has no natural ventilation, the windows are sealed to ensure ‘efficiency’ of the AC, it means you will have to install some machine to bring in fresh air and keep cool. Stay away from this house. If you need to turn on lights during day time, don’t enter the house. If you find that the sun is directly hitting any of the windows, particularly during summer months, you know the house is badly designed.
Lall offers his infallible test of identifying an unsustainable house: “If a house is west facing, you should pay for it one quarter of what you would pay for a south-facing house.” He adds, “A west-facing window or glass panel will have the sun beating down on it for the entire afternoon. And the amount of money you will spend in combating that heat, will amount to a drain of wealth.”
Watch out if too much glass has been used in the building. Not only will this raise the cost of the structure, it will also let in heat, one way or the other. The only way to prevent heat in this case is to use double glazed window panels, but as Lall points out, “They cost a bomb.” Lall says that as a thumb rule, windows should not be more than 30 percent of the wall area of a room.
Niazi has another request of the prospective home owner. “Please ensure that your house has provision for recycling water, so that potable water is not flushed down the toilet.”
What to do
You may not have designed the house you live in, or your house may have been badly designed in spite of your best efforts. Now what?
There are three things that make you comfortable in a house: thermal comfort, illumination, and water.
For thermal comfort, you need ventilation and some way of ensuring that the sun’s heat does not come into the house. You need the light, yes. But not the heat. The best way to do that in a tropical climate is a sunshade, or the good old chajja. It will cut out the sun’s rays during the summer, but let them in during the winter months (ask your grandmother if you don’t know why). But if the sun is beating down on a window, you need to clock it out either by using blinds or a thin chik.
The most important thing to remember is that the chik or blind must be hung outside the window, not on the inside. If you hang it inside, it will absorb the sunlight and turn into a radiator.
Sometimes, houses have very poor insulation. In such a house you heating or cooling expenses will increase exponentially. But insulation can be retrofitted. Again, expensive as it is (about Rs 50 per sq ft), insulation must be on the outer walls of the house. Insulating materials are attached to the outer walls and plastered over to preserve their integrity.
But talk to an expert
Of course, the best sustainable housing decision you can take is to go to a qualified architect rather than to a vaastu guy. Use your common sense says Lall, and he adds that each house is unique just as every person is. So, before you make the biggest monetary investment of your life, just read up a bit on what are the ecological, economical, social, aesthetic, and ethical issues matter to you. Your choices have to make sense to you and nobody else.
Consider this. For her upcoming office building in Delhi, Niazi is taking care to use all the locally available materials. But when it came to choosing the timber, her office chose to get it from Nagpur. Why? Because that is they only place they could find a forest, where the trees cutting was managed in a sustainable manner.
What is sustainable construction
Clearly, the concept of sustainability needs to be demystified. According to the Brundtland Commission, sustainable development “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The elaboration and implications of this simple phrase is, however, complex.
So, a sustainable building must be long lasting. With that as a goal, in building it you should use materials that embody the least amount of energy, both in their production and application. And above that, you should avoid using anything that is finite and non-renewable. That means, use of aluminium, glass, steel, and fired bricks is out. It is worse if sitting in Mumbai, you have to transport your steel from a factory in Jamshedpur. Transporting exotic material over long distances is also a no-no. Therefore, a yellow sandstone façade in Pune is a disaster, in terms of sustainability.
The other caveat is that the building should use the least amount of energy operationally. This means that the air conditioner is definitely out. It also means that you should not have to use artificial lighting during the day time.
Keeping the above in mind, it may seem that the only manmade structure that fits these conditions is a mud hut, in the middle of a desert.
But the concept of sustainability does not end here, it goes a lot further. Advocates of sustainability insist that your building a house must contribute socially and economically to your society. You should use local artisans so that you contribute to their livelihood and also help them to propagate their traditional skill acquired over the generations. And of course, all this has to be done in an aesthetic and ethical manner.
Before you fold this paper and return to Sudoku, globally there are many (if not hordes of) public and private buildings that are close to all these principles.
Sustainability is easy
And that is what sustainability demands of you. It is not a dogma, it is usually enough if you sincerely try to achieve these goals and it is okay if you prioritise and skip a few in favour of the others.
Of course you need to use steel, glass, cement, and fired bricks in any building that you build today. But you need to recognise that these are finite resources, it takes a lot of energy to convert them from their raw state to the finished stage, and therefore they should not be used indiscriminately. There is an optimum amount to which they must be used, and there are plenty of alternatives available.
Of course, some materials will be more green than others. But if you go for a less green material because procuring it will be beyond your means, it’s okay too. The firebrand activist shouting for sustainability will understand your predicament and not hold it against you.
Ashok B Lall, an architect who heads Asia-Pacific jury of Holcim Awards (which are given for designing sustainable buildings) says, “Prefer to use biomass products, stone and sand-based products, earth-based products.” But he adds, “I am not saying that stainless steel, glass, and ceramics are a complete no-no.”
What the activist in Niazi expects of you is a change in mindset. She says, “The only factor people consider in buying a house is whether I can pay the EMI. The problem is we are not agitated over the other parameters. We need to realise that these parameters are connected to wider issues. You may talk a lot about climate change, but when you build your own house, you will not connect climate change with the mundane things of making a decision for your house.”
What to ask
In choosing the materials for your house, please note that fired bricks are not an absolute must. Ashok Lall, principal, Ashok B Lall Architects says, “Materials like fired brick, stainless steel, and aluminium are all old age materials. They are like dinosaurs, and are going to die soon. The new age material is a high performance timber product, high performance modified stone product, high performance compressed earth block.” Lall call them high performance because they achieve their full potential when produced on an industrial scale. And these products should not be confused with blocks of mud, stone, or wood. The person making them has to ensures a certain quality and reliability of performance. He has to control the quality, control the product, and test it before putting it into the market. So, ask you builder if he is using an old age material or the new age ones.
Unfortunately, these new materials have not been mainstreamed therefore their procurement could be an issue. Niazi points out, “Constructing a sustainable building with as many parameters as you can put in, would cost you about 20 per cent more.”
And she clarifies, “The increased cost goes into sourcing the right material and paying the contractor because for him, everything is new. The knowledge is in very few heads, although the tribe is growing. So, you have to pay the cost of saving the environment, to the specialist and the contractor.”
However, Lall maintains that these high-performance material are much cheaper. “The compressed earth block can be made on site. The earth dug out to construct a single basement is enough to provide all the bricks for a two-storey house. However, industrial-scale production of doors and door frames, windows and window frames is more sustainable.
And the material of choice for these is wood. Both Lall and Niazi are unanimous that biomass is the only sustainable choice for doors and windows. There is variety here: wood, bamboo, particle board, coir board, etc.
Both agitatedly add, “No matter what the sellers tell you, plastics, steel, and aluminium are unsustainable.” Even if these are made from recycled materials, the energy required to recycle them is much more than embodies in a timber window. The only case in which they are okay, is if the aluminium window frames or steel doors are reused, i.e., lifted from an old building in installed in a new one.
Next, look at how the building has been designed. If the building has no natural ventilation, the windows are sealed to ensure ‘efficiency’ of the AC, it means you will have to install some machine to bring in fresh air and keep cool. Stay away from this house. If you need to turn on lights during day time, don’t enter the house. If you find that the sun is directly hitting any of the windows, particularly during summer months, you know the house is badly designed.
Lall offers his infallible test of identifying an unsustainable house: “If a house is west facing, you should pay for it one quarter of what you would pay for a south-facing house.” He adds, “A west-facing window or glass panel will have the sun beating down on it for the entire afternoon. And the amount of money you will spend in combating that heat, will amount to a drain of wealth.”
Watch out if too much glass has been used in the building. Not only will this raise the cost of the structure, it will also let in heat, one way or the other. The only way to prevent heat in this case is to use double glazed window panels, but as Lall points out, “They cost a bomb.” Lall says that as a thumb rule, windows should not be more than 30 percent of the wall area of a room.
Niazi has another request of the prospective home owner. “Please ensure that your house has provision for recycling water, so that potable water is not flushed down the toilet.”
What to do
You may not have designed the house you live in, or your house may have been badly designed in spite of your best efforts. Now what?
There are three things that make you comfortable in a house: thermal comfort, illumination, and water.
For thermal comfort, you need ventilation and some way of ensuring that the sun’s heat does not come into the house. You need the light, yes. But not the heat. The best way to do that in a tropical climate is a sunshade, or the good old chajja. It will cut out the sun’s rays during the summer, but let them in during the winter months (ask your grandmother if you don’t know why). But if the sun is beating down on a window, you need to clock it out either by using blinds or a thin chik.
The most important thing to remember is that the chik or blind must be hung outside the window, not on the inside. If you hang it inside, it will absorb the sunlight and turn into a radiator.
Sometimes, houses have very poor insulation. In such a house you heating or cooling expenses will increase exponentially. But insulation can be retrofitted. Again, expensive as it is (about Rs 50 per sq ft), insulation must be on the outer walls of the house. Insulating materials are attached to the outer walls and plastered over to preserve their integrity.
But talk to an expert
Of course, the best sustainable housing decision you can take is to go to a qualified architect rather than to a vaastu guy. Use your common sense says Lall, and he adds that each house is unique just as every person is. So, before you make the biggest monetary investment of your life, just read up a bit on what are the ecological, economical, social, aesthetic, and ethical issues matter to you. Your choices have to make sense to you and nobody else.
Consider this. For her upcoming office building in Delhi, Niazi is taking care to use all the locally available materials. But when it came to choosing the timber, her office chose to get it from Nagpur. Why? Because that is they only place they could find a forest, where the trees cutting was managed in a sustainable manner.