Was there a green word used before :
I would like to start with a rather rebellious note for an introduction to this topic of climatology. Now a days we’re differentiating between GREEN and NON GREEN. Let us first try to understand that human kind has invented some technologies, used materials to suffice needs , sometimes luxuries. Out of this web of options available in front of us , we as architects need to be adorned with the knowledge of all these and the ‘appropriate’ use of materials/ technology/ spaces at the right place and at the right time. In my recent research of choosing some materials for an office building we dug out a wide array of options available for shading device. It started from bamboo, then bamboo mats, then resin reinforced bamboo (actually the bamboo does nothing , it’s the resin that hold the final mould / shape together). Then we even thought of having cloth! Obviously the cloth would tear and discolor and weaken with time. Plastic used for agricultural covers is also not suitable, because if you notice simple daily examples of plastic bags that make the crumpling sound, weaken in their elastic property and weaken through time, ultimately tearing into pieces. I realized this as I have a habit of storing plastic bags and reusing them to store ‘raddi’. I had kept them in the balcony for almost 8 months. And the day I decided to clean it up, the plastic just tore away like paper. So no plastic. Then we were left with bamboo corrugated mats. We tested them by breaking them and inserting into water. After a few days, the water seeped into through the broken edges and obviously it would damage the webbed mat of bamboo slats. So then we asked the supplier, what do you do incase one drills a hole into it. His prompt reply was ‘yeh, we’ll have to use a SEALANT’. And if the sealant wears off then, it’s cost would be borne by the client. I remember at a recent ‘peccha-kuccha’ conference in Pune, one guy was showing the wonders that one can accomplish through the use of bamboo. But sadly the audience wasn’t well equipped with the knowledge that the pictures were from South East Asian countries, where the bamboo diameter is huge and consistent for at least 15 m. We don’t get such bamboo India. Here goes the green brigade eye washing people with its jargon.
Now the point here is not about NOT using bamboo. But understanding, at which place and at what time to use it. If the structure is supposed to last 10 years and the client can bear the cost and labour for replacing it, then well and good. IF NOT, like for the office building, we had to knock off this option.
So we needed a lightweight fabric which would last for a atleast 50 – 70 years. Has lees heat resistivity, is translucent and flexible for a movable shading device. So we opted for PVDF, that’s a grade lower than the normal ‘teflon’ word that we use regularly.
This is just to tell you that there’s a lot of research and thinking that goes into when you draw that ‘curvy’ line on paper. (did I mean to be sarcastic?)
We start this subject with a question in our minds, why? Its simple, why is there because ‘that’ is there. If ‘that’ weren’t there, we wouldn’t be there to question it in the first place. Climatic design of buildings inherently imbues to question why this and not that. Aesthetical reasoning is highly relative and debatable. Introduction of climatic design into architecture not only gets some logical and substantive reasoning into the imagination but also provides us with four objectified solutions to a single problem, instead of having multifarious options to choose from.
For years climatology in India has been taught as a ‘theory’ subject, in which students restrict their minds to absorbing knowledge and not application of the knowledge. May be a few of the lot; explore the potentials of the tools available with them. Architectural design is not instigated by a thoughtful mind but a reasoning mind. Many a times we let the thought do the rest, when actually we fail to question what provoked that thought. Just like building aesthetic, feeling of senses formulates ideas; climatic design ensures whether the building fabric so designed could withstand the context of the given location. To put it simply, it is the cloth you’d wrap yourself with, given the weather of that day.
The problem with contemporary living is that, we have wrapped ourselves with many layers of comfort. Not that the invention of such comforts has been a bane to mankind. It’s just that we have failed to directly connect with the everyday weather around us. Just because technology has made it simpler to have us fit into a bubble, which could withstand the harshest conditions, we forget that the limited energy in this universe is always running to the end, in the direction of conversion and consumption. We have to admit that energy is limited. That is if we want to think so. We could think otherwise too. Convert each and resource available on planet earth to make the bubble breathe day in and day out. In the meantime, we forget that the systems which balance the planet, are diminished to mere energy converting and making formulae and depend for their existence on the extent of their exploitation. If everything had to be used, it would mean one thing that we aren’t depending on the ecosystems around us. Rather these fragile ecosystems are getting highly dependable on man. By disturbing the processes of a cycle, the process would surely come to a halt someday. Architects, today have a greater role to play in the society of consumer freaks, trend loving youngsters and ‘cool’ equivocal policies of hidden agendas.
Better resolved, architecture is a sincere, reciprocative intuition risen from the human soul in form of an objectified response or gesture to his daily nature of surroundings.
Instead of the general climate types that we discuss in architectural circles, it would be better to distinguish them as ecosystem types. This gives a brief overview not only of the weather but also of the geology, plant types etc. From the very terse description above, we realize that ecology in itself is the most holistic subject of study. Architecture, is about designing the environment and designing within the environment around us. For this it is of utmost priority to study the nature of things. I am not saying that one needs to hold a major degree in ecological science. What we need to know is the behavior and response of things around us. The onus lies on an individual to study the depths of this subject. But let me remind you, the real trick is solving the problem and not just studying it. Hence, design.
Law of entropy, makes us realize that every penny that we spend on consuming things, every thought that we implement to design buildings, needs to be done very carefully. It teaches us that we have to put wise thoughts in place of indifferent designs to environment. We have to think in ways and processes in which the dispersed energy in the universe could be minimized and the energy transformed to make things work, increased. Hence, the term ‘energy – sensitive’ buildings.
There are debates amongst architects, regarding the progress of a project with respect to time. Many are of the opinion that faster we design, lesser is the client going to spend his money on the building. However, I think it is the other way round. One has to use time efficiently enough for the building to be wisely designed. There are many aspects to building design, be it climate, functionality, aesthetic etc. All these need to be thought over intricately. One has to compare the materials, cost of these, the technology , the efficiency of the contractors and also have a prevision for the weathering of the building. Only after a thorough revision of all these aspects, should the pickaxe be hit to the ground.
Energy and money:
Money, as an example of currency, is directly related to energy, because it takes energy to make money and it costs money to buy energy. Money flows out of cities and farms to pay for the energy and the materials that flow in. the trouble with current economic practices is that money tracks human made goods and services, but not the equally important goods and services provided by natural systems. At the ecosystem level, money enters the picture only when a natural resource is converted into marketable goods and services, leaving the ‘unpriced’ natural system that sustains this resource. It is vital that human market capital and natural capital be interfaced and the environment quality be maintained if we are to avoid a global boom and bust as the natural capital is unnecessarily depleted to produce ever more consumer driven goods and services.
We have to understand that in the current monetary scene around the world there has been a ‘market failure’ and there will be more abrupt economic depressions to come, if the ‘real’ cost of production is not taken into consideration. The appreciation of natural capital, the money or energy taken to sustain this natural capital has to be of prime concern for the world economies to maintain a balance of sorts for a comfortable ‘earthly’ living for all. Otherwise we are only heading towards more imbalances, more poverty issues, more food security concerns and a more unstable world. As an architecture student, we are always taught to have no imagination barriers. However, what the faculty does teach the students is nothing but ‘out of the universe’ or a non – native thinking, which doesn’t fit in the model of the universe. Sure, out of the box thinking helps materialize buildings of novelty and unheard projects. What we need is a lateral thinking not in the direction of ‘no direction’, but a lateral thinking ‘with a sense of direction’. If we assume that there are no problems, then the design outcome is flawless in itself and cannot be criticized by any wise thinker. Real solutions invite for criticisms and enrich the design by diversified approaches to all the issues surrounding the design project.