Addressing the Environmental Concerns
Ar. Jateen Lad
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Jateen Lad is a British architect from the University of Cambridge, at Harvard University and MIT - where he continues to teach in a visiting capacity. He has worked on over 30 international and award-winning projects with high-profile practices in London and Germany before uprooting and shifting base to Pondicherry. His work seeks to combine unique and detailed architectural design whilst addressing the grave environmental concerns blighting the Indian landscape. Far more comfortable working at the grass roots level with local village masons than in an office the process of his work aims to significantly upgrade skills and standards of workmanship while also providing hands-on professional training to graduate students. In 2013, Jateen was appointed international technical reviewer for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture - the world’s biggest prize in the field. He is based in Pondicherry with the Sri Aurobindo Society since late 2005.
In an exclusive interaction with Built Expressions, Architect Jateen opens up with the issues of deep concern.
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BE: What are the several issues which need to be addressed to make the urban built environment sustainable?
JL: There are several pressing issues, all of which are familiar. I will just mention the main ones. The first is energy - how are we going to continue generating the ever increasing demand for electricity to power our increasingly energy intensive lifestyles and vehicles, our sprawling cities and industries? Fossil fuels cannot be an option so renewable technologies have to be encouraged towardsmore efficient and affordable alternatives. Then there is water and other natural resources. There is only a finite amount of freshwater on the planet and it has to be shared by everybody and with future generations. As a genuine life force, the depletion and pollution of water sources rivers, ponds, and underground aquifers is potentially apocalyptic. Allied to this is the ever-increasing quantity of waste cities spew out into the river or sea, or stuff into landfills or just burn. Then you have the increasing number of vehicles increasing CO2 emissions, polluting the air and raising temperatures. And what about the consequences of the construction industry which shapes the built environment? The predominant use of materials with high-embodied energy – such as cement, steel, glass, fired bricks etc – to make tightly packed buildings inappropriate to the climate means that buildings are the biggest energy and resource guzzlers in the city. For example, in India today it is the construction industry, not traffic that is responsible for over 40% of air pollution. There is an urgent need to rethink how we build and live. I feel it is only then that we can move a step closer to a sustainable built environment.
BE: How do we proactively address the issues discussed above and what is the core challenge for the construction industry?
JL: As most of the world’s population live in cities this is where you have the highest concentration of resource consumption, wastage and emissions. But look at it another way: if solutions are encouraged, cities have the potential to become the most efficient, clean and green cores on the planet.
A strong, universal commitment by the construction industry towards making genuinely green, environmentally-friendly buildings can go a long way to tackling all the issues mentioned. To make a difference each of the issues mentioned have to be addressed at the onset of design and not as a token afterthought; putting a few solar panels on top of a concrete high-rise is a shallow gimmick.
But there is also a qualitative aspect to making the urban environment sustainable. At the end of the day it is about individual, collective and civic responsibility and respect. Resources are to be shared not just today but with future generations. If we are willing to accept the web interconnecting energy, water, resources, waste, air pollution, stifling cities then the challenge for the construction industry is to practice not only with creativity but also sensitivity and respect. That is the core challenge.
BE: What are the effects of Urbanisation on the environment?
JL: Urbanisation per se is not the issue. It is rapid, ungoverned, unplanned urbanization that is so damaging for the environment. Having lived in Pondicherry for the past 8 years I have witnessed at first hand the ill-effects and the speed with which a balanced, liveable small city considered to offer the best quality of life in India as recently as 2008 - can be transformed for the worse. The scenario is so familiar and could be anywhere: the population has doubled, the roads are clogged, a once defined city now sprawls chaotically in all directions with infrastructure creaking or on the point of collapse. Water sources are being polluted irreversibly. Rivers are open sewers, clogged with unimaginable levels of industrial and domestic waste, or disappear entirely as sand is pillaged for construction. Underground aquifers untouched for millennia are being sucked dry. Open land disappears under piles of waste; garbage covers roads or flows freely through open gutters.
A surge in population and demand for housing leads to endless construction, increasingly unaffordable and poor in quality, with the rapid consumption of forests and agricultural land straining the cycle of food production and raising costs of food. The radiant air temperature in the increasingly congested and pollution choked concrete jungle becomes stifling, increasing energy demand for air-conditioning and CO2 emissions which in turn leads to more heat and more power outages at the most demanding times of the day and night. The consequences can be catastrophic, irreversible for the environment and ultimately, as we are part of the environment, damaging to us and our quality of life.
BE: How can these effects be mitigated?
JL: The sad thing is that this is not rocket science. It is entirely predictable and the same points are, for whatever reason, not being addressed. The first point is to aggressively protect natural resources rivers, water bodies, farmland, forests, and topsoil and have strict controls on ground water extraction and developments on greenbelt land. Second, invest in proper sewage treatment and waste disposal facilities across cities. Third, have more balanced, inclusive economies which also benefit non-urban areas thereby reducing migration and population pressures on existing cities. Fourth, control and plan the growth of the city be it vertical or outwards to minimize sprawling over greenbelts. Infrastructure should be planned for future capacities and should be installed beforehand so future buildings can plug into a working system. Fifth, make an environmental clean-up a prerequisite for development permits earmark polluted land for the growth of the city before touching greenbelts. Six, drastically improve the quality of new buildings. There is choice here: either continue building ovens or endeavour to design climatically appropriate green buildings. The capital cost of the latter may not be too different but the long term cost is indescribable.
BE: As an architect, how do you visualize a future eco-friendly city? What important parameters of the built environment this city shall address?
JL: Cities will have to be eco-friendly not just in the future but starting today. There is no choice, it is a necessity. There are two distinct ways of visualizing this and both, encouragingly, have already started emerging from the drawing board.
Firstly, build the cities from scratch - such as the small-scale Masdar City in Abu Dhabi to the substantially larger Tianjin Eco City in China which is planned for over 300,000.Both are top-down initiatives from the respective governments and when completed, the potential of the latter in particular to act as an example is huge given the emphasis on renewable energy, pollution free transport, passive solar design, intelligent buildings with smart waste, water and lighting systems etc. However, there remain a number of big questions: Despite their intentions, are eco-cities like Masdar and Tianjin real cities or just a campus with a specialized living environment? Are they luxury havens for the rich or will there be social inclusivity and affordability? Will they become commuter towns emptying during the day for the energy guzzling real city close by? Whether a new eco-city lives up to its credentials is largely going to depend on what type of society is nurtured there.
The second approach towards a future eco-city is to ‘retro-fit’ existing cities and herein lies the real challenge given these house most of the world’s population. How do we completely transform huge energy-guzzling population centres into genuine sustainable cities? This has to be joint top-down and bottom-up approach possible only if everybody participates and there is a genuine change in civic sense and the way we want to live. This may also see an unprecedented level of decentralization in the way cities operate and are governed. For example, Metropolitan authorities may only have the capacity to renew sewage and water infrastructure, impose strict construction and traffic codes and it will be the responsibility of communities, neighbourhoods, industries and individuals to generate, conserve and store their own power. This has already started happening in various ways across the world – Freiburg in Germany is a great example at the scale of small city. On my last visit back home to Manchester, I was amazed to see an old 1960s skyscraper go off-grid after its entire facade was re-clad in solar panels. Local industries are also taking the lead, the Sierra Nevada Brewery in California generates about 60% of its own energy requirements on site. At the same time, there is the Transition Towns movement in the UK where the population of small towns are working at all levels physical, development, economic, political, civic identity towards a sustainable, environmentally friendly quality of life. It will be this transformation, or transition, of an existing city with a population of millions through this multi-level, all inclusive participatory approach that will be the real future eco-city.
BE: What are the energy efficiency options that should be made mandatory in a building at the time of plan approval?
JL: The most obvious requirement would be for any new build to generate and store a significant proportion of its own energy requirement through renewable sources, say minimum 25% and then offer good financial incentives if you generate more or are able to sell to the grid. Such a move would encourage those technologies to be further developed increasing their efficiency and affordability. But, as I have been saying, energy legislation has to be coupled with equally stringent codes on water extraction, usage and harvesting, waste management and most important of all on building materials and techniques. You can put solar panels on top of every new apartment building but if the building construction itself is inappropriate for the climate then what difference will the solar panels make? What is needed are mandatory building codes which marry energy efficiency with thermal design.
BE: Are there any steps initiated by the concerned authorities in this direction?
JL: Many countries, particularly in Europe, already have these codes and in most cases they are strictly imposed. If you do not comply fully, you cannot build. Good legislation, which is effectively imposed, can positively change the mindset of architects and engineers getting them to rethink conventional details, be more creative and generally practice with greater responsibility. A small example: around 1991-2, when the UK Building Regulations introduced Part L concerning energy conservation it met with big groans from architects who now were forced to rethink details of conventional wall and roof sections, calculate U-values, work with solar gains etc. At the same time, these demands spurred the construction industry to develop more effective, thinner insulation, efficient boilers and household appliances, better windows and buildings started becoming more energy efficient. Today, the thermal design and performance of walls and roofs is almost a default starting point for architect’s creative work in the UK. There has been a huge change in mindset, a near-universal awareness towards sustainable building that it is no longer novel but entirely mainstream.
Now take this and look at India where there has been a massive construction boom and renewal of building stock second only to China. Across the board, the emphasis is on cheap cost, solidity and to maximise floor areas. Thermal comfort and energy is rarely a consideration and certainly nowhere near as important as the choice of bathroom fittings and floor tiles. As a consequence, most new buildings are un-habitable without fans or air conditioning, which in turn raises energy demand and leads to more and more power cuts adding to the thermal stress our bodies have to endure and a bad night's sleep. We all know the scenario. Now what will happen if mandatory legislation is introduced and actually enforced stating all habitable rooms in all new buildings have to achieve an air temperature of 27 degrees without the need for fans and air conditioning? Imagine what the effects of that could be: architects and engineers designing buildings more appropriate to the climate, a construction industry developing new affordable materials, a drop in energy demand across cities, less thermal stress for us all to endure and a significant improvement in the quality and comfort of life.