The Relevance of Vernacular Practices in Current Sustainable Architecture in South India: The Case of Bangalore City Region

Motivation: Kenneth Framptons essay 1983: Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture for Resistance supports ideologies which give utmost importance to the specificity of architecture to local place and culture. He provides important thoughts on the articulation of cultural context within sustainable architecture. He speaks very deeply about the need for architecture to resist the globalization of styles within the built environment and considers it as disregarding the importance of long lived heritage and culture which forms the very basis of humanity. Susannah Hagan in her book, Taking Shape: A new contract between architecture and nature talks about the creation and operation of a built environment that works with, rather than against climate; she insists upon the persuasive power of architecture as symbol and proposes environmental sustainability as a major cultural underpinning of architecture. She very passionately expresses the importance and need for cultural and environmental rejuvenation through built form. The current construction methods give importance to receiving high credits in technology driven criteria and will no doubt score very well on the overall assessment with respect to sustainability rating systems, without going about addressing any qualitative issues of neither regional nor cultural appropriateness. These systems therefore fail to address the issues of specificity of local character. This definitely is, if not the only, one of the main reasons for the globalization of sustainable constructions worldwide. Can vernacular styles serve as models for contemporary architecture to adopt sustainable strategies related to local climatic and geographic conditions? Thus establishing the sustainability paradigm as a cultural discourse points to a more holistic foundation for Architecture that encompasses and expands on vital benchmarks already established in current sustainable practice models says Susannah Hagan. Background: In a developing country such as India, we are currently witnessing the early stages of what will be recognized as a major shift in the culture and technology of architecture. Infrastructural growth is taking place at enormous rates. Construction Industry is booming in all scales and sizes. In this fast paced growth rate, we can observe the changing trends slowly detaching itself from the cultural roots, and flowing into the stream of globalization. In a frenzy of all this construction activity over the past few decades, the architectural community is left with a feeling that architecture may have lost its relevance, and that the meaning of construction has displaced any meaningful discourse about its purpose. The languages of the buildings do not seem to communicate with the social fabric anymore. What form might this architecture take in light of shifting ethical positions in the near future? There is a fear of losing the heritage values of vernacular architecture which has acclimatised itself to the local social and cultural elements over thousands of years. Aims: Through this dissertation, I want to study the relevance of vernacular techniques of construction in the present day contemporary construction methods within the context of Bangalore city. I want to highlight community and cultural interpretation of sustainability within the built environment. I do not want to make this into another project about conservation of traditional vernacular styles of architecture. I believe in change and adaptation and a mere exertion on overt cultural reference in the language of buildings would be meaningless. Methodology: I would like to locate and study a few successful buildings in Bangalore which adhere to the concepts of critical regionalism. I would like to explore and study the approach, design methodology, construction technique, performance and social value of the buildings. In due course of study I want to highlight the local and cultural approach taken by each building case study . Overall Intention of the Project: This dissertation will try to and discover the possibilities of treating sustainable architecture as a cultural project.