Sustainability lesson learnt from the Traditional and Vernacular Architecture (original) (raw)

The vernacular and traditional buildings are supposed to be climate responsive, use of local materials, and designed in context with culture and social aspect and above all economical aspect. The sustainability in present context has similar goals as vernacular and traditional, the difference lies that sustainable design elaborate more in detail the criteria's of achieving sustainability and focus on measurable aspect of sustainability in the form of rating system. The present generation architects mostly have conception that vernacular and traditional solutions are incapable of solving the problems of modern buildings. This might be true to large extent but the vernacular and traditional buildings are developed throughout centuries and were able to sustain such long period, so there is need to understand the essence of these principles inherent in vernacular and traditional architecture. The question arise that extent of application of these principles of vernacular and traditional in modern architecture. There are so many architects who try to imitate the vernacular and traditional architecture in their design as it is but there are architects who grasp the essence and modified these principles in modern context to suit the needs of present context. Mere imitating the the knowledge of vernacular and traditional architecture might become boring to the present needs of people except in few cases. This paper will explore the work of architects who had grasped the essence of vernacular and traditional architecture and transformed these elements in such a way that these elements become new identity in architecture. The selected work will show case that for achieving the sustainability in present context, the traditional and vernacular knowledge could be very useful. It is up to the creativity of architect to apply this knowledge in present context. These selected works might reflects the mixing of the knowledge of vernacular and traditional architecture along with modern technology, materials etc.