‘Old building ideas better for climate’

A symposium on traditional concepts of urbanisation was held on Thursday at AMA, Ahmedabad, to discuss environmentally sustainable urbanization strategies in the backdrop of global warming and climate change.

The symposium was held under the Building Livable Cities initiative, a multi-city investigation to look at new ideas to make Indian cities livable. The theme for 2010 is environmental sustainability.

The key speaker at the symposium was Hank Dittmer, CEO, Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, UK. In his presentation, Dittmer emphasized the need for urban planners and architects to examine traditional ideas about urbanization and improve upon them.

"The traditional building's construction is very climate friendly," he said. "It has thick walls and construction of a type that protects you from heat. On the other hand, modern constructions are such that we need air-conditioners to keep cool. This makes modern constructions non-climate friendly."

Dittmer further said that traditional concepts of urbanization should be studied so that we do not ape other planners but adapt only their good ideas. He said that it was important to build for a longer period and make changes in the construction material used.
Dr Gopi Chandran, former director of Centre for Environment Education who is now with Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute, spoke on how communities could be included to create livable cities.

The symposium was part of a series of EcoCities India symposiums that were to be held in five cities-Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and Ahmedabad - between October 18 and October 22.