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Tips for tomorrow's architects
Ronald Shiffman
BUSINESS HOUSES and professionals can use the environment to trigger a renaissance in their respective economies, he advocates. This, he says, will generate a new economy. And the manufacturing firms should shift to environmentally sensitive practices and products, he feels strongly.
Ronald Shiffman, a city planner and co-founder of Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development, was recently in the city giving architects of tomorrow an introduction to the concept of community-based sustainable development.
A few big computer firms in the United States, Mr. Shiffman says, have begun recycling computer shells. "Anything you throw out is a wasted product," he says. There should be attempts to recycle them. About 50 companies in the U.S. have clustered to form the Environmental Business Council, which works on this philosophy, to make products more efficient.
Though both U.S. and India are, according to him, "doing a terrible job," leaders are emerging. Especially in the field of manufacture of carpets, he says.
Planning and development bodies should be made aware of the developments in the field. Urban planners, he says, can ask governments to do the kind of planning that takes into consideration environmental aspects.
Some of his suggestions to city managers: Preserve green fields with a stress on reducing waste, reduce the use of natural resources, control pollution and conserve energy.
But above all, the concern is over how environment-friendly architecture is. While the levels of carbon-dioxide emissions produced by industry remain steady, those produced by architecture are soaring, signalling a pressing need for a widespread change in the way architects design buildings. They should adopt the `green building design approach' that envisages conservation of energy and resources, he said. The greenest building in the world, as recognised by the United States Green Building Council, is the Confederation of Indian Industries' Sorabji Godrej Green Business Centre in Hyderabad designed by architect Karan Grover, he noted.
Excessive consumption of fossil fuel, for example, is an issue that the developed nations have not addressed so far. "We should develop architectural models that are sustainable," he points out.
During his short visit, Mr. Shiffman was impressed by certain aspects of Chennai. "There is a concentration on building mass transportation systems," he says. Mumbai and a few other cities he visited, were also looking at this.
However, building flyovers, he felt, is potentially dangerous. Construction of flyovers will lead to increase in the speed of traffic, number of vehicles on the roads and merely transfers the congestion to other points.
Moreover, if maintenance work is off the mark, the stretches underneath the flyovers is polluted. "It is beginning to occur here," he said.
"The question is how we plan our city. We can make the underlying areas beautiful, add green to the residential layouts and provide enough spirituality to the plan."
Public places are very important in democracy, he emphasised. In Mumbai, city managers have concentrated on parks and in Darjeeling too, the public places are being spruced up.
Mr. Shiffman lauded the eco-business plan of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority. The Greenpoint Community Development Plan, an initiative to save a decaying waterfront and polluted land in Brooklyn, New York, was received well. "The CMDA initiative could mark the beginning in India," he hoped.
By Saptarshi Bhattacharya
Photo: K.V. Srinivasan
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Life
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