Sustainability through Adaptation of Spaces and Upcycling of Building Material

Abstract

Architectural and design studies help define the cultural, behavioral and environmental issues that affect and may arise from the built environment. It is pertinent today to design  habitable spaces  with responsibility and emotional intellect  so as to realize sustainability.

 The understanding of sustainable design is fundamental to all levels of educations. The  primary growing global concern today is linked with waste management and climate change. The planners and designers of space therefore need to mitigate the impacts of negative footprints of development through not only scientific study for the modern solutions,  but also by examining the  historic data  on built up spaces. Native habitats are an important base of contemporary architecture. The Indian sub-continent offers  indigenous and   rich montage of art and heritage spaces with diversity in materials and design elements. This has evolved from a long-established socio-cultural influences and offers lessons on sustainability. Similarly the changing trends in designing today propagates reuse and reinvention of  material like furniture, fixtures and articles that have lost their primary value original in due course of time and context.

It is an agreeable effort to imbibe the culture of reusing architectural salvage for social benefits, especially in developing countries, where resources are scarce and unaffordable to a large population.  This paper aims to explore concept of  adaptation, and upscaling  with artistic evolution of spaces keeping conservation as the core of the process and apply the best practices in the pedagogical domain.