Comfort in Public Housing

Jaffer AA Khan Architect

India is the second highest populated country in the world with nearly 1.3 billion populations contributing to 17% percent of world population. It is expected that the trend if continues will exceed China in 2030 with an estimated 1.53 billion people living on this motherland. This is really scary as the resources to support this population are not growing at the pace expected and scarier is the urban population will be almost 50% by 2050. Presently though the urban population is at 27.8% the rate of urbanization is overshooting the predictions of our so-called planners and social scientists. With this growth scenario the demand for housing in urban areas also has grown considerably and since six decades the urban development policies by the various governments in power have hardly taken any initiative to bridge the gap between “Demand and Supply”. Hence one may say that the housing sector; particularly public housing in India has not delivered and the deficit still keeps growing in millions and presently if the calculations are right it stands at 24.7 million units. If numbers do not tally then the quality and comfort aspects of the housing units delivered so far is equally alarming. In a hurry to satisfy numbers we forget or sideline the quality of living and the conditions of comfort where a person can bet at optimum both psychologically and physiologically. Traditionally in India the vernacular architecture provides a variety of architecture as a response to the micro and macro climatic and socio-cultural situations. For instance in south Tamil Nadu, the coastal houses have “kattuppandal” as a significant feature of architecture which is the “Wind Catcher” facilitating air movement required as comfort criteria for a Warm Humid Condition.

In the year 1984 I had joined the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning, UCL London for my post graduation in Architecture with a specialization in Environmental Design. The first few weeks of the course was only about Human Psychology and Physiology. We had to read “Sensations and Perceptions” by Stanley Coren, Lawrence M Ward, James T Enns. My professor at that time was Dr Ron. Hawks a renowned name in the field of Space Psychology in Built Environment. We were experimenting extensively on human body and the function of “Hypothalamus” in the brain in relation to human comfort. At some point I thought I had joined a wrong course and I wanted to quit. However I pursued further and by the first quarter I realized the connection between human comfort and architecture. Architecture is a unique phenomenon that has a delicate connection between the people and the space that they occupy. A Danish professor P Ole Fanger at the Technical University of Denmark who defined comfort not only on qualitative terms but also with an equation involving various parameters to assess the level of comfort quantitatively developed the concept of Comfort and more importantly “Thermal Comfort”. Hence comfort according to him was “ A state at which a human being feels both psychologically and physiologically at equilibrium so as to perform at optimum level”.

This complicated comfort equation is the most commonly adopted. It is based on experiments involving humans exposed to a uniform environment under steady state conditions. The comfort equation establishes the relationship among the environment variables, clothing type and activity levels. Hence, the equation gives information on how to predict Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) which is the mean vote expected to arise from averaging the thermal sensation vote of a large group of people in a given environment. The aspects of PPD- Percentage People Dissatisfied and LPPD-Lowest Percentage People Dissatisfied was evolved. He went on to experiment and say that LPPD was 5% given a perfect environment. Hence whatever environment one creates or assumes perfect there seems to be a dissatisfaction level of 5%.

The thesis on “Thermal Comfort in Housing” submitted by me at the University of London in 1985 experimented some of the public housing schemes in Chennai and also the computer model developed by HUDCO for the sites and services schemes which were quite popular those days. The thesis results alarmingly showed how the very aspect of bio-climatic and comfort criteria were hardly applied to these housing schemes. The results further predicted the discomfort level as very high encouraging psychological and physiological stress and other health complications.

The public housing programmes today talk about “Sustainable Development” and the housing policy 2007 document stresses the need for conservation of natural resources and formulation of regulations & bye-laws that are environment friendly, investment-friendly and revenue-generating. This seems to be a good trend and quite a departure from the early eighties. But the question is how far these regulations and environmental friendly policies are implemented, monitored and enforced.

We all know that the building sector accounts for a significant and increasing part of the worldwide energy consumption and is responsible for important greenhouse gas emissions. This is why rational use of energy and development of renewable energy sources appear as strategic solutions considering the significant resources available. In this context, energy efficiency in the building sector and particularly the Housing sector will be more and more considered as a key issue of the future and will be a challenging task for the state sponsored housing agencies whose deficit goes in millions by every year.

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Architecture is…….

Renowned architect Jaffer AA Khan gave a lecture on “Architecture is….” Recently in Chennai. Attended by practicing architects and students of architecture in Chennai the lecture started with the concept of five elements of nature as mentioned in Vedas and their significance and relationship with architecture. He said, architecture is like a living organism just like the planet earth and that the planet itself is a unique gift from the creator and under the trusteeship of man. And what man has done to this planet, is just destroying it in every way he could. He said architects have special significance and responsibility in terms of preserving the environment and build to compliment nature and not contradict. Ultimately , architects have a social responsibility like Winston Churchill once said” We shape the buildings and the buildings shape us”.

His lecture continued with the IGNCA competition project which he did in 1986 as soon as he came back from London after completing his post graduation from the Bartlett, UCL. The project was unique in many ways as it talks about the “Theory of Evolution and Involution”. He reiterated that a center representing Indian arts need to posses the spirit of Indian culture and that is where he worked on BINDU-NADA- MOOLA TIUKONA-PAREMEYA-SWASTIKA idea evolved from Sri Yantra which represents the beautiful abstraction of balance and unification of nature and consciousness in its unique posture. This is what our culture teaches us, the balance of positive and negative forces in nature and the harmony of creative phenomenon.

He applied this philosophy in many of his projects but said that he is still looking for a suitable client to express this idea in its fullest form and that will be his ultimate mission.

The second half of the lecture was very interesting as he spellbound the audience with his works for the past 25 years. His home town Vellore Fort and the Jalakandeswarar Temple inside has had a lasting impact on him and his practice. He recalled as a kid visiting the fort very often and the monumentality of its form always was deep in his mind. He remembered how a study of this fort and temple in 1980 as part of national competition won Loius-I-Kahn Award instituted by The Vastu Shilpa Foundation, Ahmedabad by world renowed master architect Shri, BV Doshi and from then on there was no looking back he said.

Having established a small one room office in 1985 in Vellore he has come a long way from joint family Hameed House in 1985 until his own home in Bangalore in 2005. he showcased a variety of projects with many of them nominated for International awards and nominations. He also said the period between 1993 to 1999 was a period of intellectual enrichment with several international projects and winning of the International Academy of Architecture Award in 1993 for his work on “Urban Ecology of Maisons Alfort Charenton, Paris”. He said this project was interesting because it was an example of how a city should not be developed in hurry as happened in the case of Paris after WWII. The cities will continue to grow and will pose a greater threat to human survival in the future as the human concentration keeps growing here. This is the case of all cities in the world and Chennai is no different. Among the other award winning projects is the Periagraharam Mosque in Erode built by the Periagrahama Muslim Community. This was nominated for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1995 and listed as a significant contribution to the 20^th century contemporary islamic architecture and is part of the MIT Harvard archives.

His lecture continued with the latest project inBangalore a 937 unit housing project which he jointly developed the design with his UK associates and was singularly involved in developing the design brief for the project. “The Gardens” as it is called is a botanist’s delight with 300 trees and some of them more than 100 years old. The foot print of the building is dictated by the location of the trees and hence the evolution of elliptical design of tower blocks and free flowing form of the podium and basements. This is one of its kind projects in India he said as it was the third project in the country certified by MOEF in 2005 under the new regulations on environment. This project a unique private development as the flora and fauna is well preserved with the architecture itself responding well to the bioclimatic conditions of Bangalore. Apart from this the project incorporates, Solar Energy for hot water and common lighting, Water management, Rain water harvesting and recharging and solid waste management. This is probably first time a private developer has attempted on a multi-family dwelling units in a massive scale. A tough design to execute, the developers a well reputed group had the wherewithal to complete the project which will go into occupancy soon. One can see the marriage of nature and the man - made in this project, he said.

He concluded his talk by telling his architect friends and the students that planet is under trusteeship by the creator and let us all join hands to save it by atleast creating a responsible and responsive architecture.

Mosque Architecture

There is no preordained form for Islamic Architecture-except the fact that any mosque in the world is oriented towards qibla(facing Makkah). The architecture takes shape from Culture and History of the place and hence blends itself with the local vernacular.

Example-Timbaktu Mosque in Mali- Infact there are many more examples it this and worth a study. For instance in Kerala the Cheraman Mosque built in in 629AD is an outstanding example to show how the built form merged with the local vernacular.

Preserving old mosques is very important and there should be an international effort to do so.

Look at the "KirKi Masjid" and the "Begumpuri Masjid" in new Delhi- Neither the Archeological Survey of India nor the local population (citizens) are interested in preserving these mosques built in 1367AD........

At La Defense

La Defense Paris

I have visited this spot of Paris many times and feel extremely disappointed ......with the architecture there....