Sustainable Architecture In Developing Countries

Globalization in architecture and the highly artificial technology developed of the last century has allowed architects to design buildings without responding to the needs of the people in their climates and socio-cultural context. Vernacular practices obtain in rural communities in Latin America, Africa, and Asia are know to built environments that mimic and complement rather than conflicts withnature, generating an harmonious synergies between these two elements, this paper will like to search a way to combine the local abilities from local communities in developing countries with the new technologies. Sustainability considers not only the election of materials, the amount of energy needed to transport and finish them, building construction processes, their thermal performance rating,the amount of energy needed to keep them running, maintenance processes, durability, internal flexibility in terms of use, adaptability to new technologies in the supply, and of course in particular, sustainability for the use of solar energy for the purpose of heating, cooling, for using daylight, and generating electricity;1 but as V.A. Metallinou mentioned in his essay “Ecological propriety andarchitecture” sustainable can be interpreted: “As a means of integration between society and profession, as a means of surviving the cultural values and tradition, to make the user an effective part of the design process and to improve the communication among different disciplines and scientific fields.”2 Considering this, the appreciation of cultural heritage is an important part of thedevelopment of this paper, since this allows to strengthens attitudes towards preservation of cultural heritage, in order to use this as a driving force for shaping the present, in this sense sustainability will be seeing as a means of cultural consistency. As Carin Smuts says “Sustainable is about the people”, considering what they need, their culture and background, however, sometimes in order theachieve sustainability we find ourselves, lost in a “international high-tech” model that has being developed in other countries, (of course more developed countries), with out understanding that essentially they don’t fit our environment, not only because the climate conditions but because the social, and economical context, that after all are the ones that make sustainable possible. In most of thesedeveloping countries, in the path for affording a sustainable building, some strange effects had been developed, “some inner struggle between the culture of origin and the acculturation of this modern examples has occur, giving a result that not
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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“Sustainable Design” Jana Revendin, Birkhauser, 2009 “Eco –Architecture” Harmonisation between Architecture and Nature, G. Broadbent C.A. Brebbia, WITpress, 2006, pg. 15
 


 

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only doesn’t have the ecological desired performance, but that hadcaused a harm in the people and their culture”. 3 By the other hand, there is the vernacular architecture, witch represents a strongly, affordable resources and a kind of natural attitude that responds well with the environmental conditions, using the local materials, applying the natural cooling and the landscape adaptation, and forming a self-sufficient community, trough the differentconstructive techniques provide instructive examples of how to deal with climate and demonstrate ideas, attitudes and low-tech solutions that can be usefully incorporated into the contemporary shelter. For instance, there is an example of a vernacular systems that I would like to mentioned in order to related to following architectural examples, in the desert regions of North Africa, doctors still travel...