traditional ones really helping to save the environment. I feel, how a PostOccupancy Evaluation is conducted on a building, similarly, a Post-Success Evaluation should be conducted on these methodologies. The concept of sustainability has different interpretations in different countries. In the United States, it is all about saving money and using the 3R’s mantra, but many developing countries like India have gone a step ahead. It is said that, “You don’t feel the magnanimity of a problem unless you yourself experience it” (I have no idea who said that, so cant quote the source). In India, a billion people each day face the major problem of adjusting and utilizing the available space. A train commuter in Mumbai locals, very well adapts to his 20cm x 20cm area, in which he commutes to work everyday. While in the US, people waste space. Just because the U.S. country’s size is 4 times, and its population is 1/3rd of that of India, it is not justifiable to waste available land. There are more cars in a U.S. city than there are people in it. So when you make the comparison, is U.S. really sustainable? I have only been to United States and not other developed countries, but I guess with the current trend others will also be similar. Recently, I saw a video on YouTube, showing the lifecycle of plastic water bottles. The point, which the video made, is that, when pure drinking water is available from your taps (atleast in urban cities), why do people waste money on bottled water? Advertisements are the ones to be blamed here. Ads scare the common man about the health hazards of drinking tap water.
S pr in g 2 0 10 Texas A&M University
Leaving the economic and health aspect aside, what most people don’t know that the millions of plastic bottles produced every day as waste, around 40% of it are not recycled, rather it is dumped as waste in foreign developing countries like India and Africa. Now, is this the rule of sustainability? With the fancy and marketing outlook of ‘Sustainability’ as an emerging concept, what lacks is the proper universal approach to it. If human race has to survive, it has to unanimously, with the same set rules (without exception), move ahead in the 21st century. We as emerging architects in the sustainable building industry have just begun to understand the applications of its ideas and principles. We know the cause of implementing sustainable, energyefficient practices, but we are yet to find out the effects of it.
Prof. Sarah Deyong
ARCH 639
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