Unraveling the ‘Poetics’ of Sustainable Architecture and Context Specific Expressions in India

Background/Objectives: 'Sustainable architecture' is interpreted in numerous ways. Pluralistic, heterogeneous, relative, contextual, contestable, green, bioclimatic, energy efficient, natural, appropriate etc are the diverse terms used. The objective of this paper is to unravel sustainable architectural practices and the related expressions in India. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Thematic analysis is adopted to explore the approaches deciphered from various secondary sources like books, magazines, research articles, government websites and architects official websites. Five phases like familiarising with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes followed by defining themes were adopted. Being a flexible tool, the data was coherently classified and reclassified according to similar ideas and approaches. Findings: As the study was exploratory, the approaches were named as the broad based the common sense, the bioclimatic, the hybrid and the reflective. The buildings portrayed honest, dishonest or common images depending on the 'degree of sustainability' as interpreted by architects. Even though the innovative application of post consumer waste in built form is a principle in eco-centric approach, the acceptance is still a question mark. Application/Improvements: Unravelling the diverse practices has yielded an understanding the 'big picture' of sustainable architecture in India. Collection of information from secondary resources is the limitation. As this is only a longitudinal study, initiatives to understand the approaches with respect to time and region giving new insights.