Say ‘no’ to joints and mortars

It would lead to lesser material consumption, zero wastage, faster construction and better aesthetics.

Every child while reading history would have wondered how the pyramids were built, which even today are a construction wonder. The massive walls surrounding Egyptian temples had tapering stone walls, wide at the bottom and narrowing at the top, still standing after thousands of years. Classical temples of Greece continue to attract visitors from world over even now. Many Indian forts continue to be impregnable since they were built. If someone tells us that majority of these were built without any mortars in their joints, can we believe it?

The idea of mortars comes much later in the history of settlements. For a long time, humans built thick walls just by piling up stones one above the other, made mud balls rolled into a wall using mud slurry or built mud walls layer by layer. They behaved like a homogenous element, staying strong by the sheer mass. In many regions, timber boards became house partitions or shelters were made with bamboo, grass, mud paste and thatch which required neither mortars nor joints.

As the walls became thinner, especially built with masonry, lateral stability was provided by joints packed with mud. As time progressed, mud was made stronger with lime content; hence many monuments show melted brick surfaces, but lime mortar joints still holding them strong. For over 50 years now, cement mortar has been gradually replacing the earlier options. If our ancestors could build without mortars, why can’t we do so today?

Technically called dry masonry, placing thin stone slabs in mortar-less stable joints can still be seen in areas where they are locally available in plenty. The stone surfaces are dressed to hold on to each other. Unfortunately, the economically weaker section use them more often, hence the formal constructions relegate them to the backseat. Rammed earth walls, achieved by ramming pre-mixed stabilised mud between side supports, is slowly but steadily reviving.

Avoiding or reducing mortars means lesser consumption, zero wastage, faster construction and better aesthetics. Most often, justification for plastering and painting the wall comes from the fear of water seepage through the joints and the ugly looks of mortared wall. We make the walls too thin and then spend on these avoidable applications.

Avoiding joint mortars is not a new thought, for there have been many attempts to avoid them. The more successful ones have led to interlocking masonry blocks, both for wall and floor applications. Mud, laterite, fly ash and cement aggregates-based, machine-pressed blocks are out in the market for a while now. The term ‘paper joint’ is in circulation, mainly in the domain of floor slabs and wall tiles, denoting a joint so thin it does not need any mortars.

More recently,  we have been seeing adhesive- and polymer-based dry fixing solutions like the one introduced by Wienerberger company. They may not avoid a joint, but may replace the idea of cement mortar by another futuristic material. We need many such solutions.

RE-CREATING MAKES SENSE

Using materials from old buildings re-connects us to our past, and saves them for posterity.

All those who are aware of sustainability discourses are familiar with the 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – a slogan developed for the economically richer nations. The fact that it is more said than done is a sad turn out of things, but in nations like India where they are practised as a lifestyle for ages, we know the value of the three words like a mantra.

However, when it comes to buildings, we appear to profess otherwise, at least during the recent decades. We would rather build new temples at huge costs, but not restore the historic ones at part of that cost. If restored, thanks to our insensitivity, we spoil the old character of the place. Ancestral homes are demolished, making way for new designs, where debris is discarded instead of reusing them.

The exception lies with carved doors, windows, columns and such elements of the historic structure which get sold in some urban context, where transportation, trading and networking facilitate. The rest of buildings from the past bite the dust.

Using materials from old buildings not only re-connects us to our past, it saves them for posterity, extending the life of a product and making it a sustainable material. Normally, reusing the old component is economical, where high costs of skilled craftsmanship are not involved. Even if the task involves skilled labour, it is worthful to reuse salvaged materials, as a lifeline for our dying skill-sets of crafting a building.

Architects tend to argue for modern architecture always, often not realising that many people out there in the society do not appreciate them. Generations may come who advocate modernity, but people who vouch by the old charm would always be there. It is unfortunate that artistic excellence in building products is waning today with craftsmen’s families shifting away due to low remuneration or lack of jobs.

Given this context, projects such as Hotel Ganges View on the Varanasi riverfront or ghat as they are locally called, are successful examples for sensitive handling of lived in, ancestral haveli turning into a heritage hotel. Not all traditional structures can be preserved forever and many of them do not deserve authentic restoration either, unless they are rare specimens of their times. As such, adaptive reuse is a viable alternative today, where the available building stock can be saved from demolition, reused intelligently, saved for posterity and of course, supported traditional crafts people. Complimenting these thoughts, heritage hotel projects also make commercial sense.

Project constraints are not a deterrent to creativity, but a reason to think fresh. Creativity lies not only in designing the new, but equally in working with the existing, which is more challenging. More importantly, re-creating by restoring, adding and altering the existing building makes tremendous green sense today, considering the costs and energy that goes to making the new.

GREENING THE SMART CITIES

For this purpose we need systemic changes and a streamlined and honest urban administration.

In the world of town planning, urban design and city management, it is very easy to have idealistic wish-lists, but our ground realities ensure majority of them are never realised. Does it mean we should resign in despair? No, instead we need to work at deeper levels to ensure good ideas are implemented. The smart city project, a kind of continuation of the earlier JNNURM, needs to learn lessons from the past and do better this time.

If we locate the idea of smart cities within this perspective, it needs to go beyond merely providing infrastructure. Much has appeared about the project in the media since mid-2014, with 24-hour water and power supply being the most talked about. The basic intention to improve urban amenities; infrastructure; performance and monitoring goes without a debate. Unfortunately, the mechanism to operationalise a smart city is embedded within the existing urban management system, which lacks credibility.

However, the major criticism about smart cities appears to emanate from its exclusive nature, while experts are demanding inclusive modes of governance today.

While the local contexts find the least of mention, the marginal and informal sector which form the majority of city population in India get nothing much from these new agendas.

How a city evolves actually dictates how the city would grow, technically termed as morphology, but the smart city project ignores it, with the danger of best practices failing due to contextual indifferences.

The biggest loss is: another opportunity to implement the recommendations of the Constitutional 74th amendment appears lost forever.

The belief that computerisation is a levelling force to iron out all our cultural diversity; that IT can create pan-India efficiency across our pluralist urban lifestyle; and that technologically advanced urban management can uplift the deprived in our society needs to be demystified, towards both conserving our cultural heritage and resist equating ICT-based practice with sustainability. Majority of our cities have lived well within the local specificities, hence have been smart in some way or other.

No sustainable model

India is yet to boast of any city as a sustainable model, to which end we need to change our mindsets.

During the last decade, many Indian cities have adapted to computers, internet, digital storage, e-mailing, smart phones and such others; but more than applications today we need systemic changes. To that end, non-political user participation is a pre-condition, where the document is weak. The concept of city managers can complement the idea well, if this new cadre can mingle well with a streamlined and honest urban administration. Can the abbreviation SMART stand for Small, Manageable, Accountable, Replicable and Transparent? Then smart cities can also be ideal cities. Many of our cities will go smart anyway by adapting to the computers and competitive lifestyles, but to answer the question whether the public will gain by it or will the private companies benefit, we need to wait for many more years. Until then, we will not know if smart cities are green or not.