Promoting processes for sustainable shelter

From the outset in 1973, Development Workshop's (DW) activities have been based on the respect and understanding of indigenous building and planning practices that have traditionally been at the heart of most human settlement development amongst less developed communities. But settlements are evolving rapidly and approaches to achieving shelter that were sustainable over centuries are often failing to cope with today's needs or relate adequately to today's available resources.

Between the declining viability of many traditional solutions and the inaccessibility of many modern alternatives, DW works to promote sustainable shelter approaches that can be and are used by the local population as an ongoing process. This in many instances requires adding to or strengthening local capacities, to develop new skills and ideas that need to be added to those that already exist, to help nations and communities deal with today's needs in a sustainable manner.

Sustainability means working to satisfy a mix of characteristics:

In both research and application, DW has promoted approaches that are sustainable, through:

DW's work includes:

Research and dissemination, as was the case of DW's 1976 exhibition on 'Indigenous building and the Third World' shown originally in Teheran and Vancouver. DW undertakes more detailed national and local studies in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, to increase understanding of the ways in which the population meet the shelter needs, and to better identify where changes need to be made.

Ongoing programme revision through revue and user feedback in the community contributes to better programme design and the improvement of training processes.

Action - research - action: practical programmes both provide lessons about how to work and benefit from revue of past work done.

The "Woodless Construction" Programme in West Africa illustrates this: here the construction of earth vault and dome roofed buildings using simple, hand made unstabilised earth bricks has been gradually introduced by Development Workshop members and DW partners in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania as a response to the declining availability of organic resources used in construction.

Here there has been an ongoing process of adaptation to local contexts, fed by local advice and observation. Once dedicated training became part of the process, the training materials used by DWF since 1992 in this programme have been improved annually. In turn, through training and demonstration, local skills have been developed to the point where both technical and organisational sustainability can be achieved amongst local builders, who now use the "Woodless Construction" techniques and their acquired skills to build for their own local clients using local resources.

The growing number of spontaneous buildings build by local builders for their own local clients is one witness to the establishment of a sustainable impact - another is the large number of local and international organisations who are choosing these techniques and making them part of their own programmes, all of which helps disseminate skills and experience.