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Passage from main entry at Vythiri Resort, Wayanad.
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That’s one of the commandments to follow in the interests of sustainable design, says Tony Joseph.

In practical terms, what is a sustainable building? To arrive at the answer, I began to think about the most sustainable building I have designed.

This is one of the earliest projects that I have done with a friend, Prasanth — the Vythiri Resorts in the mountains of Kerala. It is cut off from the grid; which means, it doesn’t have electricity connection even today. It runs on generators that are started only in the evenings. So, what makes it sustainable?

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The first, for me, was to realise it was a collaboration, and to be sincere to my partners – which include the architect, masons and other craftsmen involved.

The second was to be sincere to the site of the building, or what our ancient scholars called Vastupurusha. It tells you how to make maximum use of the slopes, trees, view, water and wind.
 

The next factor for me is the client. If you are sincere to him, you make the building economical; to be sustainable, it must have less energy spend.

One of the clients in this project was myself. Since I was a client, I made sure I spent the least, and that there was not much money spent in future. It is when we are not so true to our clients that we tend to design unsustainable buildings.

The fourth is to be sincere to the user. In this case, since it’s a resort, it’s the guest. We respect his time and money, and make sure he has a memorable experience along with value for money.

All these add up to a sustainable building. You don’t have to look too much into theories; you just have to be practical and functional – and it automatically happens when you overcome constraints.

Now, because there is a shortage of water, everybody is talking about how to save it. Earlier, we never thought about it. Today, Hansgrohe is developing efficient faucets that use less water. That is the necessity of the times.

In all our projects we make sure that we are contextual in our design in terms of place, function and time. Local traditions and the site itself play a major part in moulding our design. Economy and sustainability are the prime concerns – as you will see in these projects…