DESI Training Center: Self-sufficiency and Appropriateness

Anna Heringer, Energy and sustainability, expanding design practices, Low Density, Politics and economics, Project

Architecture, Bamboo, Bangladesh, Collaborative Architecture, Collaborative work, Community, Context, Craftmanship, Culture, Design, Empowering society, Humanitarian Practices, Identity, Local materials, Local techniques, Passive house standard, Project, School, Self-sufficiency, Solar Energy, Sustainable, Tradition, Ventilation

Photography: Naquib Hossain and B.K.S. Inan

In general the living conditions of poor families, especially in developing countries, are traditionally sustainable. It is the step from low-income status to the middle class that often causes a major shift in direction. With higher incomes, values and lifestyles begin to change – from production and self-sufficiency towards consumption. What is uncommon, special and exotic is more attractive than what already exists locally; the invigorating dream and pursuit is the Western lifestyle, not the local tradition.