harmonising middle-class aspirations for low-carbon housing: contextual study of Mysore, India

Abstract

Economic Globalization is enabling India to reinvent itself as a crucible for development, and provides previously unrealized opportunities for economic transformation catering to a fast growing middle-class. The relationship between affluence and consumption makes it implicit that the Indian middle-classes have a crucial role to play in the process of sustainable development. It is proposed that the Brundtland definition of sustainable development, conflicts with a self-cantered consumerism that often characterizes rapid economic development. The consumption patterns and aspirations of some middleclass sectors are contradictory to many principles of low carbon housing design. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities in the development of low-carbon housing with relation to the growth of the middle-classes in the city of Mysore. Whilst accommodating the inevitable impacts and realities of economic development, this paper intends to trace the interwoven fabric of a local, social, cultural, and climatic responsive housing in Mysore, and its contribution to a strategy of appropriate and effective design frameworks for low carbon housing.