• Glazed facades increase carbon footprint. Here are Four Indian Traditional Ways that can help us deal with a Warming future.

The built environment in India has been undergoing an evolution of its own to facilitate modern-day needs and cope with the advanced world of today. With this growth, non-compliance with climatic demands tends to become a major problem in the subcontinent.

Of a plethora of problems, one that is quite common across major cities is the extensive use of glazing in facades, which has now become a beacon of modernity in India. Glazed facades tend to trap heat, thus increasing reliance on artificial air conditioning and, hence, increasing the carbon footprint.

With higher emissions and intense and longer heatwaves, rapid urbanisation has now had professionals rethink our everyday spaces and resort to cleaner, energy-efficient solutions.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency's Eco Niwas Samhita and the Energy Conservation Building Code both now push toward lower window-wall ratios and better shading performance — a tacit admission that unshaded glass facades are unsuited to Indian conditions. Beyond regulation, these regional derived methods often cost less, use local labour and materials, and age with more character than a glazed facade ever could.

A glazed facade in India (Source: Parametric Architecture)

Here are four ideas -  

1. Jaali Screens and Perforated Facades

The jaali is perhaps India's most elegant climate technology. Their use dates back to ancient Buddhist and Hindu architecture, eventually integrating into Mughal architecture. Crafted in stone, brick, and wood, the jaalis filter direct sunlight while allowing air to pass through, creating a cooling venturi effect.

11th century Chandramoulishwara temple in Hubballi. Pic by Shefali Vaidya.

Jaalis at Mandu, near Indore.

Brick and terracotta have high thermal mass, hence moderating indoor temperature while offering texture and a warm palette. Contemporary architects have integrated these screens to cut solar heat gain dramatically compared to fully glazed facades, while still admitting diffused daylight.

A jaali section of a modern-day house in Kerala (Source: Author)

Jaali Wall.

Source

2. Bamboo and Timber Screening

In the Northeast and parts of the Western Ghats, bamboo is abundant, renewable, and structurally capable when properly treated. Woven bamboo screens (chik) and timber louvres serve as shading devices and partial facades, offering flexibility, low weight, and rapid renewability compared to aluminium-and-glass curtain systems.

Bamboo Screens in Indian Contemporary Architecture.

Source

Bamboo Façade.

Source 

3. Rammed Earth and Compressed Stabilised Earth Blocks (CSEB)

Rammed earth walls — compacted layers of earth, sand, and a small percentage of stabiliser — are a highly effective traditional method of construction, which has seen a significant return to practice by built environment professionals in India. 

Walls are constructed using manual or hydraulic presses, require far less cement than fired brick and can be made on-site from excavated soil, cutting transport emissions.

These systems perform particularly well in composite and hot-dry climates across central and western India.

Rammed Earth Construction in India. 

4. Mud, Cob, and Adobe Construction

Cob and adobe – earth mixed with straw and water, built up in layers or shaped into sun-dried bricks – are still practised in parts of Kutch and rural Maharashtra. These techniques create thick, breathable walls using nothing but locally dug soil, with none of the embodied carbon of cement, steel, or glass. Roofs were traditionally kept low and walls deliberately thick, so that even in the desert heat of Kutch, interiors stayed markedly cooler than the world outside.

Adobe Construction at Spiti (Source: World Housing Encyclopaedia).

Source

Construction in Rishikesh.

Source

Lime plaster, rather than cement render, allows walls to regulate humidity and resist cracking. Auroville's earth-building tradition has demonstrated these methods at institutional scale, proving they are not limited to single-storey rural homes.

Turning back to these techniques isn't nostalgia — it's a correction. Glass facades were adopted in India as a shorthand for modernity, borrowed from climates and cities where they made more sense. But India's own architectural knowledge already contains a more honest, more climate-literate answer and as heatwaves lengthen and energy costs rise, that inheritance is a step ahead into the future.

To read all articles by author   Every effort made to give correct credits for pictures. In case of any errors, please mail esamskriti108@gmail.com 

Also read

1. Mughals did not give India Jalis

2. Album Shrujan Kutch – their Learning and Designed Centre is designed to keep the building cool. See pics 2 to 7

3. Traditional Homes Bhungas (mud homes with thatched roofs) in Kutch keep home cool. Cow dung on wall helps resists cold in the winters   

4. Album of Courtyard in a typical house in Chettinad, Tamil Nadu. Pic 26

5. Album of Home near Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Remains cools in summers and warm in winters 

6. Influence of Ancient Indian Architecture

7. Traditional Building techniques in Indian Architecture  

8. 8 ancient Indian building techniques we must bring back