Sustainability and Planning in Africa: Habitat as a reference element for a research and project in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State - Nigeria

There is a great talking about sustainability among architects and designers for two simple reasons: first of all, the term has substituted the old well-worn word “function”. To be sustainable, an object must be useful, affordable, environment-friendly, energy saving, ergonomic etc. Who would not agree? Nobody Moreover, things have always been this way ever since the very first buildings were made, including the Egyptian and Sumerian ones. However, in everyday life it is hard to meet all these expectations and so a little wooden hand made house could be, and rightly so, as sustainable as a Norman Foster’s skyscraper or as the pyramids themselves, which, among other things, were spaceships, designed with natural materials to guide souls in the afterlife. The second reason is formal, since architecture lacked a slogan as powerful as Sullivan’s “form follows function”. However, now it has one: “form follows sustainability” or “sustainability is the new form”. Each object must display ecological awareness. Whether high tech or low tech, vernacular or post industrial, traditional or experimental, what counts isn’t how ecological its performance is, but the fact that its image must suggest it is. The French call these lucky words portmanteau, highlighting their ambiguity and inclusiveness. Some French philosopher paid tribute to these words: God prevent us from too precise words one cannot shape with original creativity.