Green Solutions Award for Suhasini

During the recently concluded COP 26 climate summit in Glasgow, Suhasini Ayer, long term Aurovilian and an architect, was honoured with a Green Solutions award in the Sustainable Construction category for her work with the Humanscapes Habitat youth housing project in Auroville. [featured in AV Today #340 November 2017, eds] The Green Solutions Awards 2020-2021 is an international competition organised by the Construction21 network, which describes itself as ‘a collaborative and networking platform for sustainability stakeholders, that recognises exemplary solutions integrated into buildings, districts, and infrastructures that contribute to the fight against climate change’. 192 candidates from around the world competed in the competition. 

At the award ceremony during the climate summit, Humanscapes was described as a “very inspirational Indian housing project with a social vision and low-tech sustainability.”

In her acceptance speech, Suhasini thanked Construction21 and explained the significance of the award. “One of the reasons we participated in Construction21 awards was that it’s very inspirational to see a Government, private and public participation, as in India there is a big difference in world views between the government and private sector when it comes to development. 

“Our project is about how to use designs to bring together the socio-cultural, the environmental and technological aspects. In India we have challenges which in terms of numbers are quite mind boggling. Everybody wants to develop. You can tell us about 1.5 degrees [increase in temperature], you can tell us about carbon footprint, but there are a billion people who want their standard of living to go up, and they want: housing, energy, cars, roads and cities. Our challenge is to show that you don’t need to follow the standards of the developed world, but actually find our own pathway. That’s what Humanscapes is about and what makes it a replicable model.”