**3. Local architecture and sustainable design**

In local architecture, sustainable design is an approach that utilizes critical thinking to conserve the environment and protect future generations. Sustainable design is intended to overcome crises such as slow economic growth, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. Human beings are part of the broader natural world. However, they often damage the world around them by acting irresponsibly and exploiting resources in a manner that causes significant environmental degradation as seen, for example, in climate change, flooding, and rising sea levels. Human beings must try to maintain a balance between themselves and their natural environment, as argued by the ecological movement since the 1970s and, later, the sustainable movement in the 1990s. Architects have since attempted to incorporate environmental tenets into their activities. As such, they require an integrated, multidisciplinary, and innovative understanding of environmental issues. This can be realized through sustainable design.

#### **3.1 Locality in architecture**

Locality refers to human traditions that are passed intergenerationally, and these include both cultures and architecture. Locality is thus inexorably intertwined with ethnicity (local culture) and reflected in everyday local life [7]. It encompasses culture, including its social, political, economic, religious, technological, and scientific guidelines, philosophies, systems, and values. Architecture also contains certain local values and cultures, as informed by its geographic and cultural context. In other words, it contains the thoughts and values that are perceived as wise or appropriate by locals.

Rapoport argues that built environments take various forms that illustrate the philosophies and concepts of their promoters [8]. As such, architecture may be considered a form of non-verbal communication that is inexorably intertwined with the cognitive precepts of its creators. It may be used to fulfill material needs or spiritual ones (e.g., to seek salvation, blessings, and prosperity). Built environments are places where human beings can communicate with nature, with architecture a product of the non-verbal communication between human societies and their environment [9]. In damp tropical lands, for example, specific architectures emerge that are suited to local climate conditions; likewise, communities develop behaviors and activities that are particularly apt for their environment. Nature thus guides living beings and their coexistence with their surroundings.

Architecture, being a product of human activities, is a manifestation of human beings' communication with the natural world. In recent years, a new form of traditionalism has emerged in Indonesian architecture, one known as Nusantara Architecture. Stemming from the discussions and arguments of academics and

#### *Understanding Local Architectural Forms as a Sustainable Design Transformation DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109560*

practitioners, this approach offers a fresh perspective on the realization of local wisdom and culture through contemporary architecture as well as the manifestation of sustainability through architectural materials, technologies, and concepts.

The integration of local wisdom into modern architecture offers new insight. Understanding locality means understanding construction processes, material histories, social backgrounds, and conservation issues. Locality involves how local materials and technologies, as well as social formations, can provide fresh perspectives on architecture and be integrated into modern understandings.

Paramount in the philosophy of local architecture is avoiding harm to nature. It combines three components: humanity, culture, and nature. Human beings produce designs, and these designs interact with nature. Local architecture offers an ecological approach that requires adaptation to natural contexts; adoption of nature (i.e., natural forms); and accommodating nature (complementing nature). Architecture is offered as an expression of humanity's interactions with nature. Balance is thus required between all three elements: architecture, nature, and humanity. Nature provides humans with what they require, while humans use that which is provided by nature. Architecture, finally, provides protection and comfort. Traditional approaches to architecture and spatial organization seek to maintain a balance between these three components. Traditional architecture provides protection even as it expresses the realities and experiences of those involved. Architecture ensures the fluidity of communication between nature and humanity. It understands the language of both, as well as the expectations and requirements of local inhabitants. Locality is thus a space wherein diverse events and situations can intersect. In a tropical climate, this means providing inhabitants protection from natural disasters and predators. Societies have thus developed diverse traditional architectures, which provide protection even as they maintain balance.

Traditional architecture has particular value, in part because it offers inspiration for the development of harmony through architecture. Barkes explains, using the phrase traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), that harmonious practices are transmitted intergenerationally. TEK is possessed collectively and may be transmitted through stories, songs, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, and customary laws [10]. If the environment is conserved (rather than damaged), it can provide the resources necessary for maintaining the community and increasing its quality of life. TEK, thus, serves to conserve the environment and ensure continued survival. It seeks to connect nature and humanity, for which it requires three elements: cognitive, an aspect that involves individual understandings and knowledge; affective, which involves emotions, motivations, desires, and values; and connotative, which involves action, employment, and labor. Through all of these, particular knowledge and a clear understanding can be used to protect the environment.

#### **3.2 Traditionalism in architecture**

Presently, Nusantara Architecture has become an object and subject of discussion from diverse academic perspectives. Academics and scholars have discussed the elements of traditional architecture that remain dominant, the role of local tradition and culture, as well as the local wisdom that guides their design approaches. Nusantara Architecture is a living architecture, one wherein the natural and social environments are inexorably intertwined through generations of tradition and thus distinct from Western or international architecture. Nusantara Architecture reflects a more communal way of living, while Western architecture draws on a more individualistic

tradition. The principles underpinning Nusantara Architecture are likewise more reflective of love, generosity, and mutualistic support, wherein all members of the community respect and honor each other. It is these principles that make Nusantara Architecture part of the broader movement toward sustainable architecture. It contains both human and natural elements, even as it draws from the principle of divinity to develop a greener approach to architecture than offered by Western (European and American) traditions. Likewise, Nusantara Architecture draws heavily on "traditional" technologies that are better suited for the particular climate and conditions of the Indonesian Archipelago.

Locality is contained within all cultural systems, having been transmitted by specific ethnic groups within their territories. Such traditions are strongly influenced by geographic and other natural factors. Diverse considerations such as these have thus influenced the recent development of architecture.
