Scholars and field workers recognise the importance of "appropriation" as a prime indicator of "appropriateness" of a technology.  A product or technology is appropriate only when it is understood, adapted and indigenised, in effect, "appropriated" by the people for whom it is designed.  It must therefore, be designed within the context of existing building practices and delivery modes.

Rural building systems possess an inherent potential, an understanding of which can assist in the formulation of effective and sustainable strategies for rural shelter improvement.  This article is based on a study of existing building practices and construction technologies in five villages of Bundelkhand region in central India.

Characteristics of existing building technologies

Building technologies in Bundelkhand are dependent on locally available natural materials, high labour input (usually self or local village based), seasonality and piece-meal nature of construction.  The rural building sector operates as a network.  "The essential quality of a network is the multiplicity of routes it provides to the same end.  The economies achieved by people while building for themselves are mainly due to their ability to move through the network and access information and resources through multiple economic routes".  A network is also characterized by reciprocal relationships.  Thus every aspect of rural life is linked to the process of shelter acquisition and upgrading.

Building trends in villages indicate a move away from unprocessed earth (cob) construction to stone and fired brick construction.  Country tile roofs are slowly being replaced by stone slabs and in a handful of cases by RCC.  These indicated a move towards partially industralised intermediate technology, which in itself is a positive phenomenon.

Although the 'pattern of upgrading' indicates this shift from katcha to pucca and from self-built to self-managed construction, there is, at the same time, a stagnation in the process of upgrading and a deterioration in the structural quality of dwellings.  For most low and medium income villagers, this stems from a scarcity of resources and a lack of technological, financial and resource-based inputs.  However, there still is a high degree of local control, incremental upgradability, and variety and flexibility in the delivery process.

A high degree of local control fosters significant user participation in construction and management.  At the lowest rung of the economic ladder, most activities are self-done, often a family activity.  Those higher up on the socio-economic ladder opt for construction systems with more sophistication.  The degree of participation decreases and is more dependent on direct cash transactions as specialists and skilled workmen are called in, but management control remains more-or-less the same.

Most shelter upgrading in villages is piece-meal.  Materials are collected over one or two seasons, and the house is upgraded part by part.  This characteristic of the rural building system fits well with the seasonality of agricultural activities. 

Limited rain and irrigation facilities available during the hottest months of May and June.  Make time available for upgrading, repair and extension of houses.  It is also at this time, just after the harvest that the farmer is flush with money received from the sale of crop and is most likely to spend for construction.  The incrementality and seasonality of construction, is therefore a resultant of and reinforces the rural agricultural lifestyle.

The variety in building technique options and the delivery processes gives rise to various levels of user control.  This alllows a maximum 'stretch' of the constraints imposed by socio-economic conditions.  The cost of construction being a mix of monetary and non-monetary components, each socio-economic group combines these two in proportions most suitable to it.

Factors Affecting User Appropriation of Building Technology

Three distinct socio-economic groups were identified to derive the factors that affect appropriation : (i) the landless and Sahariya trivals, (ii)  marginal and small farmers and (iii)  medium and large farmers.  A marginal farmer on the cross roads of change from a mud to fired brick wall may ask himself whether: 

At the other end of the economic ladder, a large farmer raises questions such as, whether it is better to buy steel girders or stone beams?  Does the local mason know how to construct an Reinforced Brick Concrete roof or should he go in for a stone roof?

Four factors were observed to have a direct bearing on the choice of a construction system:

Implications of User Choice

The choices being made by the villagers affect the nature and operations of the building environment.  What do these choices imply and how best can the process of shelter upgrading be facilitated?

Ecological and Environmental :

Reduction in the resource base is leading to fewer options.  The scarcity of timber and bio-mass has hit many aspects of local building such as, fuel for kilns and therefore, tile and brick quality, spanning members for roofs and openings etc.  This has made the otherwise expensive (if total energy costs are accounted for) steel and concrete construction comparable in direct monetary costs.  Thus, not only does a deficient resource base lead to a reduction in the range of options, it also propels the choices towards more energy consuming and less self-reliant materials and processes.

The fulfillment of one basic need (shelter) is challenging another (food production).  The use of surface soils for brick manufacture creates competition with agricultural land.

Similarly, although small scale removal of boulders is beneficial to the farmer, unchecked quarrying can result in the large scale denudation, thereby altering natural ecology and generating immense quantities of stone dust that has yet to find appropriate use.

Level of local control and village Economy Component :  The trend towards greater dependence on non-local systems of construction results in loss of process control.  The village economy component decreases as an increased market for urban industrial materials and skills funnels local wealth out of the village.  This becomes obvious when one compares the preference for the Kanpuri fired brick or the concrete blocks manufactured in Jhansi, over the locally produce gumma.

Flexibility of the Delivery Process :  Flexibility in the delivery process is a result of flexibility in transaction systems.  Transaction systems associated with most industrial products limit this flexibility.  Within a village, transaction of a flexible nature – credit, installment, and barter still exist, but are decreasing as dependence on building material outlets of the city and factory increases.

Seasonality of construction may also disappear as off-land employment opportunities become available during the summer months.  This naturally leads to a dependence on specialists for construction which in itself, may be a positive outcome as it results in more work opportunities for artisans and refinement of their skills but the possible losses and changes in socio-cultural and environmental relationship must be kept in mind.

Possibilities Offered by the Locale

Technological :  Both a regeneration of the depleting resource base and increased efficiencies in the use of currently available resources is required.  The role of improved technology thus becomes important to facilitate shelter upgradation.

The following can be highlighted in this area:

Delivery :  who are the real builders in a rural area, who should receive specialised training and under what conditions will increased levels of skill result in economic returns?  Local delivery agents – masons, influential villagers and local markets form effective delivery channels for information and knowledge transfer and influence improvement in shelter technology.

Micro-enterprise are effective means to deliver a range of technology options.  These function with increased user participation in construction and management and flexible transaction systems.

For appropriate and efficient technologies to be accepted, an understanding of popular aspirations and symbols of prestige is necessary.  The choices made by the leaders in rural society influence the formation of status symbols, thus affecting villagers’ choices for materials and technologies.

Management and Organisational :  The success of nay local level action plan will depend on its capacity to build upon local organisational potentials and capabilities.  The augmentation of the resource base, especially biomass, demands community based management systems.  The feudal character of the villages and the highly politicised caste divisions have been found to be great inhibitors to the development of community groups or co-operatives.  These cannot be ignored while designing required interventions.

Characteristics of the Required Interventions

Rural building systems require that successful interventions must :

The introduction of sophisticated industrial technology is said to limit operational flexibility, especially among the lowest income groups.  However, we cannot shy away from technological interventions for efficient resource utilisation and improved shelter.  More efficient technology coupled with operational flexibility present the greatest potential in rural building systems.

‘Appropriate’ interventions will have to compete with established role models of progress.  Thus it is essential to create alternatives or a range of options whose performance is’technically’ and ‘symbolically’ at par with currently accepted prestigious systems.

Turner has suggested that “access” to network systems enables people to solve their housing problems by providing them the “freedom to build”.  However, “Networks fail or cannot come into existence when there is a grave scarcity of resources or when access to sufficient resources is restricted”.  Thus, increasing both the range of options and the access to this range is of paramount importance.  The rural house is very much an agrarian product and depends on a balanced operating environment that includes the natural eco-system and social, economic and management structures.  In the current situation, therefore, any intervention in resources, technology or delivery processes will have to pass through the tests of :

This will be able to best utilise and enhance the potential of the rural building network and enable it to 'appropriate' better building systems.