Technological Capabilities and Sustainable Housing Delivery: Case Studies from Nigeria

Abstract

Sustainable housing is an interaction between the global concern of housing development within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems, and local socio-cultural and socio-economic concern which are specific to each society. Achieving sustainable housing should therefore be based on local translation and context. In developing countries such as Nigeria, key challenges to sustainable housing include access, cost/affordability, and quality. Addressing these challenges demands the exploitation of local technological capabilities. This paper looks at the concept of sustainable housing and examines this with reference to two case studies from Nigeria. The first involved the use of dry construction technology, while the second was based on wet construction. This is to bring to fore the place of building material technology and construction technology in sustainable housing delivery. The cases exposed the opportunities presented by non-complex dry and wet construction technologies in the delivery of sustainable housing. These technologies can be embraced with minimal training and can be easily transferred to the local population in order to speedily reduce the housing deficit, especially at the low-income level.

Keywords: Building materials, capabilities, dry construction, sustainable housing, technology, wet construction