Defining Sustainability in Afghanistan’s Built Environment: A Case Study of World Bank Building in Kabul and Comparative Analysis of Prominent Literature

Sustainable Development has been a major global debate since the United Nations Commission report on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Report, published in 1987 [1, 2]. However, the initiation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, marked a global milestone to call for a shift towards better solutions to issues concerning sustainability and resiliency, considering the needs of people in the developing nations [1, 3].

A sustainable built environment can have a significant impact on the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. With the global commitment to achieve the UN SDGs, the issue of designing for sustainability has become more important than ever. This can be clearly seen in the definition of SDG11 which is related to the built environment:

‘Sustainable development cannot be achieved without significantly transforming the way we build and manage our urban spaces. The rapid growth of cities—a result of rising populations and increasing migration—has led to a boom in mega-cities, especially in the developing world, and slums are becoming a more significant feature of urban life.

Making cities sustainable means creating career and business opportunities, safe and affordable housing, and building resilient societies and economies. It involves investment in public transport, creating green public spaces, and improving urban planning and management in participatory and inclusive ways.’ (Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities | UNDP, 2020).

Afghanistan, as a UN member state, is committed to the achievement of sustainable development goals. However, the country is currently at the stage of its infancy in implementing sustainability in the built environment. In 2019, Afghanistan witnessed its first LEED-certified building. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a green building rating system developed under the scope of the World Green Building Council (WGBC) and is used to assess the sustainability of buildings [4]. The new office building in Kabul, World Bank Building (WBBK) was awarded the LEED BD+C Gold rating as well as the “LEED Earth Award” for its contribution towards the promotion of sustainability [5]. This is the country’s first LEED-certified building and is considered an important milestone towards the achievement of sustainability in Afghanistan’s built environment.

As discussed by Baumann et al. [6], there is a range of methodologies, strategies, and tools that deal with environmental issues and assessments in design practice. However, the scope of sustainable design has broadened and evolved through the years, from an objective and scientifically measurable environmental concept to a subjective and socially embedded, and contextually dependent term. That is, from solely depending on environmental technologies to reduce environmental impact towards considering human involvement in the process of decision-making [6-10]. Whereas with more than 100 definitions that have appeared for the term sustainability over the past decades, it remains an important matter of exploration and inquiry but uncertainties on how to implement sustainable principles in practice and to adopt them in sustainable building projects still continue [7, 11-14].

Victor Papanek is one of the most influential actors in the realm of sustainable design. Papanek calls for humanitarian and ecological design as he believed that design should aim to serve the poor and those who are in need [15]. Fisher [16] and Papanek [15] emphasize quality rather than quantity. They define quality as a means of reinforcing emotional bonding and mutually beneficial relationships. Similarly, Fry [17] recommends that design address major global issues of climate change and inequity in order to resolve the current challenges and to adapt to the problems that we are unable to solve. He suggests a transformational change in human behavior on an ethical basis. On the other hand, Walker [18] and DeKay [19] put an emphasis on personal experiences and the cultural meaning of design as much as on the attention towards quantitative issues. Whereas both writers discuss different approaches for design. While Walker [18] believes in a modest design with minimum intervention, DeKay’s [19] idea rests on building upon the technological solutions for sustainability to include ecological patterns of the context and further to create rich experiences and symbolic meaning for humans.

Subsequently, there are various concepts regarding the design for sustainability, however, these concepts do share some common criteria such as the use of technology, ethics, and social interplay [9].

On the other hand, sustainability is implemented at various levels in design disciplines, while some thinkers call for major transformative design through cultural changes affecting consumptive behavior to address the global environmental and social issues; others may suggest introducing new building types to create value for users; while some practices may implement technological add-ons to the existing buildings affecting only the product level (i.e., incremental changes) [20].

However, despite the complexity associated with the implementation of sustainability, countries need to adopt effective plans and spur actions in areas crucial to sustainable development. Therefore, this paper aims to seek methods of designing an appropriate and sustainable built environment for Afghanistan. This is achieved by studying the sustainable strategies in the design of the WBBK and analyzing the five publications (books) on the topic of sustainability and design. The study further analyzes and evaluates the design of the WBBK in the light of these publications to draw conclusions for designing a sustainable built environment for the context of Afghanistan.

3.1 Background of the World Bank Building Kabul

The building for World Bank Kabul (Figure 1), was designed by En3 Sustainability Solutions, an India-based sustainable design, and engineering consulting firm. The construction of the project begun in 2016 and was completed in 2019. It received a LEED BD+C Gold rating, in the same year, as well as a LEED Earth Award.

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Figure 1. World Bank Building Kabul (Source: https://www.gbci.org)

LEED Earth is a campaign initiated by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) that offers the certification of the first project at no cost. It aims to promote sustainable building and to increase the uptake of LEED throughout the world. Moreover, LEED BD+C is the USGBC’s rating system at the building level [23]. A building receives a certified rating if it earns at least 40 points, a silver rating for 50 points, gold for 60 points, and platinum for 80 points [24].

The project carries certain measures to achieve sustainability through the green design [5, 25]. Table 2 provides basic information about the project.

Table 2. World Bank Building Kabul

3.2 Sustainable strategies applied in the World Bank Building Kabul (2019)

When defining the sustainable strategies in a building; Shao [21] categorized them in three sets of “architectural structure”, “building elements and materials” and “utility services and maintenance”. Wen et al. [22] analyzed the three sustainability pillars (environmental, social, and economic) in different Green Building Rating Tools (GBRT) and provide a new unified criteria framework based on the different GBRTs. The sustainable strategies applied on WBBK, as mentioned by the developers in their website [25], are first categorized according to Shao [21] and then classified for social and environmental quality based on the classification performed by Wen et al. [22] in their unified framework (Table 3).

Table 3. Sustainable building strategies in WBBK

5.1 Criteria of a sustainable design

As evident from the previous section, the most important considerations regarding design and sustainability are “ethical” as defined by Papanek, Fry, Fisher, and Walker and, “social” and “environmental” as described by all the five thinkers. This merges with Keitsch’s [9] definition of the three most important criteria that consolidate the trending concepts in the theory of sustainable design as “ethics, technology fixes, and social interaction”. She justifies her definition of the three criteria with Aristotle’s three active disciplines, i.e., “theoria – wisdom/knowledge, praxis – political action, and poesis – production/ technology”. The ethical criteria point towards the moral responsibility of the designer to create socially just and environmentally responsible design. For example, Papanek’s emphasis on designing for people’s genuine needs, Fisher’s idea of considering the impact of the design on future generations and ecosystem, Fry’s redirective design approach, and Walker’s stress on minimal resource consumption, all require an ethical approach on behalf of the designer. Similarly, the technology fixes criteria refer to the quantitative and empirical approaches towards solving environmental problems. However, according to four of the five thinkers, the use of technologies should be accompanied by the ethical judgment of the designer. Finally, social interaction requires the participation of different stakeholders [7] to understand from physical needs to the emotional and symbolic needs of people and to create a stable society. For instance, creating rich experiences and cultural meaning for people, according to DeKay and Walker, is based on the criteria of social interaction. Keitsch proposes consideration and integration of all the three criteria rather than overemphasizing one or marginalizing the others.

However, as observed in the case of World Bank Building Kabul, most of the sustainable design strategies gave significance towards quantitative objective methods to design for the environmental concerns, i.e., “technology fixes” as defined by Keitsch [9] (Table 2). There are only a few social aspects considered that relate to the physical needs of the users and thus marginalize the emotional and cognitive constraints. Hence, this is a significant issue that needs consideration in future designs. The following sections describe the five sub-criteria important to meet the ethical, environmental, and social criteria. The framework for analysis of the WBBK is presented in Figure 2.

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Figure 2. WBBK framework of analysis

5.2 Place dependence

As in section 5.1, one of the main criteria for sustainable design is ethical judgment emphasized by Papanek, Fry, Fisher, and Walker. According to the definitions of the four thinkers, an ethical design would drive the design solution to become environmentally responsible and socially just. This results in a design that is specific to its place and culture, one that results in an optimum solution (to do the most with the least), and that considers the impact and meaning of the design in a larger context. Whereas in the case of World Bank Kabul, most solutions are centered on green materials and green technologies, which are rather general solutions. Although these technical solutions are aimed to reduce environmental harm [26], sustainability requires the design to be expressive of and responsive towards its socio-economic context [15]. Moreover, Orr [27] defines design as, “….not just about how we make things, but rather how we make things that fit harmoniously in an ecological, cultural, and moral context”. Similarly Keitsch [20], Sauerbruch and Hutton [28] talked about an architecture where the climate is the generating factor for the design and where the design reflects culture and society and is valued by humans.

5.3 Time dependence

Accounting for the time dependent nature of sustainability is another important point recalled by designers to address sustainability in design [7, 15, 17]. In this regard, Berardi [7] calls for buildings to be adaptable and flexible, promoting resiliency to easily accommodate the new requirements that evolve with time. Looking at WBBK, it barely provides any adaptable, flexible, and self-sufficient design strategies that can overcome the demands of a changing world. One of the strategies in design that can contribute to the resilience of a building is the use of passive features that can optimize thermal comfort and reduce the dependence of the building on external supply systems [29]. However, although the WBBK building uses solar panels to generate electricity, it only provides 7% of the building’s energy consumption which is insignificant.

Moreover, the building totally relies on mechanical Heating, Ventilating, Air conditioning, and Cooling (HVAC) system for heating and cooling purposes [25]. Brand [30] defines adaptability as the building’s ability to reshape and refine itself according to the changing demands of its occupants; that would result in its longevity. This he believes is achievable through a design that is a result of the collaboration between the users and the technical design team. Like Walker [18], he calls for modest design with the least intervention in natural resources.

5.4 Systemic approach

Conte and Monno [31] emphasize the importance of evaluating the sustainable performance of a building on an urban scale to assess the building’s contribution towards the sustainability of its context and the consideration of various social and ecological impacts on the building design. They argue that isolating the building from its context in terms of its sustainability assessment will lead to its high dependence on eco-technologies to enhance the performance of the building.

In the same way, DeKay [19] locates LEED-certified buildings in the UR quadrant (behavior perspective) of his integral sustainable design framework (consisting of four perspectives, namely behavior, systems, experiences, and cultures). He argues that LEED-certified buildings mostly rely on enhancing the performance of the building by upgrading the parts of it, rather than locating the building in a social and ecological system. Kemp [32] defines sustainability innovation to be dependent on “aspects of use” that rely on “contextual conditions”; thus, requiring sustainability to be assessed on a system basis according to “aspects of use” rather than technology basis.

5.5 Personal experiences and cultural meaning

The four-nexus framework for sustainable design, by Mark Dekay, gives equal importance to subjective qualities of design as much as for the objective aspects [19]. Where the objective aspects of sustainable design relate to the environmental performance of design, subjective qualities require considering the personal experiences of the users and the symbolic meaning creating for them. As with DeKay [19], Walker [18] also discusses the importance of the meaning of a product, its connectedness to people, and addressing the deep human perceptions.

Although several thinkers including DeKay have criticized the LEED-certified buildings to be technically centered while ignoring the personal experiences of the occupants and the cultural and symbolic meaning created for the society. This seems to be the case in the WBBK, where the developers have not provided any information about the experiences and meaning created by the architecture of the project [25].

Although, the role of LEED and other sustainable building assessment tools are appreciated by authors to promote the importance of sustainable design [31], but creating “rich human experiences” and “mean making stories” through introducing Nature in the design are also important aspects of sustainable design to create a relationship between people and Nature [18, 19].

Furthermore, Cucuzzella also emphasizes the aesthetics of sustainable architecture and introduces an analytical framework to read and understand the quality of sustainable design beyond its environmental performance [33]. Moreover, (Papanek, 1971) defines aesthetics in sustainable design as an intrinsic part of function not just a superficial appearance (see section 4.1).

5.6 Level-based Integration of sustainability in design

Sustainability in design disciplines is implemented at various levels [8, 10, 14, 34-36]. Keitsch defines sustainable design implementation at three levels namely micro level, meso level, and macro level. Her definition of the three levels shares ground with the definition provided by Brezet [36, 37], and many more. Where the complexity level increases from making incremental changes in product, to designing new products, processes, and services, to a change in practice that requires new action structures and introduces new consumption patterns. Writers in Refs. [16-18], require transformational change (innovative design) at the system level as a sustainable design solution i.e., macro level; where design practice transforms human behavior and that needs an understanding of socio-cultural practices.

As Fry [17] recalls, “Design is never culturally neutral - it always transports socio-cultural values. Equally, what it brings into being always designs beyond mere function. Design is thus a means as well as a product of cultural production, as the history of both architecture and technology confirm”.

Vezzoli et al. [8], Ceschin and Gaziulusoy [10] describe how design for sustainability has evolved from a product level, rooted in technical perspective to considering socio-technical issues that cover systemic approaches. Higher levels of integrating sustainability in design discipline are usually associated with tackling social and ecological issues and creating positive impacts on societies and the environment [8, 34, 38, 39].

As has been observed in the case of WBBK, it could be argued that the designs are mostly incremental improvements applied to materials and services to reduce environmental impact. Thus, according to [8, 10, 14, 34-36], this places the design of the building only at the micro-level of achieving sustainability.

Based on the findings of the study; it is concluded that to create a framework for the sustainable design of the built environment, it is not enough to rely on global practices of sustainability (such as LEED certification) and technological improvements. Rather the requirements of local context and user values are an essential ingredient of sustainable design. Consequently, the higher levels of integrating sustainability in design are associated with human and ecological involvement. Notwithstanding the importance of technology, consideration of cultural, social, and ecological factors in design is essential for a more holistic sustainable built environment. Moreover, an innovative sustainable design is meant to create a positive impact on society and ecology and tackle societal problems. Thus, designing to reduce environmental harm and achieving occupant satisfaction should be considered as a part of a larger aim to enhance social and environmental systems in the country. Therefore, an integrated and holistic approach to design is required to achieve a sustainable and appropriate built environment. A set of recommendations to design for sustainability are provided as follows:

1. Learning from the local built environment and building upon them to design for the future.

2. Adapting to the present conditions and planning for the future ecological/social challenges (adaptive, flexible, and self-sufficient design).

3. Embracing ethical and moral values for optimum resource consumption (differentiating between need and want) as well as designing to create a positive impact.

4. Understanding the social, cultural, and ecological context as important aspects of designing for sustainability.

5. Realizing sustainability as a process in design that deals with problems at various scales and considers the interlinkage between them, realizing the long-term and indirect impacts of the proposed solutions (system thinking).

6. Adopting an integrated holistic design approach that promotes social interaction between various stakeholders.

7. Designing for practical needs (social and environmental problems) as well as appreciating the connectedness of design with people and their culture (subjective qualities).

8. Appreciating the local sources and local technologies for design (e.g., renewable energy, local craft).