Thank you Vladimir Karadzhov, but I have a question here - Ain't long lasting and use of natural materials holds opposite meaning ? As Natural materials will have limited life? 

Sustainable - Modes of exploitation which do not cause environmental damage.

I do not know if it will be clear, my english is bad.

In Slovak conditions: "Sustainable development means a targeted, long-term (continuous), comprehensive and synergetic process affecting conditions and all aspects of life (cultural, social, economic, environmental and institutional) at all levels (local, regional, global) and directed towards a functional model of a certain community (local and regional community, country, international community), which meets biological, material, spiritual and social needs and interests of people, while eliminating or significantly reducing interventions threatening, damaging or destroying conditions and forms of life , does not burden above the acceptable level, wisely using its resources and protects the cultural and natural heritage."

Thank you Dušan Katunský.

Dear Uma, your question description is more towards a sustainable building, where building is a noun. Sustainable Architecture is the practice including building the sustainable buildings, a verb. So, I would like to elaborate on architecture as a verb and sustainable as an adjective.

'Sustainability', which I argue is an afterthought, emerged in the west through various discourse on environment like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, from a desire to protect endangered animal species and natural habitats. Brundtland Commission's Our Common Future or fairly recent William McDonough's Cradle to Cradle added to that discourse by looking into larger ecosystem including design.

I particularly liked the elaboration by Dušan Katunský above, where he has included the all aspects of life and levels. This is very much visible in the architecture of Laurie Baker. Coincidentally, I have elaborated on similar aspects in one of the papers on Baker (see Ref 1).

Sustainability in the Indian context and its local expressions too is very similar. If you know, the literal translation of the word sustainability in Hindi is Nirantarta (continuity). This concept further calls for approaches through which human and nature can co-exist till eternity.

Regards,

Saurabh

You may like to read

1. Laurie Baker: A model for Sustainable Architectural Design Conference Paper Laurie Baker: A model for Sustainable Architectural Design

2. Holistic Socio-environmental Design: Practices Through Making, Craft, and Historicity. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313587189_Holistic_Socio-environmental_Design_Practices_Through_Making_Craft_and_Historicity

Good

Sustainability, as I understand it, is the ability of a community to be able to meet all of the needs of all of its population using the skills of the population and the ecological services of the landmass that it manages, in perpetuity. Using that definition, Sustainable Architecture would have to be a style of design and construction that is in keeping with the plan of the community to be sustainable.

So it is very much related to the setting. You can't talk about a Sustainable building approach that doesn't include an understanding of the resources and priorities of the community. Bamboo may be sustainable in China, but won't be in northern Russia. A community in southern India may think that a ecological footprint of 0.1 ha/ca is far too big for housing, but the folks in Argentina may think that is far too small.

There is a location on Vancouver Island, as an example, that has had a family home for 5000 years. It is a wooden dome structure, using several small trees bent into a particular shape and lashed together. Every 5 years or so, it is torn down, and rebuilt in a few days by a few people. All of the resources that are used are close at hand, and it needs only the simplest of tools (axe, knife, hand made ropes, etc). Even if you add up all of the time spent over those 5000 years, you're at something in the order of 100 people-hours of labour per year.

The 80 year-old farm-house I live in took 9 people 9 months to build - say 12,000 hours - using mostly locally sourced materials (imported windows, nails, and paint). There is no possibility that it will exist 80 years from now without a major retrofit. For argument's sake, that would be about 90 hours per year over it's lifespan.

If I were to build new today, it would take a little less time to build, and require much more in the way of imported resources, ecological footprint, etc. It may require slightly less time to operate, and it may be slightly easier for me to meet my needs in the modern home.

No building (or individual, or business, or other ephemeral entity) can be sustainable by itself - the concept only has meaning when in a community context.