An Approach for the Integration of Sustainable Strategies from Hausa Traditional Architecture on Contemporary Building Designs in Urban Built Environments in Tropical Climate: A Discourse

The paper attempt to identify sustainable strategies and concepts to stimulate discussion on integrating sustainability in the planning of buildings particularly in contemporary African societies and the role of traditional architecture in empowering and enabling the promotion of sustainable urban built environment. It also argues as biased the recent arguments, by some scholars, on sustainable environment which placed importance on modern technology and the visual environment though putting slight prominence on the natural and green environment in African cities. It again argues that traditional architectures in Africa usually contain sound concepts and strategies which certainly if considered would improve sustainability of the urban built environments. Certainly, the operation of unsuitable modern technologies, appliances, and resources in buildings have endangered the environment and the health of people. This paper therefore addresses the factors of sustainability in Hausa traditional architecture in Northern Nigeria as case study, and attempt to show how those factors could be utilized in the contemporary planning and designs of building hoping it would improve and contribute to the living standard in Africa urban built environment.