Journal of Environment and Earth Science www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-3216 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0948 (Online) Vol.6, No.6, 2016 76 Technological Capabilities and Sustainable Housing Delivery: Case Studies from Nigeria Stephen Nwabunwanne Oluigbo * Abraham Carisma Odoh Department of Architecture, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 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 1. Introduction The challenge of providing sustainable housing in developing countries such as Nigeria, is enormous and multifaceted. One dimension deals with the process for speedy delivery of housing to the populace, while the other deals with the creation of products (housing) within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems. Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development (FMLHUD, 2012), stated that Nigeria’s housing deficit is estimated at about 17 million units. This, as Ashkin (2013) puts it, required an investment of about $600 billion, based on an average house price of five million naira. This is approximately equal to the value of all the oil Nigeria has pumped since independence. Similarly, Ayedun and Oluwatobi (2011) noted that only 10 per cent of Nigerians can afford to own a house either by purchase or personal construction, as compared to the 72 percent in the United States, 78 percent in the United Kingdom, 60 percent in China, 54 percent in Korea and 92 percent in Singapore. This is against the fact that the right to housing embedded in the universal declaration of human rights and major international human rights treaties such as the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. With this deficit however, Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital City, is spotted by many unoccupied houses. This is attributed to the fact that many of these houses are not affordable to majority of residents in the city. The most vulnerable in terms of lack of access to decent and affordable housing are the low-income group. To further compound the challenge, the population of this group has been on the increase due to rapid urbanization. Gilkinson and Sexton (2007) emphasized the importance of affordability as a key requirement of sustainable housing. Jiboye (2011) noted that to achieve sustainable development, housing policy should be in agreement with the existing national and socio-cultural realities of the country. According to Newton (1999), the real concern is the search for and the encouragement of methods and materials to achieve safe and durable houses that people can go on using with the skills and resources locally available to them. It is in this light that this paper examines the role of building materials and technology in the search for sustainable housing in Nigeria. 2. Technological and Sustainable Housing Right through the ages, it is clear that the type of houses (shelter) present in a society was a reflection of the technological development of that society, and was evolved based on widely available materials, skills, and capabilities. This buttresses the fact that sustainable housing is context specific and cannot be borrowed, but must evolve, or be locally developed. Any technologies which are globally considered environmentally sustainable but cannot be executed locally and continually cannot not be adjudged sustainable in the context of housing delivery. For sustainable housing delivery, capabilities are required both in the processing, refining, and improvement of readily available and renewable building materials into more acceptable forms, and in the construction process. The search for sustainable housing in Nigeria and developing countries in general should aim at reducing import- dependence and strengthening of domestic technological capability and locally produced building materials for housing construction (Oruwari, Jev and Owei, 2002). It is in line with this that Olotuah and Bobadoye (2009: 59) defined sustainable housing provision as “the gradual, continual and replicable process of meeting the housing needs of the populace, the vast majority of who are poor and are incapable of providing adequately for themselves“.