Intelligent Building Design and Sustainable Architectural Technology for National Transformation (Published)
Africans have lived intelligently for centuries and this is no less evident in their intelligent abodes which for all intent and purposes served its usefulness as shelter from the elements and functional space and also as a safe and comfortable environment for the body and by extension the mind / soul, therefore it would be wrong to see the temporary nature of many traditional buildings as epitomizing an unstable, and unsure society. For many societies, survival was dependant on preserving a delicate balance of forces and treading and re-treading a path worked out empirically over many generations. Each generation had to reassert the way and pass on the method to the next. This paper intends to lightly examine the demonstrations of intelligent building (design) by Africans in the past and attempt to show a careful selective emulation of such practices from the past can hopefully contribute toward National Transformation or at least the dawning of a National transformation agenda. This may allow us a nation an opportunity to look inward, backward and innately at the lessons of the past to enable us project to the future in order to deal with the present.
Keywords: Intelligent, Intelligent Building Design, National, Technology, Transformation