Towards a zero footprint architecture

Our decisions hold the key to this 21st century environmental enigma.

Is it really possible to go 'zero'?

Consider this. Every act and process putting together a building nowadays involves huge amounts of energy and impacts the environment. Let us assess a few areas:

1. Utilisation of materials to build- virgin, reused, recycled or otherwise
2. Extraction of the raw materials
3. The transportation of these materials
4. The manufacture of building materials..
5. The generation of direct and indirect wastes, and pollution.
6. The consumption of materials in operations- water, energy, fuel, etc.

When we look back, not too long ago, say just over a 100 years, we find that there were hardly any emissions of any kind involved in the usage of materials for building. Energy for extraction, or the synthesis of materials involved the usage of higher degrees of human labour to compensate for any other form of energy. This was so stark that the construction of large institutional buildings like forts, palaces or temples resembled the efforts put in to build the dams of today. Having said that, in India we are still a labour intensive construction industry... which is not altogether a bad thing considering the great amounts of employment that it generates. What is required though is a drastic improvement in working environments and skill levels.

Surely some CO2 emissions and environmental fall outs did result from some construction activities (the institutional causing greater damage than the vernacular). For example, the burning of bricks used as building blocks has remained much the same as today, with vast amounts of wood/coal being used to fire the brick kilns. Sun dried bricks, or Compressed Soil Stabilised Blocks, or, rammed earth walls, using lime as a mortar, need no firing and use solar energy. If we are able to tap into renewable energy sources for construction or material production, we could make material production and usage emission free. 

An iron ore mine in South Goa that has eaten into the biodiversity rich Western Ghats!

Extraction is altogether a different matter. The energy of extraction today involves the spending of large amounts of energy for mining, excavating, etc. In earlier times, the low demand (non-institutional) dictated the rate of extraction, but a market driven new world economy exerts too much pressure here. To keep up the indices of performance, more material is extracted. I have written about this in another blog post. The methods of extraction have also changed significantly. Granite is now blasted out of the ground, while one method from the past used in some places even today , involved the insertion of wooden dowels into the ground and soaking them with water, which would expand during overnight cooling and crack the granite in the desired size. The extraction of stratified rocks like marble and sandstone has seen a similar change, with the inclusion of heavy machinery  against the use of skilled manual labour who would split the marble along its grain, by driving wooden/metal  wedges into the rock. Today, more often than not, vast areas of forests are cleared to reach these raw materials. This leads to the destruction of CO2 banks and the release of these green house gases due to the rotting of this cut-down biomass. Also, forests are sponges of the earth and ensure a healthy water balance, by keeping the ground well hydrated and holding together the top-soil. Once removed, the land gets parched and erodes the soil of essential minerals for sustaining plant life. Dependent fauna are the immediate victims. The massive scale of raw material extraction today has impacts that affect the region beyond the immediate context. I am not too sure if there can be a zero impact extraction method as an alternative, but perhaps we should look at the kind of raw materials that we consume as a start. A larger use of waste as a raw material, easily re-fashionable building components, a more spread out usage of material according to geographic regions might help.

With a booming modern day construction scenario, such sights aren't
that uncommon, but what is not visible to all is the energy consumed!

Today's building materials have often travelled many a mile to get to our construction sites. We do not bat an eyelid about this specially since all aspects of our lives have ceased to be limited by matters of distance. Being a relatively large nation, geographically speaking, industry has spread its tentacles close to their source of raw materials. Vast transportation networks and corridors constantly feed stocks close to our sites relentlessly. The effort to pick up these materials for construction is usually from the local outlets, obscuring completely the energies that go into getting those materials there from the points of manufacture. There are other forces that define the distances our building components travel...  Global aspirations of the project initiator may attract faucets all the way from Europe, or, kitchen equipment from Italy, or, Paints from Korea and so on. This very global economy sometimes also creates a seemingly  improbable yet financially lucrative incentive to by overseas.... a whole lot of building materials today (as many other goods) originate in China.
Over a 150 ears ago, such sourcing would have been the exclusive habit of the kings!! The masses would invariably build what was available locally, therefore more affordable. While it is easy to talk of the use of locally available material, we ought to compliment that with supporting market incentives, upgradation of skill-sets & technologies, and most importantly a sustained education and advocacy effort to sensitise people to the ills of stretching these geographic limits. A few disincentives like a transportation emission tax could provide an encouraging nudge. 

Manufacturing today is a complex science, involving complex systems, resulting in complex products.... and ever so often a set of complex (read harmful) residues/wastes. In the yearning for 'long-lasting' solutions we have taken complex engineering to higher and higher levels, and devised materials that are made of  unbreakable bonds. Be it the plastics that cater from protective sheeting to transparent screens, the laminates for flooring or cladding, the chemical veneers for roof and wall covering/protection, the non abrasive tiles that span our floors (and walls),.... the resulting side-effects are equally strong in their environmental impacts. High energies needed for manufacture of these complex bonds result in high CO2 emissions, Chemical by-products take a toll on our air, soil and water as emitted pollutants, and the products themselves end up leaching poisonous chemicals into their built environs over their lifetimes. For example, Volatile Organic Compounds like lead, Mercury and Arsenic are spewed by most chemically coated surfaces from paints to laminates to carpets. Bituminous compounds used in waterproofing (and in road tops) break up relatively quickly and leach into the ground, contaminating the local aquifers. Perhaps the trick is to stick to near natural states of materials, like earth for construction, bamboo/wood for building structures, lime/mud for wall plaster, stone as cladding and building block, etc. Physically fashioning a natural material to suit an application involves no further chemical contamination, whereas chemically altering compounds is saddled with these toxic extras.

The sun sets behind the smoke stacks of one of our many industrial backyards.

There are scores of materials today that claim to be energy efficient. But we have to put that in context. Energy efficiency in usage (while good) need not be energy efficient in manufacturing. Also, energy efficiency only implies a betterment from the current benchmarks, and does not mean that they are energy positive. Furthermore, when one refers to a zero energy building, a common term today, one normally means the net energy consumption during its lifetime, which does not include the energies that went into the making of the building and its building components. Depending on building use, the energy in building (or embodied energy of building) could be equal to the total energy consumption of the building in its operations. Thus the often used term for zero energy building refers mainly to the operational energy equation, and is not therefore truly zero energy.

I have covered the topic of consumption in an earlier post, and it takes very little to understand that consuming less would have a proportionately lesser footprint. So far, we have seen that we have big decisions to take in the choice of materials to reduce the upstream environmental impacts during extraction, transportation, manufacturing and utilisation. Is it possible to occupy a truly zero ecological footprint architecture? Many examples exist, in our past, in our rural hinterland and in some truly commendable contemporary projects, that hint at the fact we can get there. The necessary ingredient for that though is a complete overhaul of our thinking and gaining insights into our every decision in the building process, from design to occupancy. I remember a Star Trek episode which spoke of a race that chose a passive and low tech living against the high-tech unbridled alternative, for very much the same reasons... to preserve a way of life! 

What sets us apart? Clues to what makes communities sustainable- Spaces

This post marks the second of a series with one common theme..... highlighting the areas of living that set us apart from the way/s we lived in the past (and in some traditional/rural settlements that still persist), and which also mark us as unsustainable communities.Here is the second.

Spaces and communities

Who doesn't like, appreciate or even want a palatial bungalow? What is there not to like.... unless you are thinking of the maintenance costs and other costs of residing in a place like this. Space by itself has become a statement of class. Take a look around... the various peddlers of real estate scream out at you dishing out the larger living rooms, the larger bedrooms, and even larger dining tables.... all for a similar sized family unit. Even the specifications are near similar... the difference however, is the price. Nowadays, there seem to no bounds to what one 'wants' as space, expect perhaps the depth of our pockets.
There are some odd outcomes though..... if one buys into a builder development, then the volumes seem to have shrunk. Wonder why? Floor-to-Ceiling heights now hover at a near universal range, between 9.5 feet to 10 feet. What is ironical, is that this remains nearly the same no matter which city, or, geography we live in. This reduction in space (also reflected in the thinness of walls, is due to the builder maximising on achievable floor area. Most individuals building their own homes would do the same mainly because of costs.... be it due to the direct costs of extra material or due to the paucity of space.
How does space matter? A larger volume would mean more air to warm or cool. Too much or too little space could mean 'thermal discomfort'. Ever wondered why volumes of human habitation shrunk in extremely cold regions.... a lower volume meant lesser air to heat up, and lesser surface area exposed to the outside. More significantly, the heights of these spaces were always kept low.... to prevent any heated air to rise above. In humid regions, the spaces would not be bound, and would allow the free movement of air bringing comfort to the inhabitants. Along the same lines, higher ceilings were common in hot-dry conditions. To further aid this, courtyards were integrated to create a kind of thermo-siphon, venting out the stale hot air from the adjoining spaces, which in turn drew in fresh cooler air from the outer faces. In some cases, Jaalis (delicate stone carved screens) were provided on these outer surfaces, which absorbed the heat from the incoming air. Semi-covered and open spaces played as important a role as covered rooms. Verandahs provided shade in hot regions, and performed open to the breeze spaces in humid regions. Open terraces were rest areas in the hot nights of the northern plains.

Through history, the larger consumers were always the wealthy and ruling classes, and the masses lived in far humbler accommodations shaped by what their need and the hand-me-down knowledge systems. Uncannily, the building forms and methods were also sensible architectural outcomes for each specific geography.
Forget palaces, forts, tombs and temples for a bit, but when one thinks of traditional settlements space and form seem to vary from one region to another. What is starkly different when one compares much of these vernacular forms to present day times is how things were never over-sized. Perhaps the reason is obvious. More space meant more material to provide for an envelope, to provide for finishes and for other aspects of insulation, etc.It also made sense that there was a lot of manual labour involved in the movement of material, and therefore restricting the quantities needed made sense. I am guessing that was one of the prime reasons why material was not moved from very far (surely energy of travel did not figure beyond a monetary sense). Nonetheless, there are lessons here for the these times. In some ways, it is still evident today, in areas which are poorly connected by roads.... a boon if you ask me.
Space also has a clear impact in terms of Aural quality, light quality,and even affect our psychology (I am not referring to any Vaastu/Feng Shui psycho babble)... Many of us know the feeling of claustrophobia in small tight spaces. However, each of these have to be seen in conjunction with other aspects of other finishes. For example, the density, geometry and smoothness quality of the surfaces have an impact on the reflective quality of a space; the size, direction and nature of opening has an impact on light and air movement.... and therefore inside temperature. Shapes of any enclosure may also mean an interesting impact on you both financially and psychology. We already know that more surface area, the higher exposure to the environment... therefore more heat gain or loss, and more surface exposed to rain. The larger the space, the heavier the structure..... therefore greater the anchorage or sizing of foundation.

I did an interesting exercise once (thanks to a great teacher I had the opportunity to work with); I compared two spaces with the same area, one a square and the other a rectangle.... I found that the square space would less to build than the rectangular space, assuming they were built using the same methods and systems. Why? The answer is pretty simple really (once again, not some un-understandable explanation of energy lines and directions, which once cant get). The square has a smaller perimeter than the rectangle... and therefore the total wall area (keeping the height the same) would also amount to less. Extend this to less openings required, etc. Less materials per square foot, and so lower costs. This also meant that the square space was less exposed to the elements, and therefore gained and lost much less heat (if oriented similarly), meaning lesser internal temperature changes, providing for a more comfortable internal environment. You can see how space could also affect health.
I am not advocating a standard usage of square shapes as a result, but only emphasising the need to understand the impacts a space could have on us. From a sustainability point of view, traditional buildings had the advantage of having evolved an architecture with region specific forms and hence a more appropriate building vocabulary. Isn't it time we reconnected once again?

The Sustainable Housing Complex for ACC

Sometimes, even the biggest giants surprise you.

ACC, one of India's super brands and the oldest cement company had set a mandate of going green. Over the last years substantial changes from their composition of cement, to the manufacturing process, and even the way they built their own corporate office were initiated. The mantra in their plants was non-polluting and the greater production of pozzolonic cement. For their buildings were set the goals to achieve the highest standards of green building practices.

Along these lines, ACC had initiated the process of building their entire residential campus for their staff colony of their cement grinding plant at Kudithini, in Bellary, Karnataka, as a sustainable campus. M/s Ashok B Lall Architects, ABLA, from Delhi were roped in as the main Architects for this project. Mr Lall's office went about putting together the remaining team for the project (services consultants, energy consultants, LEED/GRIHA certifcation consultants, Landscape consultants, and last but not the least, the Construction Management Consultants. That is where we (IGH) came in.

As construction management consultants, we had the task of enabling, coordinating and managing the various outcomes of the various consultants. To boot, our programme was by our design, carried out as 'Sustainable Construction Management Consultancy'. By this definition, we took up cudgels on the behalf of the architects to ensure that the entire development, its building construction systems and methods employed would be resource efficient and therefore occupy a low ecological footprint.

The ACC Greens Village, as it was later named, occupied the western section of the larger 240 odd acre campus of the Kudithini cement grinding plant. Area for this campus was demarcated and occupied about 50 acres in all. Going beyond the mandate of designing and building residential quarters and some amenities (amounting to some 83,000 sft), this Village of sorts also incorporated into the brief

• a huge afforestation programme,
• food sustainability- which saw the development of a sizable farm, a cattle shed (for milk) and a fish pond
• rainwater management, harvesting and recharge,
• energy sustainability which saw the incorporation of biomass gassification infrastructure, supplement by woody biomass from the afforestation programme, and a bio-methanisation unit supplement by the dung from the cattle shed.

Our engagement on this project can be highlighted in these following sections:

Development of a prototype structure

The first part of our involvement as a member of this team saw the suggestion of building a prototype structure that would embody all the construction systems envisaged and also serve as a benchmark of quality for the remaining construction to follow. This would also have ensured that all obstacles and hiccups (design or execution) would be limited to just this structure, with smooth sailing on the larger project.

An alternative to RCC slabs

Mr Lall's office had designed some exquisite buildings that were based on solar passive design principles and were based on an innovate thermal management of the interior spaces through cooling tubes, insulation and aided hydration for those hotter months. Essentially, the building type can be described as being sandwiched between cooling tubes to the east and west, and verandahs to the north and south. The cooling tubes had a wind scoop from the northwest and an exhaust side towards the southeast. The verandahs had openable insulated screens that would remain shut during the hotter months (trapping air which would retard any heat exchange) and be kept open for the more cooler months.

One feature designed originally by the ABLA was to pass cool air from the cooling tubes through the slabs of the building, therefore resulting in a deeper RCC slab and with PVC pipes as passages to this air. We suggested an alternative- a pre-cast system, which involved the placing of semi cast latticed RCC rafters and hollow pre-cast blocks that were cast to fit the needed profile. This system involved the usage of lesser concrete than the RCC slab originally suggested, and also meant the reduction in the usage of steel in the slab. One added advantage was the doing away of any shuttering for the in-situ pouring of concrete. Another was quality control. After scrutiny of the system and a visit to a vendor's site, the architects were convinced and the system was chosen.

The rafters were latticed t-beams, and were semi-cast (2 inches of the base was cast first) on the ground and cured. They were then lifted and set in place, using nothing more than a team of four (these rafters were limited to maximum spans of 4 metres). Props are placed at 1.5 metre intervals of each rafter to ensure that no buckling or cracking occurs during construction. The pre-cast filler blocks were made using a custom template on an egg-laying type block making machine. Once cured, they would be lifted into place and set on the protruding flanges of the t-beam. Above this, a grid using welded mesh is placed to cater for any upward thrust. Apart from that in the rafters, this is the only steel in this kind of slab. Concrete is then poured over this to create a layer of 1.5-2 inches above the pre-cast blocks.

As a total, this building used about 1.4 kg per sq ft of steel.... A saving of about 40% steel when compared to a conventionally built structure. (this is in spite of the extra steel used in the RCC tie bands as seismic area construction, and in the precast slabs used to cover the cooling tubes).

Finalising a resource sensitive block

Bellary has predominantly black cotton soil, so the architects had originally opted for a site-cast concrete block for the masonry. I remember having pursued a more resource efficient block from the get go.... We collected soil samples and tested them in Bangalore (including at the IISc Civil Engineering Department). We got mixed results. Then a eureka moment... the Kudithin cement plant had been procuring hundreds of tons of GGBS (ground slag) from the nearby Jindal steel plant. GGBS is a by product of the steel manufacturing process. This was used in the cement that the plant manufactured... and was a pozzolonic material. We checked this out as a substitute at the IISc lab and found that we got incredible strengths even at a high 40% GGBS constitution of the block (the remaining being quarry dust and cement).

The block manufacturing was initiated at site using manual presses, which resulted in the manufacture of over 800-1000 blocks per day. These blocks were designed as 200 thk blocks and were to meet a density requirement of about 2.0 kg/cm3 to ensure a requisite thermal mass design to meet the thermal dynamics of this design. While the contractor employed for the construction of the prototype building was very experienced in soil block making and other alternative construction technologies, we encouraged and roped in three other vendors in block making using the GGBS mix. They would come in handy for the block making for the main project. Despite the expensive procurement rate for the GGBS, we were able to make these blocks more economical than the originally envisaged site made concrete blocks.
An interesting anecdote is that ACC, which had originally initiated building several kilometres of boundary wall around and within their campus with concrete blocks, shifted to using these GGBS blocks.... as it also made financial sense. A big impact of the interventions of the entire team of architects and engineers.
Another impact of building use these site made GGBS blocks, were that we could control quality and due to the good consistency of these blocks, we could afford to leave the walls exposed. Of course this meant that we had to opt for some surface pointing to secure them from any untoward seepage. Being grey, this did mean that an interesting enough aesthetic had to be developed to avoid getting a dull appearance..

Reclaimed timber

At IGH we had been keen to push earlier thresholds of using alternatives for regular timber for doors and windows. The small scale merchants of old timber doors and windows in various parts of Bangalore had always intrigued us and showed promise if only we could use this wonderful resource at a larger scale. These merchants are small time operators and mainly cater to smaller requirements.

The properties of such a timber source is that it can be used as is, if the door/window component is in good shape, or has to be re-sized, planed and finished to suit the new design. The wooden members bear the scars of nails and pegs, that would have been removed in the resizing exercise. Care has to be taken to develop an aesthetic that incorporates these blemishes and scars (which add character to the wood), or, to mask them appropriately. A big benefit of the exercise is that wood can be considered as super treated wood due to both the more thorough treatment processes followed back in the day, and due to the natural conditioning of this wood over the years. Chances of deflection are extremely rare in the use of such wood. Another important aspect to consider while using such wood is that since these merchants don't segregate the wood based on wood type (neem, mathi, teak, sal, etc) the raw material is a mixture. The most one can do (with ease) is to ensure that each door component, is made from one wood. One can tone, or, paint over to bring an element of congruity over a much larger usage.

Most of this wood is sourced from areas that are seeing great urban renewal.... mostly smaller towns of Karnataka. The primary source is a demolition contractor who then re-sells these wooden components to these reused timber merchants.

ABLA was thrilled to have this value addition. The challenge was to find sections that were as wide as the designed double shuttered windows.... we just about managed to get a guarantee of the sections of that width for the entire project. We prepared a list of reused timber merchants and ensured that we could manage scale by using a group of vendors, instead of depending on just one. Eventually, the architects chose to paint these windows and doors with a colour scheme inspired by how rural homes around Bellary always articulated their doors/windows in resplendent colours. 

A lower energy floor

Bellary is situated at the border of central Karnataka and Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh. It is a dry arid belt, and is close to some repositories of granite (in Karnataka) and some slates (from AP). Originally, a granite was considered for all the flooring, but after discussions it was felt that we could achieve a further lower embodied energy footprint by opting for a pigmented cement floor. The logic was that since cement mortar forms the base of all stone floors, we could achieve this by simply eliminating the stone above, and rendering the cement floor well.

The challenge, however, was to get good skills to make these floors. We chose to go for an ochre coloured oxide floor, which would create a nice contrast to the grey surfaces of the GGBS blocks.

We went through a number of mixes of cement and different yellow oxides, and finally settled on the use of white cement instead of grey, and a minimum thickness of 3 mm of this mixture. This brought out the colour of the floor, and avoided the revealing of the lower grey cement base due to the additional thickness of this coat.

It had been common practise to use glass or brass strips in these concrete floors (also seen in cast in-situ mosaic floors) to control expansion cracks. This was not appealing to the design team, so an interesting, but more labour intensive method of laying this pigmented floor was chosen. The floor areas were divided into a 1m x 1m grid of panels. Alternate panels were cast first, and once set, the remaining panels were cast. Yes, this did take a bit more time than casting this floor in one shot, but it also meant that chances of large size cracks would be limited as one could consider the casts as limited to a smaller size, and therefore leading to a controlled expansion and contraction... leading to lesser cracking. Apart from a vibrant aesthetic and being a more resource efficient alternative, this also saved the client money as a pigmented cement floor costs much less than a stone floor.

Oh... those high energy industrialised tiles (vitrified, ceramic, etc) were not even an option!!

Bamboo engineered wood replacing plywood

As per the thermal management design of this building type, adjustable screens were provided in the verandahs. The purpose of these screens was to provide an adjustable thermal barrier when needed. These screens were panels that were built around a metal frame. The core layer was insulation and it was clad with plywood and a thin veneer on either side. To reduce the usage of conventional wood (plywood being a contributing factor) we proposed the usage of Bamboo mat board, BMB, as a replacement to the plywood. BMB is an engineered product that is a glued laminate of several bamboo mats. As BMB was attractive by itself, one did not require the use of a veneer over this. BMB is akin to marine grade ply and some manufacturers make versions that are external grade, with a protective UV resistant coat. Bamboo being a renewable resource (it is actually a fast growing grass and not a wood), is the ideal resource for the manufacture of woody boards, sheets, etc. An aside- bamboo is said to sequester more carbon than most woods.
There are a number of manufacturers of such Bamboo Enginnered products in the country, but there are differences in quality. (incidentally, there are is a Bamboo Mat Corrugated Sheet, BMCS, alternative to corrugated tin sheets.

A non-toxic anti-termite method

Sustainability or not, whether we withdraw water from the ground of not, the usage of any toxic substance for any activity is a strict NO. Anti-termite solutions are injected in great amounts into and around the excavation works during the start of construction, and we were concerned about such mindless injection of toxins into the soil. An alternative neem-based solution that we had been using for many years was employed to overcome this. The application method is pretty much the same,.. the difference being that the vendor who promoted this product would readily take a swig of this solution to drive home the point that it was harmless to humans, and not a poison.

Apart from these main interventions, there were many other significant but often overlooked options that were put in use in the construction of this building. For example-

• the usage of quarry dust instead of sand in plastering, mortar and concrete..... which is mostly dredged (illegally) from riverine systems
• the architects designed an attractive masonry railing, which used thinner GGBS blocks between bands of kadappa (a slate) and bethamchella (a smooth limestone).... reducing the usage of steel.
• the architects, along with the structural consultant, designed an interesting box trench foundation, specially for the black cotton soil of this region. Essentially, it was a lean concrete mix using large stone aggregate that was filled into this trench and allowed to cure. It was simple to execute and saved us many man-days, and did not need any reinforcement.

In parallel, while the mock-up building came up, other works related to the rest of the main project had been initiated. While the usual large scale vendor finalisation and tendering processes unfurled, another interesting story involving bamboo is worth covering.

As part of the campus, the architects had developed an interesting club building. The form was dramatic, with a gently angled roof protruding from two sides and held over slender built-up columns. The span of the building roof was 120ft x 80 ft. This roof was originally designed as a series of steel trusses (curiously designed to have an inverted arc like profile as it's bottom section) supporting a galvalum sheet roofing. There was also an interesting heat management process designed by the incorporation of a 'silver ceil' insulating fabric stretched across below this truss, ensuring that whatever heat is gained by the roof, is not transferred to the large hall below. The architects had designed this interesting mechanism to manage the venting of this roof.

While we could not but be appreciative of this design, we felt that we could try an alternative to those steel trusses. We proposed the use of bamboo trusses, and even roped in a specialised agency, WonderGrass, to back this. It was decided that a prototype of this truss would be developed in full scale and tested. Apart from this the prototype for the roof structures of three utility buildings (housing the barn, cowshed and gassifier) was also proposed. We worked with ABLA and WonderGrass to finalise this truss design and the prototype development was initiated. As a result we have managed to assemble and erect an 80 ft long truss... a testimony to the structural properties of bamboo and an elegant alternative to steel.

The ACC Greens Village is significant as it highlights innovate use of cement, apart from other building materials & systems, in creating a low ecological footprint built environment. It was also a momentous occasion for ACC, having achieved a significant milestone towards its agenda in promoting sustainability. Here's to the rest of the project.
Click here for more pics of the project.

Colour and building traditions

Sometimes you look at a building and you have no idea why a particular colour or colour scheme was used.

What is the significance of colour choices for your building? Does colour define you? Does it slot you as belonging to a certain community? When you look at traditional architecture, specifically when you go back in time, colour seemed to occupy a very important place in both breathing life into the architecture and in assisting in one identifying the building that belonged to a particular region, or, a particular people... sometime pin-pointing the particular sub-group or family.

Colours also seemed to have a deeper significance... for example door frames and thresholds were painted a specific colour.... maybe with an intention to sanctify the entry. A quasi religious significance was given to the colours used and as a result, other colours that were reflective of a community found place on the built. At the least, the built became an extension of the people, or, a mark of the people inhabiting them.

Like many other aspects of building traditions, we seem to have lost our bearings a bit on the role and irrelevance of colour in our buildings. Like the forms imported (sorry, influencing) our architecture seem to have shed any connects with the traditions of colour and built form. Today's buildings seem to follow a borrowed identity and design philosophy, not one that has come about as a process of gradual change due to factors influencing culture, politics and people. We seem to have been shocked into this new identity, resulting in an amnesia of sorts when it comes to referencing our traditions and built heritage.

Maybe how history has been written has contributed to this. Our appreciation of our architectural remnants and ruins are primarily done in their present form, and not from a knowledge of what was. It is almost as if we are referencing only the skeletal remains, without understanding the flesh, skin and personality. When one designs a courtyard, the starting point is an empty court, which remains empty during the design process. How does that court change due to people? When we populate these spaces, and breathe life into its occupants, then it is but natural for that to reflect on the personality of the place itself.

Today, modern architectural principles still influence us (in this part of the world), to limit the colour to be an honest extension of the colour of the material used. So wood looks like wood, and brick has to look like brick and so on. While one can relate that, what happens to colour as colour itself?

This is not as much a case for the use of colour, but us to develop an understanding of its relevance as a part of the built.

The value of embodied energy in this world of energy efficiency

The world of today seems to be caught in this frenzy of energy efficiency... ok maybe only that part of the world that is focussing on reducing our impacts on the environment. Rightly so. The dots have been connected from the spending of units of electricity or fuel from petroleum products and coal to the emission of Carbon Dioxide into the environment. Various figures are thrown around ranging from around 1 kwh of electricity leading to between 0.8 to 1.2 kg of CO2. Similarly, 1 litre of diesel or 1 kg of coal burnt leads to about 3.2 and 2.3 kg of CO2 emissions.
The significance of energy efficiency by reducing energy consumption in any form is significant. A residential building for example stands to reduce about 1 ton of CO2 emissions every year, by adopting specific energy efficiency measures. This example however, is for a home in Bangalore that uses air-conditioning moderately. The emission reduction by taking such steps can vary hugely in different categories of residences and is more significant in higher energy consuming built environments- commercial buildings, 24x7 office buildings, air conditioned complexes, hospitals and industry. But any savings is significant, specially if you extrapolate it across an entire city, or, nation.
But what about the making of the building itself? Any building activity today is supported by huge energy guzzling building materials and services industry, not to mention the transportation of materials. More products are today industrialised than ever before... Demand for more buildings fuels more such industry and therefore a greater consumption of natural resources with expenditure of huge amounts of energy in doing so. It is only fair to take into consideration all this energy, or, the proportionate share of that per square metre of building built as the energy of making that building. The embodied energy of a building therefore, is the sum of the total embodied energy of all parts of the building. This embodied energy calculated in Mega or Giga Joules or in kwh is converted to achieve the sum CO2 emissions in kg or tonnes.
There are a slew of embodied energy figures for various materials, and the list is not exhaustive... from an Indian perspective, but Institutes like IISc and IIT Roorkee are taking their shot at providing some baseline figures.
The savings calculations however are an entirely different deal. The current method is to compare the sum embodied energy of your building to that of a baseline.... which, in simple terms means a building that can be considered similar in size, scale, purpose and group that it caters to, but built using conventional, current and commonly used building materials and systems. However, the more efficient way, is to compare your savings (in terms of your design and layout) to the alternative materials and systems that you could have used in the very same building that is being assessed.
So how much can we save by reducing the embodied energy of a building? A substantial sum depending on the choice of building material, system and the management of construction. In one building that we built, we estimated about 20,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions saving for about 25,000 sq metres of construction....while in an another building the figure same figure fell to about 5,000 tonnes for a building of about 8000 square metres. Why the difference? Simple. One building adopted achieved greater reductions due to the kind of technologies adopted....building blocks, avoiding a basement, flooring choices, etc. The savings could have been more in the first building.... if we had adopted a more energy efficient alternative to the RCC slab... or, by finding better alternatives to the internal roads built.
A building takes anywhere from 8 months to about 36 months to build, depending mainly on size and scale, and therefore the time frame for these substantial emissions for the building process is also limited to that. Energy savings in operations on the other hand adds up over the lifetime of the usage of the building. Savings in embodied energy could range from about 0.5 to 1.0 tonne per square metre. In a residential building, the energy spent ranges from about 5 to upwards of 20 kwh per square metre per year depending on the income group and the level of air-conditioning. In 20 years, this translates to about 100 kg to 400 kg of CO2 emissions. In a commercial building, a savings of about 50kwh per annum per square metre would mean a CO2 emissions savings of about 80-100 kg. In about 20 years, that would mean about 2 tonnes of CO2 emissions saved.
Just by these above cases, it is clear that the impact of how we build is significant and that one cannot neglect the CO2 emissions savings due to choices made in the building process.

Seeking the language (reasons) for an appropriate architecture

In the context of finding that all elusive architecture that belongs, while it addresses both regional needs and global aspirations, we often find the built around us are compromises.

Village House fore court near Nurthyang, Meghalaya

The new found Green rush has thrown up various building solutions to achieve a version of buildings that are responsible to the environment. But are they? Just glance back at the past 50 years or so, and we see a transformation of our urban scape. Roll back another 50 and the differences are glaring. As a parallel exercise, venture out about  50 km from wherever you are in the city and you start seeing examples of a building tradition that seem vestiges of a past in the context of this rapidly changing urban form. Should we construe that the past, which continues to exist even today in subdued forms are passe, and not relevant?
Apply the same filters of assessing their environmental impact from today's green building perspective on them, and we find that they occupy a category that is difficult to emulate.... in other words, as green as it gets. On an other thread look at urban developments across the country and across the world and all this new architecture seems related... country cousins aspiring to follow a trend.
So why do we continue with this inertia of propagating this borrowed architectural model? While it is not hard to see that they do reflect a growing global community, it is difficult to trace a path of transformation, a rationalised process of closure of (or change from) what was, on to the emergence of a new urbanity. Any acceptable change, is a process of evaluating the reasons for change, adopting new ideas that satisfy the reasons for change and discarding those that don't apply, in the process effecting a familiar (understandable) transformation.
Let us look at some of the traits/requirements of the traditional buildings that occupy one of the sub regions of India.
Let's start with the obvious one, climate-  At a macro level, India demands a tropical architecture (with regional variations and exceptions).... an architecture that is designed to keep the insides of the building cooler... not letting heat creep in. However, there are various sub requirements of doing the same....

• keeping the insides cooler, but in a region of high humidity
• keeping the insides cooler, but in a high rainfall area
• keeping the insides cooler, but in a dry and arid area
• keeping the insides cooler, but tackling a saline and corrosive air
• keeping the insides cooler, but managing a high glare factor.

Surely, the solutions and the resulting architecture would vary for each of these situations.

New Wood construction house at Malkota, HP

Add another trait layer, natural resources-  the western ghats (Kerala, coastal Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra have laterite rich reserves, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have rich granite reserves, Andhra has limestone and a variety of slates, Rajasthan has innumerable sandstones and marbles, the north-east is an explosion of a bamboo, cane and other grasses, Most of the Central and Gangetic India has quartzite, sandstones, Himalayan architecture is a mixture of adobe, slate, and wood. Bricks made all across India, were traditionally of different sizes, shapes and hues... reflecting the soils of the various regions. Carpentry skills vary where timber use was prevalent. True, there was a difference between Institutional and the vernacular.... but the vernacular was even more rooted. The vernacular sees employment of the most local and prevalent of skills that are associated to the natural resources of the region, a building system that is rapidly renewable, and materials for construction that can be carted from nearby. The building methods were kept simple and used no polluting energies... only human, or animal.

We see ourselves stepping into another trait, culture and building traditions-  In traditional buildings, we see people and culture entwined with the architecture. We see the work of artisans and crafts persons, and not merely contractors. Wonder why? There connect between the crafts person, his craft and the region from which he hailed was umbilical in nature. Every region's buildings reflected a stamp left by the craft persons who worked on it, that was unique. Such craft also reflected a connect with both the natural resources strengths and the climatic attributes of the region. For example, the stone jaali work of Rajasthan and the hot-dry central northern plains, play the dual role of both providing privacy to women inhabitants and cooling hot air as it swept through these stone screens. The Internal courtyard reflected the private usage of an inner-outdoor space and also ventilated the stale air from the rooms surrounding it.The tiny earthen and wood habitations of the Himalayas reflected both the outdoor culture of it's people, and also kept the inner spaces warm at night. The densely packed urban conglomerations of the northern plains indicate the need for shade in the streets. Similarly, the loosely stacked homes in coastal Tamil Nadu demonstrate the need for air to circulate freely to tackle high humidity.

We see that all these aspects of climate, natural resource strengths, cultural needs and building traditions result in a multitude of architectural styles and sub-styles uniquely linked with the sub regions of this country. So what about the architecture of today? More and more, we are accepting trends, dimensions, expression and material thrown up by a global community, rather than seeking a honest (honourable) transformation (connect) vis-a-vis our building heritage. Why? Maybe in this age of quick-fix solutions, when we continue to seek for that elusive language of architecture that would be deemed appropriate, we actually seek reasons to belong...be a part of this emerging global village... uninterested in the consequences of this change.

Where do we start if we were to design an architecture that is appropriate to place and time (place representing natural resources, skill sets and culture, and time representing the changing cultures and new aspirations)? We could start by asking questions like these:

• What building material groups would I choose to ensure that the building gains less heat? (Doesn't a predominantly glass facade defeat the basic premise of that choice?)
• What building form would I employ that addresses other climatic attributes of the sub-region like humidity, rain, etc?
• How were current uses of the building addressed by traditional counterparts, and are they relevant today from a socio-cultural point of view?
• Which natural resources are available for me to employ sustainably, or more honestly, with lesser environmental damage? For example, excessive laterite mining for construction in the western ghats is today an environmental issue..... so what would be the alternative?
• Do I have a responsibility towards current livelihoods linked to building traditions? How do I employ those valuable skills?
• How would I balance the issue of glare and the desire of a more social people, without compromising on heat gain?
• Traditional vernacular architecture occupied a minimal resource/skill footprint, and a near zero carbon footprint.... Since a large ecological footprint is undesirable (within this 'climate of change'), then how small a footprint can I make?
• .... and more!

What is more dangerous when exaggerated? Global aspirations negating tradition and the associated identity, or, negotiated change. Choose wisely.

Lessons learnt for building design from the experience of driving

How many of us have had this experience? Park the car out in the sun and return after a couple of hours.... and we reel back due to the excessive heat within.

To counter this, we do two things:

• One, we park the car in the shade
• Two, we roll down a couple of windows of the car down a crack

In both cases, we have a great level of comfort that is achieved, at least when we compare this to the very first experience. Now let us look at both these changes to the situation closely.

The first instance, where the car was parked in the shade benefited due to the reduction of direct incident radiation. Nothing else changed, only the external environment was modified by introducing an obstruction to the direct sunlight.

The second instance, where the car was parked with the windows slightly down benefited due to the hotter air being vented out from the upper portions of the car, where this internal air is hottest. Nothing here was changed, only the body of the car was made to breathe.

Cut to how a building works for a bit. The body of the car can be compared to the building shell- the walls, the roof, the windows, etc. The windows of the car are akin to the openings on a building- windows, ventilators, clear storeys, etc. How the skin of the car works in affecting the internal thermal environment is comparable to that of the building shell.

If we consider how this shell works in keeping the car thermally comfortable, we find that in most instances it seems to fail, as in the example given above. The point that I am making is that the entire shell of the car (the insulation included) that was meant to manage the gain of heat (in hotter climates) and the subsequent loss of coolth (yes, it is a word in the HVAC industry)  from internal air-conditioning, was inadequate in doing so. I wonder (humour me for a bit), if we had designed cars with a secondary shade providing shell (forget the aerodynamics for a bit), perhaps with perforations (kind of like a jaali), which would perform like a self venting system of sorts, would we have reduced the insulation that the car would have ordinarily needed? Could such a cutting off of direct heat radiation also have lead to a reduced usage of air-conditioning?
Let us now apply the same logic to how a building is designed. Current practises take into consideration local climatic conditions and then design the building shell with materials (or composites) with the desired u-values to ensure an appropriate thermal flow balance. Like in the case of the car, this extra insulation of the building can be reduced by first starting with a modelling method that adopts aspects of shading and venting on a shell with conventional specs. In hotter climates (like most areas in the plains of India) where it is all about keeping the heat out, this would apply greatly.
A double shell  for instance could also be designed to provide extra strength.... a greater base level of air-exchanges would also ensure better internal air quality.... and eventually, a building so designed would end up spending less on air-conditioning costs.
Similarly, other thermal comfort influencers like humidity, can also be addressed by drawing on such parallels/inspiration. Ever wondered why when it is uncomfortably humid, and you are driving, you feel much better, by just rolling the windows down? The breeze helps remove the perspiration, and one starts feeling better. Now, in the building context, when it is humid, all one has to do, is to induce such an air movement. It is not necessary to jump straight to air-conditioning.
Many of us hasten to switch on the AC in the car and do so primarily because we cant stand the dust and pollution of our cities. A similar scenario of dust is played out in buildings, and somehow and air-conditioned environment is always seen as the universal solution. When all we needed was a dust screen! We know that plants perform that role and so do artificial louvres and 'jaalis'. Incorporating such measures would surely address dust control but don't you think that it could also add some vitality to otherwise banal façades?
So, what say we take one hard look at the experience of driving and how we deal with thermal comfort...again?