12-14 September, 2011, Lucknow - Earth Science India

National Conference on Science of Climate Change and Earth’s Sustainability: Issues and Challenges ‘A Scientist-People Partnership’
12-14 September, 2011, Lucknow
into the construction industry (all scales and types) that it is impossible to visualize a
structure (however small or even temporary) without the use of cement. The tendency
then is twofold; one both regresses in time and researches the use of traditional building
techniques and materials largely phased out (like mud and straw), or one looks to
modern research and technology to provide an alternative (cement).
Both approaches have their place in the ongoing search for green practices in
architecture. It is also true that neither have as yet produced viable alternatives that have
large scale acceptance. One hopes that this research will bear fruit and open up exciting
avenues in building design and construction.
However, the need for green buildings is much more pressing does not allow a
waiting for solutions. What one needs to do now is to explore a middle path; one which
is most easily comprehended and therefore most likely to be executed by the majority of
society in developing countries.
The case example deals with a design competition entry of a Sustainable Building
Technology Center proposed at Kasarwadi near Pune in India. The SBTC aims at
propagating energy-efficient building practices amongst those directly and indirectly
related to the building industry and otherwise as a vehicle for increasing awareness in
this respect. It goes without saying that a center of this nature had to be an “energy and
resource efficient” building/campus in the truest sense. Therefore, the kind of
technologies adopted and propagated by the Center addressed the issue of mass scale
acceptance calling for careful and place-sensitive selection of sustainable building
practices. The emphasis was on the use of solutions that were most easily understood
and implemented. The proposal based itself on two broad aspects –
Environmental/Energy and Architecture; both inherently interlinked and reflections of
each other.
One maintains that such design interventions, applied over a large number of
building projects, will definitely have a profound effect on our energy consumptions.
This paper sets out to illustrate, through a case example, a viable list of “things to do”
while academia comes up with a solution to our present state of crisis.
And indeed, there is much that can be done.
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