CSE on World Cities Day 2021

On the occasion of WORLD CITIES DAY 2021, the habitat team conducted sessions for a webinar 'TRACE' on the theme- ADAPTING CITIES FOR CLIMATE RESILIENCE- Mitigation Strategies. The webinar was organized by Sri Venkateswara College of Architecture, Hyderabad for academia. CSE has done extensive research on the topic of affordable housing, thermal comfort and sustainability in built environment in Telangana and the two sessions encompassed the research.

Mr. Rajneesh’s session was on the topic of Sustainability and resilience in built environment and talked about the two major threats faced by the built environment due to climate change, rise in ambient temperature and irregular patterns of precipitation leading to collapse in urban infrastructure. This requires us to reimagine and update our planning principles to resist the negative effects associated with extreme weather events. This was followed by Mr. Sugeet’s session on Rise in temperature: Need for course correction. The session highlighted the national targets such as the India cooling action plan which talk about sustainable cooling and thermal comfort for all and the challenges in achieving a more resilient built environment amidst rise in global temperatures. Thermal discomfort due to rise in temperature will have repercussions on energy as well as health, affecting the most vulnerable sections of the society- the urban poor. The session stressed on the need to mitigate urban heat island effect and enhance the building envelopes by involving climate appropriate designs, ventilation strategies and materials.