Training on Sustainable Building Design Processes

Date: September 21-26, 2020

The Sustainable Habitat team conducted an online training titled 'Sustainable Building design processes' over the week from 21st to 26th September. The 27 participants represented a diverse background that included academia from engineering and architecture colleges, facility managers, students, practising engineers and architects.

Day 1 was dedicated to the impact that Covid would have on urbanization and future built environment, the sessions began with Ms. Roychowdhury's address on how Covid 19 disrupted the entire paradigm of the built environment. There is a need to rethink how we plan and design our habitat. She highlighted the linkages between air pollution, liveability and mobility issues and how these can be addressed by a new generation of built spaces, stimulated by the ongoing pandemic in a session titled 'Reinventing public transport and mobility in the new normal'. The next session was dedicated to 'Housing people not diseases' in which Mr. Rajneesh Sareen spoke about the challenges in housing sector including CSE's research in housing sector in Telangana and how ventilation strategies play a huge part in site layout, this was followed by Ms. Mitashi's lecture on 'Emerging paradigm in mass housing in India' , The session pointed out several new approaches in the housing sector required to address the impact of covid-19, liveability and sustainability goals. These comprise redefining affordability, inclusive master planning, self-sufficiency, accessibility to basic services and infrastructure among others.

Day 2 introduced the participants to the various codes related to sustainability in built environment in the country such as the Model Building Bye Laws, Environmental Impact Assessment, these sessions taken up by Mr. Rajneesh Sareen took participants into the journey of the bye laws and environmental safeguards in the built environment and the various steps a project goes through based on categorization of project. The code applicable on residential projects - Eco Niwas Samhita also known as the ECBC-R was taken up by Mr. Sugeet Grover in the last session of the day.

Day 3 was dedicated to environmental services and green elements that aid in enhancing microclimate. Ms. Mitashi Singh introduced these services and discussed the principles of resource efficient planning for cities and neighbourhoods. Mr. Rajneesh Sareen detailed the data requisites and techniques of implementing the environmental services and green elements in a site. Mr. Sugeet Grover engaged the participants in exercises to design these green elements in a mass housing site.

Day 4 took participants into a deep dive into the issue of thermal comfort and the multiple aspects associated with it. Starting from influencing the micro climate and Urban Heat island effect of a site and the overall scale of urbanization to the material choices that guide the designer to increase occupant comfort. The sessions taken up by Mr. Sugeet Grover ended with introduction of an exercise on designing passive strategies depending on the participants local climatic conditions.

Day 5 began with a session by Mr. Avikal Somvanshi highlighting the issue of Construction and Demolition waste that plagues this country and the steps needed for this to be solved. This was followed by Mr. Sugeet's session on the various construction technologies as mentioned in the BMTPC compendium and CSE's research 'Optimizing the third skin'. The last session had participants presenting the exercise form the previous day.

Day 6 was dedicated to a session based on Energy Conservation Building Code and a hands on Daylighting simulation exercise taken up by Architect Gaurav Shorey. Participants learnt to build a simulation model and understand the results of the simulation exercise.