Benefits Of Green Building Better Health and Productivity By virtue of the strategies and materials used, green buildings

improve employee health and productivity. Statistical data estimates worker productivity increases of about 15-20% in LEED rated buildings. Businesses are leaning towards high performance buildings not only to retain employees and reduce absenteeism but also to benefit financially from higher output. Low Life Cycle cost Overall life cycle costs of a LEED rated building is significantly lower than conventional buildings. A 2003 study conducted by the California Sustainable Building Task Force shows that an initial increase in first costs of approximately 2% for green design will yield lifecycle savings of more than ten times the initial investment, or 20% of total construction costs. The exceptional saving is a result of lower electricity consumption, higher efficiency HVAC system, lower operating and maintenance costs as well as enhanced worker productivity. Platinum rated CII Godrej Building in Hyderabad has achieved 63% reduction in energy consumption amounting to an annual cost savings of INR 9 lac. Reduced Liability Clean and healthy buildings can also reduce legal claims and liabilities for the owner. Business Week's June 5, 2000, cover story reported that "sick building" cases, often filed against building owner/operators, are becoming more and more common. With the recent explosion in mold-related claims, insurance companies have begun to take defensive action with mold exclusion clauses and rate hikes. Some industry experts are even predicting that insurance companies will start linking lower premiums to high performance buildings. Enhanced Building Marketability A building that maintains its value through high occupancy and less maintenance demands higher market valuation and is readily saleable. Lower operating and maintenance costs result in elevated cash flow which helps free capital for new investments. In addition, LEED rated buildings demand higher premiums and are attractive to buyers in a challenging real estate market. Cost-Effective Design Strategically planned integrated design can typically yield energy savings in the order of 25-30%. Design strategies such as building orientation, natural ventilation natural daylight, onsite renewable technologies, downsizing of HVAC and other equipment makes green building a paragon of cost-effective design. Better Environment In addition to environmental benefits such as reduction of solid waste, improvement in air and water quality and conservation of natural resources, LEED certified buildings also recognize the importance of environmental responsibility by complying with the Kyoto and Montreal international framework convention on climate change. Mechanical systems in green buildings use environmental responsible refrigerants with low leakage rate, minimal ozone depletion and global warming potential. A high performance green building is one of the most tangible expressions of commitment towards sustainability and environmental responsibility.

The Torrent Research Centre in Ahmedabad.

Project Details
Architects and Interior Consultants: Nimish Patel and Parul Zaveri, Abhikram, Ahmedabad, India

Environmental Consultants: Brian Ford , Short + Ford Associates, London, UK (Typical Laboratory Block) and CL Gupta, Solar Agni International, Pondicherry, India (Remaining Blocks) Structural Consultant: Utility Consultant: Landscape Consultant: Lighting Consultant: Yogesh Vani Consulting Engineers, Ahmedabad, India Dastur Consultant Pvt. Ltd., Delhi, India Kishore Pradhan, Mumbai, India Paresh Shah, Sukriti Design Incorporated, USA

Civil Contractors: Laxmanbhai Constructions (India) Pvt Ltd., MB Brothers Ltd., Shetusha Engineers and Contractors Pvt. Ltd., Materials Corner, JK Builders. Project Period: Size: 1994-99 Built-up area is approximately 19700 m

The Torrent Research Centre (Gujarat, India) is a complex of research laboratories with supporting facilities and infrastructures, located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. This building uses Passive Downdraft Evaporative Cooling for a large scale office building and demonstrates that it is possible to achieve human comfort in dry hot regions without using regular HVAC systems and without compromising the cost of construction. Developed societies, with their sustained focus on the increasing importance of individuals, have made mechanical cooling an inherent necessity in any modern building in semi-arid regions of the world. Consequently, a majority of the buildings designed in such regions assume the use of artificial lighting and air-conditioning systems, even during daylight hours, for achieving human comfort conditions. For many years now, through our architectural practice, we have been trying to establish that such assumptions are a myth, in addition to being detrimental to the objectives of resource conservation, particularly for the developing countries like India. Nimish Patel and Parul Zaveri. SFA were appointed to give their inputs for one laboratory block. Allen Short visited Ahmedabad in May 1993 to understand the environmental conditions and evolve a preliminary concept of the building, using ground cooling as the primary approach. Since the temperatures at the appropriate depth under the ground were not found to be as low as required, this approach was abandoned in favor of the sealed evaporative cooling from the roof, with designated inlets and outlets for the movement of air. This approach is now known as the Passive Downdraft Evaporative Cooling (PDEC) method. The design of the building facilitates generating an air draft, assuming still air conditions. The air heats up in the peripheral shafts, rises and escapes through the openings at the top. The air in this volume gets replaced from the usable spaces, which in turn receives its own replacement through the concourse area, on top of which the air inlets are located. The entering air is sprinkled with a fine spray of water mist at the inlet, during hot temperatures outside. This facilitates downdrafts. At each floor level, sets of hopper windows designed to catch the descending flow, can be used to divert some of this cooled air into the adjacent space. Having passed through the spaces, the air then exits via high level glass louvers openings which connect directly to the perimeter exhaust shafts towers that suck the air and create a circulation across the building insuring the displacement of fresh air along the day. During the warm humid monsoon season when the use of the sprayed water would be inappropriate, the ceiling are brought into operation to provide additional air movement in the office and laboratories. In the cooler season the operating strategy is designed to control the ventilation, particularly at night, to minimize heat loss, this is done simply by the users adjusting the hopper windows and openings in their individual spaces to suit their requirements.

Overall control of the solar heat gain is achieved by judicious design of the glazing. The fixed windows are the only decided quantum and shaded externally, not only in the horizontal plane by overhangs, but also in the vertical one by the air exhaust towers which project from the faade. The buildings are thermally massive -the reinforced concrete construction framed structure has cavity brick infill walls, plastered inside and out, and the hollow concrete blocks filling the roof coffers, also plastered inside with vermiculite used as an insulating material on both roof and walls. External surfaces are white, the walls painted, the roof using a china mosaic finish.

Consequences:
The consequences of this major experiment have been under observation since the first occupation of the buildings, and will continue to be carried out for the coming years. In the summers, the inside temperatures have generally not exceeded 31C to 32C, when the outside temperatures have risen up to 44C, a 12-13C drop The temperature fluctuations inside the building have rarely exceeded beyond 3C to 4C over any 24 hour period, when the temperature fluctuations outside were as much as 14C to 17C. The economic viability of the project is demonstrated by the following indicators, which are computed for the total project, on the basis of the results from the buildings under observation. Additional civil works cost of the project including insulation etc. works out to about 12% to 13% of the civil works cost of a conventional building; Air-conditioning plant capacity saved is about 200 M. Tonnes. The cumulative capital cost of the civil works and the A.C. plant works out to approximately Rs.50.0 lakhs more than the conventionally designed buildings. The annual savings in the electrical consumption including the savings on account of less use of artificial lighting during the day is approximately Rs.60.0 lakhs. The pay-back period of the additional capital cost, from the saving of the electrical consumption alone, works out to a little less than 1 year.

The pay-back period for the cost of the construction of the entire complex, from the savings of the electrical consumption as well as plant replacement costs, works out to around 15 years.

In 2004-05, a Post Occupancy Survey was carried out by Building Use Studies at the behest of University of Technology, Sydney, Australia & Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. This survey shows that the building, which was designed for 150-175 occupants, is still seen as adequately comfortable when the number of occupants has increased to more than 600, a 250 % increase.

Conclusions:
It is possible to make a difference in the human comfort conditions without having to depend on excessive use of electrical/ mechanical energy and with basic and elementary architectural systems. The process of achieving human comfort levels was based on the fundamental understanding that comfort condition is not dependant on absolute figures of parameters, but on the difference felt by the human skin, in the temperature and humidity conditions over a period of time. The process on the one hand minimized the impact of the external heat within the building through adequate measures of insulating the buildings external fabric, and on the other hand created an effective system of sealed evaporative cooling.

Through a detailed computation, an analysis of the costs of civil and air-conditioning works along with the electrical consumption was carried out for three options of systems to be used, viz: (a) the conventional building with air-conditioned/air-exhausted and open window areas; (b) the conventional evaporative cooled building, through cooling pads in the inlets and fan driven ducted supply of air; and (c) the sealed evaporative cooled building evolved by SFA. The analysis then showed three years pay-back period for the additional costs from the savings in electricity cost. The Torrent Research Centre demonstrates excellent environmental outcomes. The findings of the post occupancy survey show that this building, completed over 10 years ago, continues to satisfy expectations for a contemporary workplace of high quality that is simultaneously energy efficient. While the wider implications of the success of such buildings for the Indian subcontinent where there is currently a large scale development of glass boxes that are both energy intensive and inappropriate for the climate, building performance outcomes in Torrent clearly reinforce the value of a climate responsive approach to building design in any location.

Design features
Design maximizes the use of locally available natural materials and avoids the use of synthetic materials. RCC-framed structure with brick in-filled walls, with glossy enamel paint on cement/vermiculite plaster on the internal surface. Vermiculite, a natural mineral, is extensively used for the insulation in values, along with cementbrickbat-based waterproofing roof and cavity walls to achieve the required R

PDEC (passive downdraft evaporative cooling) system has been designed and adopted for space conditioning of the building. Daylight integration has been made for reducing energy usage. Innovative use of half-round ceramic pipes, on the outer face of the inlet and exhaust shafts of the PDEC system, to reduce the entry of larger dust particles by creating local turbulence

Why Build Green Buildings

The idea of green building includes a large variation of strategies during the design, construction, and preservation of a building project. For its whole lifespan, the building should aid nature and under no condition should be damaging. Why Build Green Buildings (Source: thevividedge.com) This type of building should be an ecological friendly one, which doesnt demand an inflated amount of energy or material to be used in its creation. It shouldnt sacrifice its comfort, toughness, and efficiency. A green building should be able to reduce the overall preservation and substitution costs during its entire life. The purpose of such a building is also to improve the health and the efficiency of the people which reside or work inside of it. The design of such a building should be easier to create and should be able to take 100 percent advantage of the surrounding natural elements. These were just some of the regular features of a green building. In what follows I am going to give you some information about the materials which are used for the creation of such a structure. A green building material is made out of recyclable resources. The effectiveness of such a material during its life should be much longer than of a regular material. This is one of the main reasons why the green materials are considered to be superior when it comes to protecting the environment, in comparison to the regular ones. There are various aspects which make a material green. One of the most important is the fact that it should be resource efficient. In order to be considered resource efficient, a product should be able to meet some of the following criteria: it should be tough, and very easy to be recycled. The green material should also be very easy to find, whether if it is in an urban or rural area. The green material should be local, in order to avoid the transportation costs which would increase even more the damage done to the environment. This material should also be easy to create and to refurbish. The material should be non-toxic, and it should not be chemical emitting. It should be easy for one to clean these materials and the products which he would need to clean these materials should be non-toxic. As I already mentioned, the house should take advantage of the position in which it was built. If the area has trees, the house should be placed behind them. If that happens, the house will remain cooled during the summer and it will be heated by the sun during the winter. These are jut some of the aspects of a green building.

Building a Green Campus

NIIT University, Neemrana, Rajasthan

The goal of the NIIT University campus was to establish standards by which campuses ought to be built as also to define appropriate ways of building in a hot and dry desert regime. The NIIT University campus is located about half way between Delhi and Jaipur on National Highway 8, in a very dry and hot part of Rajasthan. An outcrop of the Aravalli Range to the east of the campus gives a special character to the site. Rainfall is scarce in this region but when it does rain, water running down the hills can cause flash floods. The promoters of the NIIT campus were keen to build an economically and environmentally sustainable campus. The need for environmental sustainability is understandable, but economic sustainability meant that one had to build at an affordable price. Looking at the tools available for making a sustainable campus, one realized that simply making green buildings that are efficient users of water, energy and materials would not create a green campus. Even if the buildings managed wastes and created better indoor air quality, they would not be able to create a sustainable campus. Much of the energy in a campus is used outside the buildings and even more so outside the campus. Students and teachers consume energy to get to the campus and that can sometimes be more than the energy they would consume in the buildings. Like any other large construction project, a campus construction also requires an environmental clearance. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) process, more broad based than green building norms, deals with existing technologies only and merely ensures compliance with existing standards for water and energy use along with solid and liquid waste management. Additionally, EIA deals with natural features of the site and with building materials but it does not promote alternative technology or behavioral change that can make a real difference. The green goals of a large campus are severely limited by merely following the green building norms and the EIA process. The goal of the NIIT University campus was to establish standards by which campuses ought to be built as also to define appropriate ways of building in the hot and dry desert region.

LAND
The first task was to establish the carrying capacity of the site and to use the available 75 acres in the best possible way. Two important guiding factors for this were water availability and the constraints of the zoning regulations. The Neemrana region receives only 570 mm of rainfall in a year and that limited the 75 acre site to about 3000 resident students only. is number would not have been economically sustainable for the University. Many towns in Rajasthan depend upon man made lakes for water supply and on further investigation; it was found that the site does not have a sustainable source of water supply due to the nearby hills. For turning this disadvantage into an advantage, it was decided that rainwater from the hills would be harvested by creating check dams and planting trees along the slopes. The water supply enhanced in this way would be able to support a larger population that would be limited only by the permitted floor area ratio (FAR). At the planned capacity of 7500 students, the NIIT campus would be about 20 times the density of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi and 6 times the density of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. Land is in short supply in India

and educational campuses are some of the biggest wasters of land. New IITs are being built on more than 1000 acres of land and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) on 750 acres of land. Such campuses will never pass the standard for sustainability even if they are built with green buildings. Low density developments take away agricultural or forest land, create infrastructure with high costs including high transportation costs leading to higher carbon emissions. Traditional Indian towns were high density energy conserving places. The city of Jaipur is many times denser than the newer planned city of Chandigarh. Most newly planned high density developments are designed simply to maximize FAR, not to reduce carbon emissions. The NIIT University campus is built on fallow land considered unusable for agriculture. The layout of the campus was designed to minimize development costs by putting students and teachers housing complexes next to the academic buildings, making the campus entirely walk able reducing the need for motorized transport within the campus. is minimized the need for pitched roads, and in order to make this work well, shaded and rain protected walkways have been provided on the campus. Students live on the campus and walk to the academic areas from the hostels. On campus staff residential accommodation has not yet been completed and presently the staff commutes from the nearby residential areas by car pool. Green infrastructure planning at the NIIT campus includes preservation of the natural water courses and grading with minimum cut and fill, keeping in line with the natural features of the land. The landscape was planned with local species of plants that do not require much water to sustain and can withstand the rigours of the desert. Grassy areas requiring high maintenance and irrigation have been limited to a minimum.

WATER
Having established a sustainable source of water and a system for harvesting rainwater from the hills, the next step was to create a system of water use that would use less water as well as treat and reuse waste water. Water conserving toilet fixtures were used and a sewage treatment plant installed. The treated waste water is used for drip irrigation of landscape within and outside the campus and for flushing toilets in the campus buildings.

ENERGY: LIGHTING AND AIR CONDITIONING

Having planned an infrastructure that saves energy in transport, the buildings were also designed to save energy in lighting and in providing thermal comfort and dust control. The buildings were planned with windows facing north-south where passive sun shades could be provided to minimize the heat load on buildings. The class rooms and laboratories use day light to the fullest. Shallower class rooms where windows can provide adequate day light were planned on the north side while deeper laboratories were planned on the south side where light shelves have been built to bring light deep in to the space. Internal corridors and deeper rooms at the top floors are lit through skylights. There are a few dark areas in the buildings without day lighting and it is planned to light these with a grid interactive system of solar photovoltaic (SPV) lighting without battery back up. Like other green buildings, the NIIT buildings have insulated walls and roof, but the system for thermal control required a great deal of thought. Simple passive architectural systems with natural ventilation cannot provide dust control during summer and humidity control during the monsoon months. Passive downdraught systems are also incapable of controlling dust and humidity. Evaporative cooling provides comfort during summer but not during monsoons. After due evaluation of the various options, it was decided to install a combined system of evaporative cooling and regular air conditioning together with a system for pre-cooling fresh air by passing it through a system of underground tunnels. is system controls heat during summer, cold during winter and dust all year

round. It is a low energy system that provides a reasonable degree of comfort in the academic buildings at a low energy performance index (EPI) of 33 kWh/sq m/year. Comparatively the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) norm is 140 kWh/sq m/year for air conditioned buildings and a Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) 5 star rated academic building at Kanpur has an EPI of 98 kWh/sq m/year. After the first set of buildings were built and used, it was found that the tunnel pre-cooling system cost a lot more than originally envisaged and some of the newer buildings are being built without it. The combined system of evaporative cooling and air conditioning has been found to be cost effective and that is being continued. However, winter heating is not possible through this system.

COSTS
It is well known that green buildings cost more than other buildings but it is not necessary that a green campus should cost more than others. In case of the NIIT campus there were savings due to environment friendly campus planning while the other systems described above did cost more. Infrastructure costs of roads and services were reduced with compact walk able campus planning. The campus started with a very small developed area and the linear growth pattern allowed the cost of electricity, water supply, sewage and drainage to be limited since extra areas without buildings did not have to be developed. The savings in infrastructure costs more than of set the additional costs of the buildings.

Green building
(Also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to a structure and using process that is environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from sitting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. Although new technologies are constantly being developed to complement current practices in creating greener structures, the common objective is that green buildings are designed to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on human health and the natural environment by: Efficiently using energy, water, and other resources Protecting occupant health and improving employee productivity Reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation

A similar concept is natural building, which is usually on a smaller scale and tends to focus on the use of natural materials that are available locally. Other related topics include sustainable design and green architecture. Sustainability may be defined as meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Green building does not specifically address the issue of the retrofitting existing homes.