Green and Smart Buildings

Indira Paryavaran Bhawan

Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF)

Summary

Location New Delhi

Geographical 28° N, 77° E
coordinates
Occupancy Office (MoEF)
Type
Typology New Construction
Climate Type Composite
2
Project Area 9,565 m
Grid Grid connected
Connectivity
2
EPI 44 kWh/m /yr
Introduction
Indira Paryavaran Bhawan, the new office building for the
Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) sets is a radical
change from a conventional building design.

The project team put special emphasis on strategies for

reducing energy demand by providing adequate natural light,
shading, landscape to reduce ambient temperature, and
energy-efficient active building systems. Several energy
conservation measures were adopted to reduce the energy
loads of the building and the remaining demand was met by
producing energy from on-site installed high-efficiency solar
panels to achieve net zero criteria. Indira Paryavaran Bhawan
uses 70% less energy compared to a conventional building. The
project adopted green building concepts including
conservation and optimization of water by recycling wastewater
from the site.

Indira Paryavaran Bhawan is now India’s highest green-rated

building. The project has received GRIHA 5 Star and LEED
Platinum. The building has already won awards such as the
Adarsh/GRIHA of MNRE for exemplary demonstration of
Integration of Renewable Energy Technologies.
Passive Design Strategies
• Orientation: The building is north-south
oriented, with separate blocks connected
through corridors and a huge cent-
courtyard yard. Orientation minimizes heat
ingress. Optiwindow-to-wall wall ratio.
• Landscaping: More than 50% area outside
the building is covered by
plantationsation. Circulation roads and
pathways are softly paved to enable
groundwater to recharge.
• Daylighting: 75% of building floor spirality
lit, thus reducing dependence on artificial
sources for light the inner Inner courtyard
serves as a light well.
• Ventilation: Central courtyard helps in air
movement as natural ventilation happens
due to the stack effect. Windows and jaalis
add to cross ventilation.
Building Envelope and Fenestration:
• Optimized Building Envelope – Window assembly (U-
Value 0.049 W/m2K),VLT 0.59, SHGC 0.32
• uPVC windows with hermetically sealed double
glazed using low heat transmittance index glass
• Rock wool insulation
• High-efficiency glass
• Cool roofs: Use of high reflectance terrace tiles for
heat ingress, high strength, hard wearing.
Materials and construction techniques :
• AAC blocks with fly ash
• Fly ash-based plaster & mortar
• Stone and Ferro cement jaalis
• Local stone flooring
• Bamboo jute composite doors, frames, and flooring
• High-efficiency glass, high VLT, low SHGC & Low U-
value, optimized by appropriate shading
• Light shelves for diffused sunlight
Active Strategies
Lighting Design

• Energy efficient lighting system ( LPD = 5 W/m2) ,

nearly 50% more efficient than Energy
Conservation Building Code 2007 requirements (
LPD = 11 W/m2) reduces energy demand further.
• Remaining lighting load supplied by building
integrated photovoltaic (BIPV).
• Use of energy-efficient lighting fixtures (T5 lamps).
• Use of lux level sensor to optimize the operation of
artificial lighting.
Optimized Energy Systems / HVAC system

Chilled beam system/ VFD/ Screw Chillers

• 160 TR of air conditioning load of the building is met through a Chilled beam system. Chilled
beams are used from the second to the sixth floor. This reduces energy use by 50 %
compared to a conventional system.
• HVAC load of the buildings is 40 m2/TR, about 50% more efficient than ECBC requirements
(20 m2/TR)
• Chilled water is supplied at 16° C and the return temperature is 20° C.
• Drain pans are provided with chilled beams to drain out water droplets due to condensation
during monsoon.
• Water cooled chillers, double skin air handling units with variable frequency drivers(VFD)
• Chilled beams save AHU/FCU fan power consumption by approximately 50 kW.
• VFDs are provided in the chilled water pumping system, cooling tower fans, and AHUs.
• Fresh supply air is pre-cooled from toilet exhaust air through a sensible & latent heat energy
recovery wheel.
• Control of HVAC equipment & monitoring of all systems through an integrated building
management system.
• Functional zoning to reduce air conditioning loads.
• Room temperature is maintained at 26 ±1 ° C
Geothermal heat exchange system

• There are 180 vertical bores to the depth of 80 meters all along the building premises. A minimum 3-meter
distance is maintained between any two bores.
• Each bore has HDPE pipe U-loop (32mm outer diameter) and is grouted with Bentonite Slurry. Each U-Loop is
connected to the condenser water pipe system in the central air conditioning plant room.
• One U-Loop has 0.9 TR heat rejection capacity. Combined together, 160 TR of heat rejection is obtained
without using a cooling tower. The geothermal

Renewable Energy
• Solar PV System of 930 kW capacity
• Total Area: 6,000 m2
• Total Area of panels: 4,650 m2
• No of panels: 2,844
• Annual Energy Generation: 14.3 lakh unit

ACTUAL GENERATION ON SITE ( as on 25.01.2014)

• Power supply to the grid started on 19.11.2013
• Power generation achieved: 300 kWh per day
• Total generation: 2.0 kWh
 Avasara Academy
Lavale, Pune
Summary
Location Pune
Coordinates 18° N, 73° E
Occupancy Academic
Type
Typology New Construction
Climate Type Warm and Humid
2
Project Area 11,148 m
Date of 2020
Completion
Grid Grid-connected
Connectivity
Architect Case Design
Energy Transsolar
Consultants KlimaEngineering
Introduction

Avasara Academy, a residential school campus located in the rocky

agrarian valley of Lavale in Maharashtra, consists of six similar buildings,
each with classrooms on level 1 and 2, and student dormitory and
faculty residences on level 3 and 4. Its uncompromising architecture is
simple, climate-oriented, functional, sustainable, flexible, affordable,
aesthetical, visually exciting and inclusive.

Avasara, with high ambition, a modest budget, and scrupulous attention

to detail, achieves comfortable internal condition and nearly net-zero
energy status without the use of any mechanical system despite the
warm and humid climate. Additionally, use of local resources and
passive heating-cooling systems design reduced the initial construction
cost by approximately 7% and annual energy cost by nearly 80%.

Photovoltaic solar panels on the building roof provide electricity for

ceiling fans and electric lighting in the building, while solar water
heaters provide hot water for showers. Together, this accounts for
around 85% of the energy requirement of the building.
Passive Design Strategies

Site Layout & Planning

The six four-storeyed rectangular blocks, organized as per the

most favorable orientation, follow the undulating hillside
acknowledging contours and seeking the best vistas.

The campus is characterized by an inter-connected yet informal

arrangement around pathways, courts, gardens and terraces.

Daylighting

The building is partly covered in bamboo screens, partly by

glass surfaces, or it remains open, rendering a blur line
between the sense of enclosure and openness.

The bamboo screen and the lightly woven blades placed on the
overhangs deploy a second skin that provide privacy, reduce
glare, and give a textural quality to the interior and exterior
through a delightful play of daylight and shadows, while
unifying the architectural scheme.
Façade, Envelope & Climate Responsive Massing

The building design articulates simple reinforced concrete structures, skilfully

organising the volumes in combination with shades & overhangs, and setting the
stage for passive climate strategy.

Articulated concrete construction includes the skeleton structure with reinforced

concrete floors and the prefabricated structural ceilings. This raw concrete along
with the locally sourced stone interior acts as an inert thermal mass; absorbing the
solar thermal energy during the day and releasing it again after a delay overnight,
resulting in a moderate, more consistent radiant temperature inside the building.

The reinforced concrete floors / ceilings project outwards a little, creating generous
overhands which not only provides the facades horizontal articulation but also acts
as a form of brise soleil.

The façade is shrouded in bamboo screens with variations in the patterns based on
the façade orientation. These locally sourced and skilfully designed screens serve as
sun protection, thus preventing excessive heating of the interior from direct sunlight.

The projection / overhang results in spaces being slightly stepped back. The spaces
are attached to open corridors, deep verandas, generous semi-outdoor spaces,
stairwells and atrium, resulting in an extremely airy structure supported only in part
by columns.
Passive Ventilation Design
The building is naturally ventilated using a
combination of passive heating-cooling systems, thus
eliminating resource-draining mechanical systems.

Passive heating-cooling systems are designed with

earth ducts, structurally integrated vertical cavities
and solar chimneys to induce ventilation in each
building, lowering interior temperatures by 5-9°C
during uncomfortably hot summer months.

Earth ducts are 900 mm dia concrete hume pipes laid

between the building foundation that run around 16
– 20 m in length underneath the building. Fresh
outdoor air sucked in these earth ducts is passively
pre-cooled and then diffused into the lower floor
spaces at the floor level along the facades, enabling
the air to circulate freely in the middle of the
buildings.

Additionally, supply air enters the spaces through the

strategically designed window and the doorways.
The vitiated air from all the spaces, due to
convection, passively transfers through the
exhaust grills located at the ceiling level into
three separate centrally located exhaust cavities
which are integrated in the structural core of the
building and eventually extend out as solar
chimneys above roof level.

These chimneys are wide, glazed on three sides

with their rear concrete wall almost 5m high and
are capped with louvered grills. This assembly is
sun-driven that leads the warm air out of the
building, passively driving the entire air flow and
providing natural cooling throughout the
building.

This meticulously designed natural air flow path

through all the spaces in the building using
architectural and structural infrastructure create
year-round comfortable learning and living
environment.
Material Palette
The building material palette highlights use of
raw concrete, local stone and timber windows
with large expanses of glazing rounded off by
bamboo mats for shading on the exteriors, use
of blockwork walls, coloured mosaic floors, teak
doors, and various pastel hues on the interiors.

This mix of material textures was carefully

selected and meticulously crafted to
complement the surroundings. The palette
focused on the longevity of the materials and
cost reduction by using recycled materials.

The majority of timber windows are recycled

from demolished structures, blockwork partition
walls are burned from fly ash, floor mosaics are
made from the remains of marble quarries,
majority of doors are made of teak from
demolition objects, and the pastel hues use
natural pigments – largely contributing towards
the sustainability goals of the project.