Green and Sustainable Design :At iDream
As every one is talking about green and sustainable buildings.When we take a look at the history of our architecture, one realizes that Ancient Greek and Roman builders, Renaissance and Enlightenment architects, and architects of the Modern movement understood and practiced the usage of locally available materials, using natural light thereby making the building self sufficient, long before energy was an issue and long before anyone used the word “sustainability.”
As the time is moving on people got more conscious about the impacts on the nature.Then Kyoto protocol and LEED certification came into existence.There are number of ways to building green house, including environmental issues such as global warming, rising energy costs, the growing awareness and liability costs associated with “Sick Building Syndrome”, economic issues such as rising energy costs, declining oil reserves and concerns about our limited water supply, and social benefits. The list goes on, but whatever the reason or reasons; sustainable building is a concept whose time has come.
But what exactly is IT? The ultimate definition depends on how one defines “green” as opposed to how one defines “sustainable”:
While working on one of our projects at iDream, which targeted at being LEED (platinum) certified,we had a chance to learn indepth about the whole process of going green. The idea then was to make a building that would help the building be self efficient. So the first reaction was to design it in a way that there was maximum natural light, the building to be oriented in a way that the occupants get maximum view. As we made progress and with a LEED consultant on board, we realized that “green design” was not just all about using natural light and view but a very deep subject in itself.
The designing of the building was then just a part of the entire process. The green or sustainable design is not a mere conventional design process but is a close coordination of the design team, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages, from site selection, scheme formation, material selection and procurement, to project implementation. Now for our design to be sustainable the key points considered were:
. Use of renewable energy such as wind, geothermal and solar.
. Maintain a healthy indoor environment with adequate ventilation.
. Reducing the impact on environment by choosing the building materials.
. Preserving the water, and increasing the efficiency via appliances, faucets, showerhead and recycling grey water and capturing rain water for landscaping and other non potable uses.
These key points branch out into sub points, thereby addressing to issues from selection of HVAC system, lighting system, sanitary fittings and fixtures, locally available materials, products with minimum of VOC contents, avoiding water run off from the site by proper landscape, water harvesting to retaining the top soil during the building process.
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