More and more people are installing air-conditioners in their homes these days thanks in large part to the concrete hot-boxes being constructed in our cities and the heat-island effect. Added to that is the fact that many commercial buildings have senseless glass façades – which makes them even-hotter-boxes. Net result: the amount of energy being [...]

 

This subject has been blogged and tweeted all over the place but few seem to have seen any photographs of the proposed house or, if they have, they’re keeping it well under wraps. The architect’s website doesn’t seem to list it and I finally managed a glimpse of the proposed “futuristic petrol station” in an [...]

 

This is an interesting and a whole new angle on the LEED debate. Essentially what is being said is that tightly sealing a building (to make the air-conditioning system more energy efficient) also locks in hazardous chemicals with complete disregard for indoor air quality. Ideally, in our climate, we’d have less “sealed” buildings and more [...]

 

With their windmills starting rotation in breeze as light as 1m/s, Wind Simplicity’s designs would be great for many parts of India that are not on the conventional wind-map. They are built to withstand snow and ice – not problems we face every day in our tropical climate!  Now if only some Indian manufacturer would [...]

 

When this is so clearly meant for the U.S. of A alone, why the heck do they insist on calling it the “International” Green Construction Code? Sheesh! See this press release by ASHRAE for more.  

 

Last evening at the American Library here, there was a web interaction between Peter J. Arsenault and Roshni Udyavar – head of the Environmental Architecture course at Rachana Sansad. I fully expected it to be all about LEED but was pleasantly surprised that there was only a passing mention to a system that I don’t [...]

 

Was supposed to return from Kihim last evening and all was well with the world. Then, a cursory call to the Mandwa jetty led to the realisation that all ferry services to the Gateway had been abruptly suspended. What should have been a peaceful 90 minute return home rapidly turned into a 5 hour nightmare… [...]

 

It took a question by a friend on BREEAM that made me do a search on the subject. Was surprised to find there was another system that I hadn’t heard of called Estidama Pearls which has grown out of Abu Dhabi. What is unique about the Pearls rating system is that unlike BREEAM and LEED, [...]

 

There is no doubt that the LEED ratings have brought the need for energy efficient buildings to the forefront. However, the system is easily exploited to get what the author of this article calls, “a shiny green stamp” for an unsustainable building.  You get good points for installing bike racks (that may or may not [...]

 

The first line of this article echoes my opinion of the LEED ratings: “Building green is not about building structures that use lots of materials and energy, and then fixing them so that they become a little more efficient.” The rest of the piece dives into the foolishness of glass façades, reasons to go local [...]