The National Science Day is celebrated on February 28 all over India to commemorate the invention of the Raman Effect by Indian physicist Sir Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman on the same day in the year 1928.

For his great success in the field of science, Sir Raman was awarded and honoured with Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 1930. Besides, the day offers an opportunity to widely spread a message about the significance of scientific application in the daily life of people.

The theme for the day this year is Science and Technology for a Sustainable Future.

Sustainable design is a design approach to promote the environmental quality and the quality of building indoor environment by reducing negative impacts on building and the surrounding natural environment.

Climate change is happening and its effects will have severe consequences for our society and environment. Reducing energy use in buildings is one of the most important ways to reduce humans’ overall environmental impact.

Modern buildings are significant users of energy and materials and they have a large impact on the natural environment and resources. As the built environment continues to expand there is an urgent need to promote and enhance sustainable practices in the built environment.

Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings. At present, there are many schools of thought on sustainable building. Stainable buildings can be defined as those buildings that have minimum adverse impacts on natural environment. Sustainable design involves considering the whole life of buildings, taking environmental quality, functional quality and future values into account. Successful sustainable design requires an integrated approach since building systems and operational practices are dependent on solar access, light penetration and architectural design. The approach to design examines how a building interacts with its systems, activities and surrounding environment.

Sustainable building attempts to reduce the collective environmental impacts during the production of building components, during the construction process, as well as during the lifecycle of the building.

This design practice emphasizes efficiency of heating and cooling systems; alternative energy sources, reused or recycled building materials, on-site power generation - solar technology, wind power, rainwater harvesting and on-site waste management etc.

An essential element of Sustainable Building Design is indoor environmental quality including air quality, illumination, and thermal comfort. Each climate zone has distinctly different design and construction requirements. The Indian Habitat Centre in New Delhi has been designed keeping in view the climate consideration. It is a centre for cultural, economic and social activities. The India Habitat Centre (IHC) was designed by Joseph Allen Stein, BV Doshi and JR Bhalla and constructed in the late 1980s.

Stein believes  that India is a  country, which interrelates  the modern technologies and an ancient value system at the same span of time. Stein had worked on  forms  as  always  but  he  was  more conscious  about Ecological Balance, and by so detailing out his spaces he used to remain in harmony with the nature. His  use  of garden spaces as the soul of design and elements like planter boxes, rooftop gardens and water bodies to integrate the building to these garden spaces  is  another  significant  feature  of  his designs. Stein approach to design was flexible, functional yet sensitive to materials, site and local conditions.

Stein was one of the first architects working in India after independence to use traditional elements in a modern building. His development of the jali and several other shading devices dramatically filter light and create a quality of repose in the spaces they shade from the fierce north Indian sun. Each of his projects in and around Delhi were conceived of in order to offer relief from the intense climate and created a new urban grammar of form making. He integrated buildings with the idea of vertical gardens - a prototype for bringing living beauty to crowded urban settings.        There is a strong relationship between sustainability, technology and architecture which has been reflected in Stein’s design.

The new buildings, with their glass facades and without harmony with nature, are all examples of architecture working against nature. Today, architects are using technological solutions for sustainable building design. Sustainable technology in the energy sector is based on utilizing renewable sources of energy. The use of technology is an important step towards more sustainable building. Sustainable technologies use less energy, fewer limited resources, do not deplete natural resources, do not directly or indirectly pollute the environment, and can be reused or recycled at the end of their useful life. There is a need to adopt sustainable technology in the energy sector. Comprehensive energy planning in the early planning process will promote energy efficiency and sustainability in the building design and construction.

(Dr Praharaj teaches at Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar)