Full-fledged Eco Design Must for Building Houses

Business Line Internet Addition
Hyderabad, Aug. 31, 2001

GREEN Building is an environmental imperative, a new market and a movement, said Mr. John Armstrong, Senior Vice-President of PA Consulting Group of the US, here on Friday.

Explaining the Green concepts at the "Green Building Congress 2001", he said sustainable building meant proper use of available resources without spoiling the environment.

The key issues of sustainability in India, particularly in AP are habitat destruction (biodiversity loss), global warming, population, energy, water, land, forest and wildlife.

According to him, the areas of groundwater drafting had doubled in the last 15 years and paradoxically droughts and floods had been increasing. Most rivers and lakes in AP were polluted and rural population was exposed to unsafe drinking water at source.

He said, air quality was another key issue and the health costs as a consequence had gone up. A full-fledged ecological design for building houses was necessary", he said.

He said to promote Green Building, market-based approaches such as linking financing to green rating, green business incubation, green industrial parks and voluntary certification programmes should be adopted.

Mr. Joseph J Deringer, President of the Deringer Group, Inc. Berkeley, said that in many countries highly sustainable traditional practices were not used and high technologies which were not necessarily good in terms of cultural and designer aspirations were adopted.

He said that energy cost was not perceived as important but studies in Thailand and Jamaica showed that 50 per cent potential energy reduction would be cost-effective from national perspective.

Mr. Karan Grover, Architect of Karan Grover & Associates, said that Indian cities had almost reached the carrying capacity of life and a new paradigm for society sustained by a new ethic was necessary. Nature, humanity and technology should work together as in the past when the traditional methods of architecture had a positive impact on the environment for centuries.