Sustainable Urbanization To Avoid Future Catastrophe

Covid-19 Pandemic Has Raised Awareness Of Climate And Environmental Issues And The Need For Our Cities And Buildings To Be More Resource Efficient And Environment-Conscious.

Text: Leandra Monteiro   Post pandemic, there will be a paradigm shift in the design language as designers will incorporate health enhancing methods into the built environment. While, building owners will focus on technologies for energy efficiency, water saving and other means to reduce operation costs. “We as an architectural and design fraternity, many a times forget the importance of the nature around us when we create spaces. Fundamentally, we also need to understand the essence of technology in our designs. All of us have gone into retrospection and evaluation of our actions over the years. Governments are not solely responsible for everything. We as people and professionals will have to shoulder some responsibility for the current situation that has arisen from the human behaviour and bad practices, expressed Architect Manish Dikshit, Founding Partner & Design Principal at Aum Architects. With sustainable structures becoming a critical part of the world, more and more new construction technologies are being developed to keep up with this escalating shift to sustainability. New construction technologies are aiming towards maximizing the use of renewable resources and minimizing carbon footprint, whether in constructing a new sustainable building or greening existing infrastructure. In 2014, more than 50% of the world’s population (approximately 3.9 billion people) lived in cities and there were 28 global mega-cities with more than 10 million people. By the end of the 21st century, the first metropolitan century in the history mankind when the global population is expected to reach between 10 and 11 billion people, around 80% of the world will inhabit urban spaces. Keeping these figures in mind, and factoring in the challenges that urbanization represents for natural resources, space, and energy 40% of the global energy is consumed in buildings, it is more imperative than ever that the choices we make today about developing our cities are sustainable ones, and leave a lasting positive impact on the generations to come.   Creating Liveable Built Environment History is proof that this won’t be the first time that cities and the built environment will be reimagined or redesigned in response to an increased understanding of the disease. Energy conservation is a key aspect to be incorporated in a building design irrespective of any pandemic or similar situations. Energy conservation is not only extracted through regenerating the energy from natural resources, but it also depends on the individual’s consumption and lifestyle. It is the core responsibility of the designer to confer onto the comfort of the user while perpetuating energy. “An architect may assimilate vernacular architecture influences in design in order to practice cost cutting. In other cases, sustainable design may involve investment at the initial stage, but it ultimately increases the lifespan of the design while generating better than anticipated return on investments in the long run. It is not specifically restricted to maintaining health and wellness. Even a small residential project must encompass sustainability attributes,” explained Ar. Khozema Chitalwala, Principal Architect and Designer at Designers group.  Current sustainability necessities for buildings and the new paradigm for urban development have brought to the forefront new tasks for the society and businesses, that is the provision for energy efficiency in buildings, sustainable waste-reducing construction methods, urban renewals, universal design and the use of information and communications technology tools for design. Recycled products, materials manufactured with resource-efficient processes, natural, abundant or renewable materials, locally available, Non-toxic materials, Low VOC products are greatly desired in sustainable architecture designs. They improve Indoor Air Quality since they are non-toxic and less hazardous to the occupant’s health. Ar. Himani Ahuja, Communications Director & Co- Founder, One Digital shared, “For many in the architecture & design community, the meteoric spread of COVID-19 has caused them to amend their life’s work, and design for a world that will never be quite the same, as the bylaws concerning how we function as a society in public spaces will change forever. Post pandemic, there will be a paradigm shift in the design language as designers will incorporate disease-free methods into the built environment. This time has forced us all to focus on the threat that this climate change presents to hard-won development gains around the world. In addition to it, this crisis has a sense of foreboding to it but if we are strategic in how we design policy responses, we can achieve long term outcomes that benefit global interests. Planning for that, however, must start immediately.”   Buildings Of Future Going Tall & Resourceful Taking into consideration the upward trend of buildings, now going up to 1,000 meters, elevators, escalators, and moving walkways play an important part in creating sustainable and self-sufficient structures that can dramatically reduce the overall energy used in buildings. One can envisage an enhanced focus on development of smart cities with sustainable and environment friendly green buildings equipped with smart and energy efficient elevators. The key factor in vertical transportation systems in contribution to sustainability is, that it is not just environmental but also economical, thereby appealing to all stakeholders in the urbanization process. “Demand for energy efficient elevators will continue to increase in the market,” said Manish Mehan, CEO, thyssenkrupp Elevator (India). “thyssenkrupp Elevator is developing sustainable, eco-friendly products and solutions that prove themselves through high energy efficiency and reliable performance over the long term. We use the latest technology in our products to make them more environment friendly and cost effective.  For example, as compared to conventional elevator control systems, our Destination Selection Control (DSC) system increases passenger handling capacity by up to 30 percent, minimises passenger travel times to their destination and reduces crowding in lift lobbies,” Mehan added. Similarly Otis is answering India’s call for increased sustainability through its Gen2™ elevator with ReGen™ drive technology. Sebi Joseph, President, Otis India explained, “The Gen2 elevator reduces overall energy consumption by 75 percent under normal operation compared to conventional geared, nonregenerative systems. The ReGen drive, which can be retrofitted into an existing building, reuses an elevator’s energy that would otherwise be wasted. It does so by recapturing power and transferring that power back into the building’s electrical grid for reuse by other systems such as lighting. Elevators can also be designed to save energy by automatically turning off features like the electric fanor lights when the elevator is not in use.” With buildings responsible for 40% of the world’s energy consumption, new elevator technologies are capable of energy savings by up to 27% while increasing usable floor space by up to 30%. In some cases, elevators are a key element contributing to energy self-sufficiency in buildings. Further, new elevators provide efficiency gains of about 30–40 percent than buildings with older lifts. The unique nature of this crisis may give time to build a green infrastructure pipeline complying with the client’s growing emphasis on energy efficiency. These could include a big expansion of electricity transmission and distribution systems, water and sanitation service coverage, or making neighbourhoods more liveable and less energy-intensive. The pandemic will definitely have a major impact on our regular lives and our lifestyle will evolve at a great extent. One may not be able to envisage the after-lockdown situation completely, but there will be evident changes concerning health and hygiene which will cause amendments in the design aspect as well. This transformation will be manifested from habitual changes where sterilisation and social distancing may be subsumed as a part of design.