This is a residential building design guide* developed to assist designers during the early design stages of buildings that would exhibit high thermal and daylight performance in Kerala.
*We are currently testing the usability of the this guide. More designs will be added soon.
This is a residential building design guide which is developed to assist during the early stages, to design buildings that exhibit high thermal and daylight performance, for the first instance, in the State of Kerala, India.
In Kerala, one of the 29 states in India, the construction of buildings is governed by Kerala Municipality Building Rule and Kerala Panchayat Building Rule. The latest update (2019) of these building rules does not provide any measure to ensure energy efficiency in the construction of new residential buildings. In this context, a new Buiding Performance Simulation based design guide is developed. This guide aims to assist practitioners and policymakers during early-stage design to achieve higher thermal and daylight performance.
This guide is based on the research carried out at Loughborough University. The research focused on the needs at the State level, to develop a residential building design method to assist during the early stages, in the construction of buildings that would exhibit high performance. The study in the first instance focused on the State of Kerala. Click here to read more.
The first step is to choose the location of interest.
The location can be selected from the list provided in the page or by searching for it. To know more watch the video
The second step is to select the building context.
The building context could be open low-rise buildings, dense low-rise buildings or open high-rise buildings.
The third step is to select the building type.
The designs provided in this guide are for three representative building forms. For other baseforms (designs), thermal and daylight performance benchmarks are provided.
The third step is to select the orientation.
The orientation of the building in this context refers to the direction in which the main door of the building faces.
The next step is to define the design priority.
The purpose of this guide is to assist in the designing of building that exhibit hight thermal and daylight performance. So depending on your priority you could also select whether you want designs for buildings that would exhibit high thermal and/or daylight performance.
The final step is to select your building design.
To know more watch the video
Based on the design you have selected, the report is generated. You can download this report.
Click here to view a sample of the design report.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that, of the total housing stock that would exist in India by 2030, only one-fourth has been built as of 2015 with the rest yet to be constructed (IEA, 2015). This is in marked contrast to developed regions such as Europe and the US. The existing building stock in India accounts for around 33% of the total electricity consumption, of which residential and commercial uses represent 25% and 8% respectively (BEE, 2009). With an additional 315 million people expected to move to urban India by 2040 (IEA, 2015), the final energy demand in buildings is expected to undergo a drastic change with an anticipated rise of about 65% to 75% of 2005 levels by 2050 (van Ruijven et al., 2011).
Energy plays a vital role as the country has to achieve the committed emission targets while meeting the demands of the growing population. In India, the construction of buildings are governed by building codes and regulations enacted by concerned government departments at national and state levels. At the national level, the National Building Code of India (NBC) is the model code for regulating the construction activities of the construction industry. NBC 2015 is divided into 12 parts which covers basic guidelines and provides a basic framework for developing regulations at local levels (Chandel et al., 2016). The provisions provided in the parts and subparts of NBC does not directly cover the aspect of energy efficiency even though its adoption may result in some energy efficiency improvements.
The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), whose function is to initiate energy efficiency measures and regulations in India, formulated the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) in 2006 which outlays energy efficiency initiatives for buildings having an occupied space of more than 1000m2 or having an energy consumption of 500kW or more (BEE, 2006). The average floor area of dwellings in India are 40.03 m2 and 39.20 m2 respectively for rural and urban areas (NSS, 2012). Thus the ECBC speculation limits its use to mainly commercial buildings.
A code for residential building envelope “Eco-Niwas Samhita” was launched by BEE in 2018 (BEE, 2018). This code defines a Residential Envelope Transmittance Value (RETV) to evaluate and compare different design alter- natives and material options. A maximum RETV value is defined for each climate which needs to be achieved for code compliance. For all the regions having Composite, Hot-dry, Warm-humid and Temperate climate, the maximum RETV is 15 W/m2 (BEE, 2018). The energy demand corresponding to an RETV of 15W/m2 is around 125kWh/m2 (Bhanware et al., 2019). The study by Bhatt et al. (2005) found that the annual energy consumption in residential buildings ranges between 12 – 36 kWh/m2. Thus complying with the RETV value may not result in the building being energy efficient.
Moreover, considering that the national level building codes and rating systems like NBC, ECBC, GRIHA etc. are non-mandatory and ineffective at state and local levels (Chandel et al., 2016) and with the power to legislate rules and regulations in all matters regarding land and its development lying only with the State Government (GoI, 2015), any action to be taken regarding reforming the building and energy efficiency rules and regulations, either in the form of amendments or formulation of new ones, should focus from the state level meeting the intrinsic needs of the locality (Kumar and Pushplata, 2013; Kumar, 2016).
Figure shows India and its 29 states. The location of the state of Kerala is highlighted in green.
Thus, a study was conducted, focusing on the needs at the State level, to develop a residential building design method to assist during the early stages, to design buildings that exhibit high thermal and daylight performance. The study in the first instance focused on the State of Kerala. Kerala is located at the South Western part of the country between the Arabian Sea and the mountain ranges Western Ghats. Currently the design and construction aspects of buildings in Kerala are regulated by local building rules – Kerala municipality building code (LSGD, 1999) and Kerala panchayat building code (LSGD, 2011). The provisions provided in the these codes does not directly cover the aspect of energy efficiency and also does not differentiate between the different climatic zones across the State. The need for amendments in Kerala’s building codes to account for energy efficiency measures tailored for each of the climatic zones of Kerala was also corroborated in the governments Post Disaster Needs Assessment report (GoK, 2018).
The developed method is presented via this interactive web-based platform. The final product from this website is a design report and is produced based on the design priorities provided by the user. The report outlines the projected thermal and daylight performance of the building. The report also presents a list of design parameters and their corresponding values that needs to be considered to design the building in the specified location in Kerala.
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