Green building to make IIT centre unique

Rajya Sabha MP Arun Shourie will lay the foundation stone of a state-of-the-art Centre for Environmental Sciences building at IIT Kanpur on Sunday.

Rajya Sabha MP Arun Shourie will lay the foundation stone of a state-of-the-art Centre for Environmental Sciences building at IIT Kanpur on Sunday. The green design of the building, to be built using Rs 11 crore from Shourie8217;s MPLAD funds, will ensure it leaves the least impact on energy resources of the area.

During his earlier term as Rajya Sabha MP, Shourie had provided his MPLAD Fund for Biological Sciences and Bio-Engineering centre at IIT. That too was a 8216;green building8217;, but the new project would be rated by TERI from the very beginning, making it more formal.

Last time, Shourie had to spend considerable time trying to get clearance for spending the entire sum allotted to his MPLAD fund on a single project. After a very successful Bio-Engineering centre, this time the permissions from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats were more forthcoming.

The focus of this proposed centre will be more on research and development of futuristic technologies rather than teaching. Some of the areas that would be within its immediate range of work would be abatement of pollution from industries and power plants or conservation of groundwater and surface water.

8216;8216;These are some pressing issues around the city itself and the need is to come out with a technology that will help abate it, rather than just measure these problems better,8217;8217; says Shourie.

The Centre is expected to be self-sustaining by attracting fund from the industry 8212; leading industrial house of India Thermax has already shown interest in collaborating on water and environment pollution. A consortium of four US universities is also willing to be associated on the public health angle to environment.

It is the intuitive and nature-friendly design of the building which will make it unique. Described as a 8216;8216;building in the garden8217;8217;, its laboratories, seminar and discussion rooms will be housed in 4.5 acre of an already-existing nursery.

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It has been decided that the building will only have one floor to it 8212; it will have a series of modules, rather than a single consolidated block. These modules will be in a curvilineal spine, offering an element of visual surprise at every juncture. A water body will be located strategically with the building to control the micro-climate. Links connecting laboratories would be bridges, floating in space with plants and skylights providing shafts of light from above.

The design of the roof is truly innovative providing a lot of energy efficiency 8212; it would be shaded with plant trellis to cut direct heat gain of the building. It will also have integrated water-proofing and insulation. The top surface finish would be China Mosaic to reflect the heat.

The internal courtyard will be covered with photo-voltaic cells which will harness solar energy while shading the courtyard. Deep earth air tunnels would be used to enable reduction in cooling systems. These are measures that would help save a considerable amount of energy and it is calculated that the extra costs of elements like photo-voltaic cells would get neutralised in three years time.

Architects Sanjay and Tanuja Kanvinde had also designed the first building. 8216;8216;Modern buildings are inherently more expensive. This building will leave a smaller footprint than others,8217;8217; said Tanuja. 8216;8216;The effort is to create interactive spaces for people working in the building,8217;8217; she added.