Bangalore has witnessed a 37 per cent decadal population growth spurring an “exponential” construction rate, R.K. Pachauri, director-general, TERI, has said.
Urban growth in Bangalore, the country’s third most populous city, has been “haphazard” and put pressure on both energy and water resources, said Mr. Pachauri, in his inaugural address through video conference at the GRIHA Regional Conference, ‘Innovations in sustainable buildings’ on Friday. GRIHA is a national rating system that evaluates environmental performance of buildings in its life cycle.
Buildings, being major consumers of energy and water, “also provide ample opportunities to cut on greenhouse gas emission by adapting to optimum and energy efficient practices,” Mr. Pachauri added.
Former Additional Chief Secretary K. Jairaj said the concept of sustainable buildings should be disseminated in order to create more public awareness. Architects should bring in a new design ethos to encourage sustainable buildings, and the cost of material should be brought down to make sustainable architecture accessible to everyone.
Scientific urbanisation
Urbanisation should be scientific and technically sound, to reduce pressure on limited resources, said P.R. Dasgupta, director of TERI south regional centre.
The two-day conference is being organised by TERI in association with ADaRSH (Association for Development and Research of Sustainable Habitats) to bring together architects, international agencies, financial institutions and policy makers. Architect Krishna Rao Jaisim, Niranjan Khatri of ITC Welcomgroup and Chitra Vishwanath of Biome attended the conference.
‘Green cities’ was the focus of the conference on its first day. On Saturday, the participants will look at ‘Sustainable and affordable housing’.
An exhibition on sustainable building materials and technologies has also been organised.
