It will never rival the beauty or fame of the Taj Mahal, but the CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre in Hyderabad may be more important to India’s future, kick-starting a green building revolution. Allianz Knowledge took the tour.
 | Oasis of CoolA circular courtyard protects the GBC from the heat of the sun and the sweltering Hyderabad streets (Photo: Allianz) |
Like a live green whip, the snake bounds across the grass right at me. At the last second, it swerves and plunges off the roof garden.
“Grass snake,” chuckles Siva Kishan, peering into the bushes below. “They frighten the gardeners, but they are harmless.” A counselor at the Green Business Centre (GBC) in Hyderabad, Kishan is my guide around this remarkable building. They frighten visitors too, I stammer, but grass snakes on the premises do at least suggest the place lives up to its name.
The GBC is in fact one of the greenest buildings in the world; the first outside the United States, and only the third in the world, awarded a Platinum LEED rating by the U.S. Green Building Council. It is home to New Ventures India, a project to nurture and showcase Indian green entrepreneurs.
Around a circular courtyard rise one- and two-story curved blocks, jutting outward. A mix of solar PV panels, grass, shrubs, and skylights cover them. Gardens and trees surround the building. It looks like Han Solo’s spaceship from Star Wars has crash-landed in the middle of a forest and begun to flower.
The GBC not only looks futuristic, it also rates very highly according to LEED sustainability criteria—energy efficiency, water usage, indoor environmental quality, materials used, and site management. It boasts some impressive numbers, including:
- 88 percent less artificial lighting than normal buildings
- 80 percent of building materials recycled or recyclable
- 50 percent energy savings compared to a normal building
- 35 percent reduction in potable water use
Energy Efficiency
The GBC uses half the energy of typical Indian buildings. The secret is efficient cooling, vital in a city where temperatures regularly top 40 degrees Celsius. Kishan explains: “The hotter the temperature of the air, the harder the air conditioning has to work to remove the heat, and the more energy it uses.”
The GBC, by contrast, does not even need air conditioning in three quarters of its space. The circular design shields the courtyard from the sun. Gaps in the walls allow air, light, and even a family of ducks to breeze in and out. Concrete blocks with tiny pores in them, and walls with large gaps in the brickwork, aid ventilation.
The roof gardens and solar PV panels absorb the sun’s heat rather than transmitting it below, reducing the temperature by about 4 to 5 degrees Celsius. “The solar PV panels also provide about 15 to 20 percent of the building’s daily electricity needs,” Kishan explains.
Two four-story wind towers—like the courtyard, borrowed from traditional architecture—suck in air and cool it by as much as 7 degrees Celsius before circulating it around the building. Stone lattices inside the tower walls, never exposed to the sun’s heat, act like cooling elements to reduce the air temperature.
This fresh air is pumped in when the Building Management System decides that air temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels are unhealthily high. It works. The air is fresher, less muggy, but without the frigid feel of air conditioning. In the courtyard, we take tea and spicy snacks without breaking sweat.
Zero Water Wasted
Conserving water is another urgent priority in India. The Green Business Center is a zero water discharge building: no water is wasted. Low-flow fixtures and waterless urinals are standard. It uses 35 percent less potable water than normal buildings.
Waste water is piped into a large, kidney-shaped plant bed known as the Root Zone Treatment System. The bed is sloped so the water drains from one end to the other through rocks, pebbles and sand that filter it.
The plant roots then suck up and digest all the trapped waste material—natural fertilizer. The recycled water drains into a pond, from which it can be taken to irrigate plants, trees, and the roof gardens. This water also helps keep the buildings cool by chilling the air that goes into the air conditioning system.
A Workers’ Paradise
Inside, the offices seem very dim. But once the eyes adjust, there is plenty of light from the many large windows and a huge central skylight. “The entire office is day lit,” says Kishan. “We use 88 percent less artificial lighting than conventional offices, which spend about 20 percent of their budget on lighting.” The windows are double-glazed and a layer of argon between the panes repels the sun’s heat.
The good views that come with all the glass don’t seem to be a distraction. Productivity levels at the Green Business Center are 10 to 15 percent better than the norm.
Besides cooling the air, the materials used in construction also contribute to a healthy atmosphere. Paints and other materials have no solvents or volatile organic compounds that can pollute. “All the doors and workstations are wood-free, made from compressed sugarcane molasses,” says Kishan.
In fact, the vast majority of the materials used in the GBC are recycled or recyclable. The bricks were made from fly ash while the windows came from recycled glass and floor tiles from reconstituted plastic. The courtyard pillars are decorated with striking blue mosaics made from smashed ceramic tiles. During construction, more than half of the waste generated was recycled within the building or sent to other sites.
Since its construction in 2003, the GBC has kick-started a green building revolution in India. “We launched the green building concept with one building,” S. Raghupathy, the senior director of the GBC, says. “Today we have over 320 buildings awaiting certification. By 2010, we expect 1000 buildings to be ready. India now is number two in the world in terms of registered green building footprint, nearly 200 million square feet.”
India is normally seen as a laggard when it comes to tackling climate change. The Green Business Center shows that successful innovation is possible. The question is whether the booming Indian construction industry will follow suit and turn India’s megacities towards an urban future where even a grass snake would feel at home.
editor: James Tulloch
publishing date: September 1, 2009
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