Archive for October, 2009
GRIHA: India’s Answer to LEED
Evaluation is necessary to ascertain how green a building is. Apart from verifying claims, such systems ensure that best practices are followed and the gains made are quantified. GRIHA (Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment), the green rating system developed by The Energy Resources Institute (TERI), is promoted by the Ministry of New and Renewable [...]
When style was substance: Mumbai in the 1930s
Urban housing these days has increasingly become a matter of “lifestyle.” By Ashoak Upadhyay / Business Line Builders do not erect an apartment block or two; they build cities within cities; rows upon rows of residential towers peppered with landscaped gardens, swimming pool, jogging track and clubhouse. The customer does not come home simply to [...]
Building with a heart: Anne Feenstra Exhibition
Every edifice should speak the language of its country, says Anne Feenstra, displaying friendly buildings at an exhibition in New Delhi By Shailaja Tripathi / The Hindu Three different structures by three different architects in three totally different countries and settings… but what binds them is their innate connection with the human beings who not [...]
Balkrishna Doshi Rues Lack of Ideas
Poverty of ideas and a lack of social commitment in many of India’s contemporary architects could leave us with no skyline we can call our own two decades from now, fears visionary architect-planner Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi. “What will happen to our cities after 20 years? We have no public realm, no urban development, no museums, [...]
Goa to get Green Infrastructure.
Architects, planners and others with green caps and fingers are unveiling a plan to promote use of green principles for eco-friendly infrastructure, necessitated by climate change. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII, Goa) and Indian Institute of Architects (IIA) Goa chapter have initiated a joint effort towards creating a cell in Goa to promote green buildings [...]
Bureaucracy and other spanners in India’s works
By DAVID LASCELLES / Business Day THE world has become so accustomed to labelling India as one of the world’s great engines of growth — alongside China — that it comes as a bit of a shock to discover that the reality is a little less dazzling. Concrete and chaos are the best words to [...]
Indian Maze Complicates Building of a Global Stage
By Jim Yardley / NYTimes.com The roof of the city’s new domestic airport terminal partly collapsed in August. A Metro commuter train derailed the same month, and then a second Metro train derailed in September. The city’s roads are so pockmarked with bathtub-size potholes that newspapers feature regular photo essays of the most egregiously epic [...]
Sustainable Styles: Indian Architecture ?
How sustainable is your style? Can you look at a building and tell if it’s green? Sometimes, appearances can be deceptive. We clue you in on what really makes a building environment-friendly By Himanshu Burte / LiveMint Sustainability is the buzzword. Every manner of building makes a claim to “greenness” today. While there are various [...]
Council of Architecture India under investigation
Termites In The Woodwork The government has accused top officers at the COA, India’s apex architectural body, of criminal misconduct. BRIJESH PANDEY tracks the issues as the CBI investigates IN A move that could change the face of the study and practice of architecture in India, the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) has recommended [...]
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