Order of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Sarika Vs Administrator, Mahakaleshwar Mandir Committee, Ujjain & Others dated 01/09/2020. The SC passed a slew of direction after taking into account the report submitted by the Experts Committee on January 19, 2019, the report of the Temple Committee …
This book envisages to re-create the process by way of which buildings and entire habitats can be designed to respond to nature with climate as the basic parameter of design. It discusses the methodology of design, design tools, latest developments in energy efficient architecture and materials, and is suitably aided …
BENEATH the streets of London lie the remains of Londinium, an outpost of the only empire to run Britain from abroad, say archaeologists from the Museum of London. The course of a long-disappeared river and the truncated foundations of a massive arch, which straddled a Roman road, have been unearthed …
lutyens Bungalow Zone, one of the greenest areas in New Delhi, should be razed and replaced by multi-storey apartments, says Union urban affairs minister Ram Jethmalani. The government has constituted a three-member panel to study and recommend a viable plan of action within two months. Jethmalani says that the zone …
FOR almost 800 years, the Bell tower of Pisa's cathedral has been tilted a wee-bit towards south and for almost as long, engineers, far and near, have tried to stop the tower from what it does best - leaning. In 1989, however, when a similar tower fell down, killing five …
This book provides a balanced international overview of the way forward, showing how choice of materials and construction processes, response to landscape and climate, and - not to be forgotten - the involvement of users, can together solve environmental problems and produce a diverse architecture to suit human and regional …
FOR years, technical book alternative materials and cost building tech have been regularly lished. Government semi-government org tions like Housing Urban Development ration have published erous books and technical papers that have been usefull to the practitioner of alternative tive architecture. Build your own How to the Rhythm of life …
It is normal for people in many countries to build their own houses, especially among the poor. Now, a British architect, Walter Segal, has developed a timber-frame building system based on off-the-shelf materials, with a minimum of cutting, and a simple sequence of step by step operations (Appropriate Technology, Vol …
ONE of the most challenging tasks in the wake of devastating earthquakes, floods and other such natural calamities is the repair of roads and railway supply lines. In particular, mending bridges poses the greatest problem because conventional methods to construct bridges require a lot of time and expenditure. But now, …
What are the activities of the CSR? We are a very small organisation of just 5 people working on appropriate building technology and materials, water and sanitation. We have also been promoting alternative energy sources -- wind for water pumping and solar photovoltaic for lighting; now we are introducing solar …
WEATHER and climate exercise tremendous influence over human wellbeing and health. Humans make dwellings for themselves to escape the vagaries of climatic variations. Sitting in the relative comfort of our airconclitioned offices and homes - between a past in which electricity was unimaginable and a future in which it probably …
OLD is gold... and "green", and nowhere is it more true than in the case of sustainable models of low-energy, climatically responsive architectural designs. This realisation brought together architects and designers in a recently concluded workshop at Delhi's School of Planning and Architecture (SPA). Some 20 eminent architects from Israel, …
Some bats could well be making the belfries they live in. Jae Choe of Harvard University has recently discovered in Panama a bat (Uroderma bilobatum) that constructs sophisticated wigwams in several leafy tiers (BBC Wildlife, Vol 12, No 9). The bats chewed part of the way through the midrib of …
IMAGINE a building swaying like a pendulum so that it doesn't crumble during an earthquake. Engineer Victor Zayas of Earthquake Protection Systems in San Francisco has designed just such a system (Science, Vol 262, No 5139). The new Friction Pendulum System (FPS) is quite unlike others, which dissipate tremor energy …
SUNLIGHT has been used for thousands of years to heat or cool buildings. Originally a matter of mere survival, it has since become an expression of the human need to harness solar energy and create a better world for themselves. Historical records suggest the formidable powers of the sun, both …
SHORTAGE of space is a familiar lament of city folk fond of gardening. But now, architect Gosta Nilsson has found a novel way to make walls using hollow concrete blocks that could be filled with sand and manure for plants to grow in. These "growing" walls would be ideal around …
WHEN WILLIAM Morris began his epic, The Earthly Paradise, with these lines in 1868, he was reacting to the effects of the Industrial Revolution and the unbridled urban growth of 19th century England. A century later, what was confined to the West has spread across the globe. And because we …
A 61-YEAR-old Chinese architect, Cao Shizhong, who specialises in setting tilting structures straight, dreams of restoring the Leaning Tower of Pisa to its original tilt, a feat that would make him a millionaire. The Leaning Tower of Pisa could never attain its planned 13-storey eminence for when the tower had …
Union urban development minister Sheila Kaul has presented Laurie Baker, the innovative architect lauded for his low-cost construction techniques, with the United Nations Habitat Scroll of Honour for 1992. The award was presented to him on World Habitat Day (October 5). Baker has a simple rule-of-thumb for deciding which material …
EVEN AS the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) goes ahead with Delhi's first mass residential colony based on solar passive architecture, architects continue to hold reservations about the project. Officials in the department of science and technology (DST), which is bearing half the project's research and development costs of Rs …
