Adaptive Re-use as a Strategy for Sustainable Indian Cities

Abstract

The Indian metropolises are going through delicate times, feeding the burgeoning demands of society, frugality and the terrain. The current practice of direct product- in which commodity is produced, used and discarded is no longer doable for a sustainable future. The new way of allowing emphasizes the recycling, reusing and reducing consumption of what have formerly been produced. In simple words, adaptive play is the process of changing an ineffective or rejected item into a useful reality with a different purpose. conforming being structures and spots to realize contemporary conditions is the most practical option than obliteration or relief, therefore upgrading the socio- profitable and environmental status of the position, with giving it a new life. incontrovertibly, re-using an being structure becomes more responsive to prevailing climatic changes and global warming issues by drastically reducing the energy destruction and consumption involved in erecting new structures. Accordingly, adaptive play could be elevated to a new status rather than looking at it as just a strategy for conservation of heritage structures. numerous metropolises in Australia, Europe and USA are laboriously encouraging adaptive play as a strategy towards sustainable carbon-neutral metropolises. Keeping all these factors in mind, designing our unborn structures with essential adaptive play eventuality would be a clever approach towards making our metropolises more sustainable. This paper aims at how efficiently we can determine the adaptivere-use eventuality of being structures by briefly explaining the Adaptive Play Implicit( ARP) model, along with exploring a strategy to assess the ARP of unborn structures.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Conservation of our ill- planned  metropolises could be a daunting task to start with, but surely a task that could lead us to a more sustainable  hereafter. As suggested by Dennis Rodwell( 1), although their roots are different, both conservation and sustainability partake a common ground. According to Rodwell, in the wider, environmental sense, conservation and sustainability have  resemblant meanings and are  constantly used interchangeably to express the need to manage the world’s natural  coffers and the biosphere in order first, to secure long- term harmony between man and nature; and second, to achieve  nonstop  improvement in the  terrain and in the conditions and quality of life for humans and other life forms. UNEP’s structure and Climate change( 2) asserts that  structures contribute as  important one thirds of the total  hothouse gas emigrations, primarily through fossil energies during their  functional phase. According to their statistics, the  structure sector contributes up to 30 of global periodic  hothouse gas emigrations and consumes up to 40 of all energy. therefore it's  veritably  important clear that the  structure sector has the most implicit  for delivering significant and cost-effective  hothouse gas emigration reductions( 2). The World Energy Outlook 2009, the global energy  operation shamus of the Paris- grounded International Energy Agency says that the half of world’s population in  metropolises is  formerly consuming two third of world’s energy. By 2030,  metropolises will be consuming 73 per cent of world energy,  counting for 70 per cent of CO2 emigrations( 3).  The Indian  metropolises are going through  delicate times,  feeding the burgeoning demands of society, frugality and the   terrain. India is  passing an  unknown construction  smash. The Building Energy Efficiency in India   collected by US Department of Energy( 7) states that, the country doubled its  bottom space between 2001 and 2005 and is anticipated to add 35 billion square metres of new  structures by 2050. In short, we wo n’t be left with enough land in our near future to  feed the proliferating demand,  therefore forcing us to grow and expand our  metropolises beyond control into the agrarian and suburban fabric. It's  prognosticated that, if there are no specific sectoral  programs to  check  structure energy use, final energy demand of the Indian  structure sector will grow over five times by the end of this century, driven by  rapid-fire income and population growth( 8). These  intimidating statistics urges  erecting design professionals to produce  further energy effective  structures and  patch being stock to meet the sustainability criteria set by their  separate authorities( 4). The adaptive play of  structures- under the light of all these  circumstances- is  further than just a practice of conserving the heritage of listed ornon-listed structures in a historically significant neighborhood. In fact, as an  volition to our ever-  adding   gamble- away society, adaptive exercise offers a sustainable  structure  point with being  structure and accoutrements ( 5).

This culture of exercise and reclaim can be  enforced in design strategy for our  unborn  structures, keeping in mind the benefits of adaptively re-used  structures( 6), which can be  distributed into the following;

1. Environmental
2. Social 
3. Cultural,
4. profitable

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors and  walls that determines the adaptive play  eventuality of  structures in an Indian realm,  riveting on developing this as a strategy to design and  make our  unborn  metropolises, which could bere-used and reclaimed as per the demands of the  also society. The contemporary  inquiries and literature on adaptive exercise have been reviewed and forms the base of validity of this paper. The internationally accepted Adaptive Play Implicit( ARP) model is compactly explained along with the  recently introduced standing tool called the  acclimatize STAR( 4). The paper concludes with a gist of  compliances from the case study of an adaptivelyre-used  point in Bangalore – ‘ The Garden City of India ’

II. SUSTANABILITY AND ADAPTIVE RE-USE IN INDIA

According to the article published by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) [9] New Delhi, India lacks a holistic regulatory body, unlike the developed countries, for assessment of environmental impact posed by the building construction sectors for its cities. CSE asserts that the only regulatory instrument that is available for composite assessment of impact of the building construction sector is the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) rules, introduced under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 [9]. Though  EIA is meant for only large construction projects (built-up area of more than 20,000 square meter), it gives cities a chance to decide if proposed buildings are needed and how must they be designed to mitigate their impacts. To make matters worse, The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) Mumbai, declared on 15 January 2015 [10] that big building projects don’t need Environmental Clearances (EC’s) from their centre in New Delhi anymore. Unfortunately, under these circumstances, the exploitation of the cities, environment and the society as a whole is imminent.The rest is upon the building design professionals, contractors and builders whether or not to contemplate the surroundings before conceiving projects of massive scale, which may or may not prove detrimental.

But the fact is all evident in our day to day experience, that we need more sustainable developments to curtail the ever growing environmental pollution, global warming, climatic changes and their social impacts. The developed countries have already commissioned strategies to successfully renovate and retrofit existing buildings to the required degree of sustainability standards in order to effectively decrease the environmental impact. This clearly states that adaptive re-use or retrofitting plays such a critical role in reducing emissions from the built environment.

According to Christopher Gorse and David Highfield [11], there is no better example of the environmental benefits of effective sustainability in practice than the recycling of buildings. For every building that is recycled through refurbishment, the extraction of raw materials and the manufacturing processes and energy involved in converting these into a completed replacement building are avoided, to the undoubted benefit of the environment.

III. THE ADAPTIVE RE-USE AND THE ARP MODEL

As There are various driving factors responsible for the growth ofadaptive re-use as a practical strategy for delivering buildings for new uses. Among them the key driver is rising energy costs, which increases the cost of new construction (e.g.materials, transport, and resources), compelling the clients to re-use existing building stock [13]. The ever rising energy prices is forcing the realtors and investors to increase the energy efficiency of their projects in order to maintain market demand and rental growths. According to Shah and Kumar [12], significant growth in the construction of new buildings in the recent years has created a wealth of built stock and as a result there are many buildings available for refurbishment and re-use.

Although many of these projects don’t abide with the prevailing sustainable strategies and environmental performance codes, adaptive reuse of this existing building stock is viewed as an alternative to address this sustainability gap by improving the buildings functionality and reducing its environmental load [14].

The key drivers and barrier influencing adaptive re-use, developed by Peter Bullen and Peter Love [14], are shown in Fig. 1.

However, due to premature obsolescence, it has been quite  difficult to forecast the effective life of buildings [16]. There are mainly seven obsolescence categories in the ARP model, and are listed as physical, economic, functional, technological, social, legal and political, and assessment of all these categories are undertaken using surrogate estimation techniques [15]. The ARP model predicts effective life as a function of (discounted) physical life and obsolescence, and allows the calculation of the adaptive reuse potential of a building’s life cycle so that the right timing for intervention can be applied [4].

The ARP model has generic application to all countries and all building typologies. The model has been widely published and is considered robust as it has been tested in hindsight against 64 adaptive reuse projects globally [15] and recently validated by a new multi criteria decision analysis tool called iconCUR [17,18]. The decay curve can be reset by strategic capital investment during a renewal process by the current owner, or a future developer, at key intervals during a building’s life cycle.

ARP scores in excess of 50% have high adaptive reuse potential, scores between 20% and 50% have moderate potential, and scores below 20% have low value, representing about one-third of the area under the decay curve in each case.Potential means that there is a propensity for projects to realize economic, social and environmental benefits when adaptive reuse is implemented. ARP is conceptualized as

rising from zero to its maximum score at the point of its useful life, and then falling back to zero as it approaches physical life. Where the current building age is close to and less than the useful life, the model identifies that planning activities should commence [15,17,18,19].

`

The site of the central jail, located in the heart of Bengaluru city today, lay virtually on a line that once divided the ‘old city’ and ‘cantonment’ during colonial rule. A sepration based on the density of the two halves; the congested old city versus the open spaces of the cantonment. The Central Jail complex was built in 1866-67, and today, the activities of this jail have been shifted to a location on the outskirts, thus leaving behind 20 acres of unused space in the busy city, walled off from public presence. The Government of Karnataka then decided to hand over this historical site to the Bangalore Mahanagar Palika (BMP) - with an intention to redevelop this 20 acres into an urban space accommodating various public activities – and floated an open competition for its redevelopment [21]. Mathew and Ghosh Architects won the competition and successfully executed the project. The project was opened to public in November 2008.

The proposed design was based on the below mentioned key concepts;

1. Making the jail periphery more transparent and inviting to the public.
2. Adaptive re-use of the existing buildings - the barracks, the quarantine dormitory, the gallows etc. – by transforming them into ‘multi-functional pavilions’ in the landscape
3. Maximum use of available resources such as solar energy, rain water harvesting, recharging ground water and follow the site gradients.

The design successfully shifts the focus away from the tower by making it a point of reference for locating oneself within the park. Also the Adaptive Re-use Potential of existing buildings have been carefully perused and the rectangular, walled and rigid barracks are transformed into pavilions, set within the landscape. The whole undulating landscape has plinths as floating platforms, which become surfaces for activity and rest. The existing walls have been transformed from dark, oppressive and dominating stature that of a jail into something that blends well with the landscape, as remnants of the past and as an anchor to activities within the pavilion. The dark roofs of the hospital are appreciated for their structural integrity but are retrofitted to well-lit and structurally-light architectural elements. The natural landform dictates the form of the park and the existing water bodies are retained as sites of silence. The existing high periphery walls of the jail has been partially demolished to ensure proper visual connectivity. Indian urban spatial history is often considered as fragments in an intricately woven palimpsest. The Urban Park strategy to

layer spatial memories (of a formal spatial history such as the “panoptical”) and the discovery of the ruin amidst the new apparatus that creates decentralized foci (and thus by position, anchoring and movement dissolves the former built apparatus) is one that is inspired by the evidence of the palimpsest [22].

Conclusion

Conservation is more than just heritage preservation – it is a strategy to peruse and determine the changing usage of buildings to cater the growing demands of society, while maintaining the heritage value and sustainability. Re-using existing buildings and available resources is more economical and environmental friendly than demolition and reconstruction. The contemporary buildings of our cities are heritage of tomorrow; the designers and building professionals hall keep this in mind while designing buildings and consider adaptive re-use as a potential strategy within the design phase to meet the requirements and desires of the future, while considering the prevailing climatic conditions and sustainable requirements.

References

[1] Dennis Rodwell, “Conservation and Sustainability in Historic Cities”, Blackwell Publishing 2007 [2] UNEP SBCI, “Buildings and Climate Change; Summary for decision makers”, United Nations Environment Programme, 2009 [3] Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, “Energy and Buildings, 2014” [4] Sheila Conejos, Craig Langston, Jim Smith, “Designing for Future Buildings: Adaptive Re-use as a Strategy for Carbon Neutral Cities”, The International Journal of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses, 2012 [5] Sophie Francesca Cantell, “The Adaptive Reuse of Historic Industrial Buildings: Regulation Barriers, Best Practices and Case Studies” Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2005 [6] Department of Environment and Heritage, Australian Government, “Adaptive Re-use: Preserving our Past, Building our Future” Commonwealth of Australia, 2004 [7] Yu, S., Evans, M., Delgado, A., US Department of Energy, “Building Energy Efficiency in India: Compliance Evaluation of Energy Conservation Building Code”, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 2014 [8] Chaturvedi, V., Eom, J., Clarke, L.E., and Shukla, P.R., Long erm building energy demand for India: Disaggregating end use energy services in an integrated assessment modeling framework. Energy Policy, 2014 [9] Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, “Environment Impact Assessment, 2012” [10] Clara Lewis, The Times of India, TNN, “Big Building Projects don’t need environment clearances from Centre” Jan. 17, 2015 [11] Christopher Gorse and David Highfield, “Refurbishment and Upgrading of Buildings”, Second Edition, Spon Press, 2009 [12] Shah, A. and Kumar, A., “Challenges in residual service life assessment for refurbishment projects”, Proceedings of the 11th Pacific Rim Real Estate Society Conference, PRRES 2005, Melbourne. [13] James Douglas, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK, “Building Adaptation”, Second Edition, Spon Press, 2011 [14] Peter Bullen and Peter Love, Department of Construction Management, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia, “Factors influencing the adaptive re-use of buildings”, Journal of Engineering Design and Technology, 2011 [15] Craig Langston, “The Sustainability Implications of Building Adaptive Re-use”, (keynote paper), CRIOCM 2008, Beijing, 2008 [16] Seeley, I., “Building Economics: Appraisal and control of building design cost and efficiency”, Macmillian Press, 1983 [17] Craig Langston, “Green Adaptive Reuse: Issues and strategies for the built environment”, D. WU and M. XU, First International Conference on Sustainable Construction and Risk Management Chong Qing Municipality, China, 2010 [18] Craig Langston and Jim Smith, “making better decisions about built assets”, Building a Better World: CIB World Congress, 2010 [19] Craig Langston, ”Validation of the Adaptive Re-use Potential (ARP) Model Using iconCUR”, 2012 [20] Weburbanist, “7 (more) Amazing Adaptive Re-use Architecture Projects”, http://weburbanist.com/2008/07/13/7-more-examplesrecycled- urban-architecture/ [21] Kaiwan Mehta, “Negotiating Freedom”, Indian Architect and Builder Magazine, Volume 17, June 2004 [22] Mathew and Ghosh Architects, “Freedom Park – The Park ofPossibilities”, http://www.archello.com/en/project/freedompark# [23] Supriya Khandekar, “Move Over Central Jail, Enter Freedom Park”, http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/742-freedompark-bangalore-central-jail, 2009 [24] Photographs of “Freedom Park” by Dilip MuralidharanAlizade, Rasim. and Ca?das. Bayram. 2004. Structural Synthesis of Parallel Manipulators. Mechanism and Machine Theory 39 (8): 857-870.

Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Kashmika Bose, Neelam Khushwa. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.