Srishti iit chennai

International Conference, February 13-16, 2013
IIT Madras, Chennai, India

COMPARITIVE STUDY OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND
SUSTAINABILITY OF TRADITIONAL SUSTAINABLE AND MODERN
GREEN BUILDING IN HYDERABAD.
Srishti Srivastava (1), Deepak Srivastava (2)

(1) International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) and Jawaharlal Nehru
Architecture and Fine Arts University (JNAFAU), Hyderabad.

(2) Silpa Green Building Technologies

Abstract
In today‟s context buildings have been accepted as the major contributors (40%) of Energy
and resources. It becomes important to evaluate the impact of the design decisions on the
environment, especially in developing countries like India, where most of the buildings stock
is yet to be built. Buildings of earlier times had many built-in architectural features for
achieving comfort. Gradually, as newer materials and techniques of construction developed,
vernacular built forms evolved to provide a harmonious balance between buildings, climate
and people‟s lifestyle through active measures.
This paper aims at understanding the design interventions present in the traditional era of
Nizams and the modern day. The paper incorporates performing case studies of two buildings
(from the hospitality sector) in Hyderabad - Falaknuma Palace, and Park Hotel. The
Quantitative Analysis to determine energy performance of both the buildings (Heritage and
Green) is performed in energy simulation softwares like IES VE, Ecotect. However, the paper
focuses on subjectively evaluating the sustainability of the two buildings, due to
unavailability of detailed information. In conclusion the paper identifies that energy
efficiency/conservation is very small and insignificant in the entire value chain as compared
to sustainability, but is more popularised because of the convenience of calculation therefore
nevertheless, certification is important but sustainability is much more important and it needs
to be addressed in holistic approach rather than in bits and pieces.

1. INTRODUCTION

With the advent of newer materials and techniques of construction, vernacular built forms
evolved to provide a harmonious balance between buildings, climate and people‟s lifestyle.
With technological advancement, people failed to continue the tradition of maintaining
harmonious balance between buildings, climate and their lifestyle. Modern architecture has
become a “conquest” of nature in the sense that, environmental conditions notwithstanding, a
building could be given a sleek, clean and well- proportioned exterior facades, and the
interior made as comfortable as required with the help of artificial devices. However, the
drawback is that, such buildings consume enormous amount of energy.

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2. METHODOLOGY

The paper incorporates performing case studies of two buildings (from the hospitality sector)
selected from the same location (Hyderabad) - Building A: Falaknuma Palace, Building B:
Park Hotel. These buildings are distinct in nature although both of them have the same
function, which is serving the hospitality sector. The study tries to understand the energy and
resource consumption and emission and waste generation process of the New Built
Environment, which is influenced by the Green Building movement. Thereafter, the study
analyses the traditional approach of building construction during the Nizam‟s period which
dates back to more than a century (with the aid of Falaknuma Palace) and also the study aims
at understanding the current scenario and the palace‟s performance in terms of energy
consumption and waste generation after getting renovated as a hotel for the Taj group. The
comparison is of the palace is drawn with The Park Hotel, which is a Gold rated Green
Building. Since it is difficult to evaluate the impact of any design decision on Environment
directly, it has been taken up in two approaches, which are qualitative and quantitative in
nature. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of both the buildings (Heritage and Green) is
performed. The core intent of the research work is to identify the architectural interventions,
which are done by the designer in terms of design features, building materials, orientation etc
of each of these projects to address the same weather conditions. In conclusion the paper
identifies the interventions done in both the projects in relation to Energy Conservation,
Energy Efficiency and Energy Performance and sustainability on the whole.

3. CHARACTERISTICS OF LOCAL CLIMATE

Hyderabad, Capital of Andhra Pradesh is a combination of rich cultural heritage and latest
technological interventions. The city finds itself developing more rapidly in the last decade.
There is more development in terms of built environment in the past five years due to the
sudden influx of the IT sector in the city.
Celebrated for its fabulously rich and colorful past, the enchanting city of pearls, Hyderabad,
has endured both history and rapid industrial growth, and wonderfully too. Once the bastion
of the fabulously wealthy Nizams, today it is the capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh. While
its delightfully crowded bazaars, monuments, mosques and minarets lend a certain old world
Alladinesque charm to the city, this lively 400-year-old metropolis is also a good example of
where tradition and technology don't just co-exist, but have collectively boosted both
development and progress.

The built environment of Hyderabad, a few years back consisted of rich cultural heritage
buildings including Golconda fort, Charminar etc. The change in the building materials used
in creating the current building stock has undergone a phenomenal change, which might be
responsible for modifying the micro climate of the area as well. Hyderabad has a climate of
hot and dry throughout the year leaving just 2 to 3 months of slightly lower temperatures. The
new building stock thus does not pretty much suite the environment of Hyderabad.

3.1 Weather of Hyderabad
Hyderabad lies at 17°20‟N 78°30‟E in the Andhra Pradesh state in central India. It is in the
“Tropical monsoon” (Am) région as defined by the Koppen classification for international
climate. Summer months between March and May experience a large diurnal temperature
swing between 25°C to 42°C. The Monsoon season stretches from mid-June to September

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and brings heavy rains and prevailing wind from the northeast. The fall season or “post
monsoon” is characterized by high humidity with minimal rainfall. The winter months carry
much cooler temperatures and pleasant breezes that create opportunities for passive cooling
and natural ventilation. The temperatures range from 20°C to 32°C (humans are most
comfortable in a range between 18 and 25 degrees, depending on wind speed and humidity).

3.2 Temperature
In this climate data the high solar radiation, particularly in the winter season from December
to April is the most significant parameter. The direct solar radiation drops significantly in the
summer from June to August, as the monsoon season mitigates the direct solar gain through
the building envelope.
Wind analysis reveals that the prevailing wind during the monsoon is from the
west/southwest. Building outdoor spaces should be positioned to protect them from the higher
winds and wind-driven rain in the summer months.

4. CASE STUDIES

4.1 The Park Hotel
The Park Hyderabad is an iconic pioneer boutique hotel in terms of design, architecture and
services showcasing Indian and International Design. This is India‟s first LEED GOLD
certified green hotel. Enclosed in the heart of the city on Hussain Sagar lake, the hotel offers
thematic and trend setting restraunts and entertainment options. Figure1 shows the
suroundings of the Park Hotel, opposite of the Necklace Road station.
With a total investment of Rs. 340 crore, this new 270 room flagship hotel‟s breathtaking
facade references the jewelry for which Hyderabad is world renowned. The Park, blends
contemporary and vernacular architectural traditions with sustainable design techniques. The
hotel site (2¼ acres) that exemplifies the dualities of India: It is across the street from a busy,
noisy railroad station, but overlooks the serene Hussain Sagar Lake.
To reduce solar gain and glare, designers employed a layering approach and looked at the
local metalworking tradition for the design of a jewel-like exterior skin of perforated and
embossed aluminium. The metal-panel screen is installed in front of laminated, insulated,
low-E glass windows with acoustical properties. The skin not only affords privacy for the
guest rooms, but the architects shaped its openings to allow occupants to have spectacular
views of the city and the lake. By night, LED panels inserted between the glass and the
screens illuminate the building with vibrant hues [1].

The orientation of the building on its site and the design of the metal screen have reduced
energy needs of the hotel by almost 30 per cent, say the architects. Because of such strategies,
in late 2010, the Park Hotel became India's first LEED Gold certified hotel.

Figure 1: Park Hotel

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4.2 Taj Falaknuma Palace
Falaknuma Palace is also known as the ‟mirror of the sky„ because at 2000 feet, it was built in
the clouds and reflects the ever-changing moods of the sky. Located five kms south of
Charminar, its foundation stone was laid on 3rd March 1884. Set in 32 acres of land and
spread over 19400 square meters, the Palace was commissioned by Sir Nawab Vikar-Ul
Umra, a Hyderabadi nobleman from the Paigah family. Built in 1894, it took ten years and
four million rupees for its magnificent, physical evolution in the shape of a scorpion.
Designed by British architect William Mard Marret, the Palace took a rumoured 22 years to
perfect and has been owned in turn by Sir Vicar-Ul-Umra, PM of the State of Hyderabad,
Nizam Mahboob Ali Pasha and Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur. [3]
Taj Falaknuma Palace's 60 beautifully refurbished and lovingly restored rooms allow one to
journey into the clouds and into the glided ages, where grandeur and excess is celebrated and
savoured in equal measure.

Figure 2: Falaknuma Palace

The palace is designed by the architect in European Style. The facade of the palace is in
Grecian Style with Ionic columns at the Ground floor and Corinthian Columns at the first
floor. It is laid out in the shape of a scorpion with two stings spread out to the north, refer
Figure 2, it shows the palace surrounded by huge lawns and green areas as depicted by the
satellite imagery.
The main central building having 24 rooms, is placed over a large terrace accessed through
two levels of basements. It is in Classical style with two storeyed deep and colonaded veranda
Carrying a pediment. The palladian columns are thicker in proportion. A deep verandah
surrounds all chief apartments. Behind the main building is a long imposing courtyard, about
600 feet long, which is surrounded by rooms and corridors. The palace has 220 lavishly
furnished rooms and 22 spacious halls.

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5. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: QUALITATIVE
The study analyses the traditional approach of building construction during the Nizam‟s
period which dates back to more than a century (with the aid of Falaknuma Palace) and
modern day interventions (with the aid of Park Hotel). The study aims at understanding the
current scenario and the palace‟s performance in terms of energy consumption and
sustainability after getting renovated as a hotel for the Taj group Hotel. Falaknuma Palace
dates back to the Nizam era, this Building has been planned to naturally provide thermal
comfort to the occupants, due to unavailability of any mechanical interventions during the
Nizam‟s era.
The analysis has been performed based on the IEBDP (Integrated Energy- Efficient Building
Design Process) framework [4] refer Figure 3. According to this framwork, there are various
parameters based on which evaluation can be performed. The IEBDP i categorized in three
distinct design phases, which allows the designer to choose specific strategies based on
multiple criteria decision making process.

Figure 3 System participation in Building Design : IEBDP

5.1 Hiérarchy of Stratégies
The evaluation has been done at three level of strategies. These strategies were used as a
backbone for the subjective evaluation process in this paper [2].
Site Level Strategy (Schematic Design)
Site Topography and Landform, Site Vegetation, Site Water Bodies, Outdoor Space and
Activity Zoning.
Building Form Level Strategy (Conceptual Design)
Building Plan form and Orientation, Building Service Space and Open Space, Building Roof
Form.
Building Component Level Strategy (Detailed Design)
Building Fenestration Design, Fenestration Area Configuration Analysis, Fenestration
Glazing Selection, Building Roof and Wall Design, Water Body effectiveness Analysis

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5.2 Climate and Design Strategies
The climate available for both the buildings is the same and Hyderabad weather file has been
used for simulations. Apart from minor différences in terms of microclimate for both the
buildings, the oppurtunities and challenges present are pretty much same. Therefore the
approach which has been adopted to answer the same questions is being studied.The two
buildings were modeled in Sketchup and transferred to Ecotect to understand the different
climatic factors and the design interventions for the same as demonstrated in Figure 4a, 4b.
The comparative analysis of the buildings is based on different parameters :

Figure 4a Figure 5b
Figure 6: Sketchup/ Ecotect Model of Falaknuma Palace (4a) and Park Hotel (4b)

5.3 Site Topography and Landform
The Falaknuma Palace having located at 2000 ft altitude, has been primarily designed for
natural ventilation with a floor to ceiling height of 20 feet with high ventilators to push the
hot air outside, on the contrary, in Park Hotel, the habitable areas are supposed to be
mechanically cooled and ventilated, apart from the swimming pool area.

5.4 Effects of Vegetation and Landscape
Soft and Hard Landscape- In case of Falaknuma Palace, it is surrounded by the soft landscape
in almost all areas close to the buildings,which facilitated water Percolation and ground
Water recharge. On the contrary, the Park Hotel, has minimal vegetation. The location of the
vegetation surrounding the built form is also rare.

5.5 Ventilation Within the Buildings
The different blocks in Falaknuma palace are interconnected with proper ventillation in all the
spaces, and it contains shaded pathways which are not conditioned but are comfortable since
all the pathways are well shaded to avoid the direct solar radiation hitting the pedestrains. The
provision of ventillation have been adressed in The Park also, but are largely at the built form
level, but eventually the spaces are not designed for being uncondtioned, apart from the
central court where the swimming pool is located.

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5.6 Plan Form
The plan form of both the buildings are significantly different. The Falaknuma Palace plan
form is introvert in nature (figure 5a), when compared to Park Hotel plan form(figure 5b),
which is an extrovert plan form. This differnce in plan form is also responsible for huge
ammount of solar raditaion penetration in case of Park Hotel since the facade is directly
exposed to solar insolation. The simulations results validate this particular feature very
clearly.
The Falaknuma Palace has a wide corridor (8‟) around the habitable rooms which ensures
diffused daylight and keeps the heat ingress down simultaneously. Overhangs are present to
protect walls against solar radiation ingress into the building, as can be seen in Figure 6a and
6b, thus ensuring better thermal environment in the interiors even without air conditioners.

Fig 5b
Figure 5a

Figure 7: Plan Form of Falaknuma Palace (5a) and Park Hotel (5b)

Figure 6a Figure 6b

Figure 8: Revit & IES Model of Falaknuma Palace 6a, 6b.

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5.7 Materials
Construction materials paly a significant role in controlling the indoor environment of a
building. The walls in Falaknuma palace are 2.5 feet thick stone walls with stucco plaster
which is the traditional practise in buildings in Hyderabad, this ensuring a high thermal mass,
which acts as a reasonable barrier to the external environment. On the other hand when
compared to Park Hotel, it is composed of curtain wall glazing, wth high performance glass,
still unable to control the heat ingress in the building.

Figure 7: IES Model of Park Hotel

5.8 Opening Size and Shape.
The glass selection process at Park has been quite robust, and finally after many simulations
and performance analysis, the designers‟ zeroed down to high performance glass which has
been imported from Scotland. The glass types were cycled through the simulation to find a
manufacturer with a relatively high SHGC and high visual light transmittance in the range of
50-70%. The final selection consisted of a 35mm insulated glazed unit by China Southern
Glass, thicker than the industry standard IGU of 24mm. The unit make up was a 6mm
laminated outer light, at 24mm air gap, and a 5mm inner light with a double low-e coating on
the #4 and #5 surfaces. On the contrary, the glass used in Falaknuma is simple clear glass, but
the amount of heat entering the rooms is significantly reduced due to the corridor surrounding
the rooms, and yet ensuring the daylighting levels because of the diffused sunlight due to
large sized windows.

5.9 Opening Location
In Park Hotel, The east-facing glazed sections of the building had significant exposure to sun
(refer Figure 7), therefore, the “solar stress” on the façade has to be worked out in few
simulation softwares, which result in shading through aluminium screens, to answer the
issues related to brightness and glare. On the contrary, in the Falaknuma Palace, the rooms
surrounded by deep verandah on all sides gets access to diffused light due to huge windows,
and also cuts the heat ingress into the interiors by avoiding direct sunlight hitting the window
pane at any point, yet benefitting out of the glare free diffused light. There are ventilators also
provided in order to aid in ensuring proper light levels along with movement of hot air
outside the premises by a natural process without incorporating any mechanical means.

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6. COMPARITIVE ANALYSIS : QUANTITATIVE
The performance analysis for both the buildings is performed in Energy Simulation software
Equest to find out the difference in terms of Energy Consumption (Refer Figure 8). In order
to depict the real time situation, a room of 20 feet by 20 feet was created, with the same
configurations as present in the two buildings. These two rooms are then simulated and the
results are evaluated, compared and analysed. Due to unavailability of the information, the
performance analysis of both the buildings could not be completed fully. The two major
design interventions which are evaluated in this experiment is the change in Energy
Consumption caused due to deep corridors to all sides of the usable rooms. The deep
corridors did not let the direct radiation enter the premises of the rooms, however would
ensure optimum daylight to be present which is glare free and indirect or diffused in nature.
Due to this particular design intervention heat ingress in the interiors is controlled, thus
making the interiors comfortable and also reducing the cooling demand significantly.

Comparitive Analysis of Energy efficiency of walls
60
Energy Consumption (MBTU)

50
40
30
20
10
0
Falaknuma w/o
Falaknuma Park Hotel
Corridors
Series1 30.1 34.6 48

* Room Size of all the models is 20x20 feet
** HVAC equipment is same in all the models
*** Internal Loads Similar in all the models
**** 2.5 feet thick walls

Figure 8: IES Model of Park Hotel

7. CHALLENGES
There are many challenges in carrying out such a study which can evaluate quantitatively, due
to unavaialability of the detailed information to carry out simulation in softwares, which do
not work on subjective information, the kind of which is present in many of our documented
literature. The discription present is by far very historical/ archaeological in nature and thus
do not render enough technical information which can be used for further evaluation.
The unavailability of softwares to model the effect of water body and vegetation in Indian
Conditions is also a potential challenge in evaulating the effect of these soft infrastructure on
the microclimate of the site, which might be significantly influenced by their presence.
There is an acute requirement of these kind of research studies to be carried out with the aid
of the Government, since almost 70% of Indian Building Stock has yet to be built, it is
extremely important to evaluate in which direction we are heading towards, so that
interventions can be possible at the initial stages at the policy level itself.

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8. CONCLUSIONS
The traditional beliefs and prinicples of Indian Architecture to go for a revolution to meet the
growing demands of of the technological developments in order to achieve sustainable built
environment in India. There has been a tremendous change in the demands of the inhabitants
of buildings in terms of spaces, space cooling, and infrastructure facilities to answer the
technology requirements of the present generation. This type of sustainable development
brings forward intelligent integration of principles of design from our ancestors which has to
be redesigned to answer the challenges posed by us and our posterity. The sustainable
development in this fashion brings forward the most effective use of resources available to
mankind. The intelligent mix of traditional techniques, modern knowledge and technologies
is the way forward.

9. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge the efforts of the staff of both the Park Hotel and Falaknuma Palace
for their support which they have shown during the visit for performing the case studies.
There is no doubt that it would have not been possible to complete the study without their
helping attitude and support. The author has been supported in preparing this paper by the
DFID-funded SICRISA programme (Support to Improve Climate Research and Information
Services in South Asia), through a writing workshop and mentoring.

10. REFERENCES
1) Evolutionary Performance: Passive Design for a Hotel in Central India,James Kraus, Design
Principles and Practices: An International Journal  Volume 3, Number 6, 2009

2) Confluence of traditional beliefs and technological advancement in architecture to achieve
sustainable built environment in India. Manjusha Kale and Srishti Srivastava, IIA National
Convention on sustainability, 2010.

3) The Royal Palaces of the Nizams – Dr. M.A.Nayeem.

4) Designing energy efficient commercial buildings – A systems framework. G. Kanagaraj,
Ashwin Mahalingam. Energy and Buildings, 2011.

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