Climate Responsive Architecture: House of Samar Banerjee in Kolkata

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1 Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Architecture and Civil Engineering (AARCV 2012), 21 st 23 rd June Climate Responsive Architecture: House of Samar Banerjee in Kolkata Dr. Shivashish Bose Abstract--- From Roman architect Vitruvius (1st century C.E.) to Italian architects Leon Battista Alberti (15th century) and Andrea Palladio (16th century), 19th century English art critic, John Ruskin and finally to 20th Century Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier, all defined architecture as a structure with proportion and beauty that evokes a delighted feeling while observing it or being in it. With industrialization, technological advancements and new materials introduced for construction of architecture, it has become a complex system and away from all previous standard definitions. Now, buildings take extremely unusual forms along with nonconventional materials and most of the buildings being centrally air-conditioned. With growing technological advancements and financial investment capacity, architecture has become a jewel of art object with complicated systems from structure to services, but with partial or complete disregard to local climate and environment, or environmental impact of the building in terms of sustainability. While, a group of architects clinging to the traditional way of designing with respect to local climate, materials of construction, culture and site-context, and new attempts of minimizing energy consumption by a building, try to design architecture which are climate responsive bringing comfort to their users, respectful to the local culture and context and beautiful in terms of form-articulation. This paper would demonstrate the design of a three-storied residential building in Kolkata that is climate responsive which also merges with the old existing street-front and skyline symbolically respecting traditional architectural styles of heritage buildings of Kolkata, though itself being distinctive in aesthetics and expression. Keywords---Climate Responsive, Traditional Architectural Style, Heritage Buildings T I. INTRODUCTION HE author-architect was approached to design a three storied residential building at Premises No. 4, Ajmal Khan Road in Kolkata for a single owner named Mr. Samar Banerjee in His objective was to have a building that he would not provide to others on rental system, and that the building should not look like an apartment building of multihousehold (flats) type. The site measuring about 310 sq m is situated at close proximity to one of the busiest spines and nodes of south Kolkata. Visual survey of the site and its urban context (setting) revealed that the site stands on the Westside of a 6m wide lane (in north-south direction) named Ajmal Dr. Shivashish Bose, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Jadavpur University, Kolkata , India, shivashishbose@yahoo.co.in Khan Road, which served only eight numbers of existing three-storied buildings (Fig. 1), as a connector to two roads names Hazi Mahasin Road at south and Iswar Gupta Road (I. G. Road) at its north side and at the junction of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Road and Southern Avenue. The pedestrians and people in cars use the I. G. Road to go to the western neighbourhood and also to reach by shortcut the posh Alipore area and the distant Dalhousie area (central business district) from S. P. Mukherjee Road and Southern Avenue avoiding Rash Behari Road junction and other busy junctions with heavy traffic congestions, thus making I. G. Road very important. Hence, the crossing of I. G. Road and Ajmal Khan Road (on the left) was identified as a potential spot from where any person, by impulse from traffic security, would look at the left side to view Ajmal Khan Road for a moment to check out whether any vehicle or pedestrian comes up to the I. G. Road. At this moment, the person would also glance at the streetscape, the Westside skyline, and more precisely up to the first floor level of any building at the second plot (being Mr. Banerjee s plot) from the corner and junction in question. That particular part of the building being within a range of about 12m (maximum distance for discerning facial expression) to 18m (within maximum distance for recognizing a face) (Spreiregen, 1965 p71) has been identified as to be the most potential part for attraction of a moving person s interest within a second (Fig. 2). It was also noted that all old existing buildings on both sides of Ajmal Khan Road are three storied, built somewhat abutting on the road, and they occupied floor areas so much that any new building proposal at any site with respect to the road width would yield permissible built up area much less that what that building has already occupied. So, the chance of further new buildings demolishing the old ones as per the latest trend of urbanization is nil. Existing buildings were not physically dilapidated either. However, the new building to be designed on the only vacant plot would have to be built leaving 1.2m on both sides and on the front, thus breaking the harmony of façade-like existing streetscape. The challenge felt was to merge the new one with the existing setting. The notable elements on the skyline and streetscape as observed were the pyramidal (truncated) top of a temple over the farthest building, the straight line of parapet of the second floor terrace of the third building, the segmental arched balcony with cast iron grillwork of the first (corner) building, use of colors like light biscuit, peach, red and white, and planters at balcony, etc. The building situated on I. G. Road just opposite to Ajmal Khan Road is a three storied new residential building with horizontal and vertical lines of fins on the façade depicting the trendy design principles of the decades. Climate-wise speaking, it was observed that the south side of the site through which air flows for about nine months

2 Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Architecture and Civil Engineering (AARCV 2012), 21 st 23 rd June in this hot and humid tropical area was grossly blocked by existing buildings (Fig. 1), though there were narrow open spaces between two buildings on south side and open space at the southwestern side (being rear open spaces of those buildings) through which, some air flow was expected to ingress into the building. Also, the Ajmal Khan Road in northsouth direction was to be considered as a wind tunnel having wind flow coming from the south, the proposed building design should cash on this opportunity to attract air flow in the building somehow. Based on all these findings a design approach was taken by the author. central axis of the top mass on the façade, interplay of solid and void, play of straight and curved lines and planes; to create beautiful visuals in the interior of the building through accentuating entrances to the building, its various floors and common rooms with gateways and serial visions, articulated staircase, etc.; to create vibrancy through simultaneous use of various warm and cool colors in the interior; to demonstrate art through design of grill works that appear as calligraphy; to provide spaces with exposed earth for plantation of trees and plants, and dedicated spaces in balconies for placement of planters; and to introduce symbolically the historic cultural elements of heritage buildings of Kolkata and forms from religious-cultural aspects but in a simplified form like that followed in post-modern design. The maximum difficulty was to induce continuous fresh air flow into the building and merge the new building with the old setting while retaining its individuality. Figure 1: The Site Plan Showing Urban Context Figure 2: The Base of Design Philosophy Figure 3: First Floor Plan Showing Air Flow II. DESIGN APPROACH In design approach, the debate between form follows function and function follows form has been kept aside. More consideration was given on the climate, context and traditional cultural aspects. The objectives were to bring in fresh air flow within the rooms of the building and vent out the hot air from the building through design itself, thus inducing a continuous fresh air flow in the building for physical comfort for habitants; to respect the setting (by existing buildings) through a humble design with very conventional materials, balancing forms, matching colours, creating continuity of parapet-lines on skyline, etc., thus merging with the old; to create unique individuality of the building also within the existing street façade by the composition of various form-elements, unseen typology of structure and massing, various zonal axes overpowered by a

3 Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Architecture and Civil Engineering (AARCV 2012), 21 st 23 rd June Figure 4: Section of Building Showing Air Flow from Road III. THE DESIGN By that time in , the author was engaged, as the only conservation-architect in the team of restorers, in the restoration of the Town Hall (c1813) in Kolkata. On the one hand he was surveying and documenting the Palladian Doric columns of front portico of the Town Hall, on the other hand, he was designing a very unconventional column for this building in question. The column was circular in plan-section and gradually being thicker in diameter at the top and as if, it was a tree emerging from the earth (Fig. 5). The column capital ends at the first floor lintel level where supposedly the visual field of an onlooker standing at the junction of the road as mentioned earlier should have the centre (Fig. 6). A wide balcony has been located on the southeastern road-side (Fig. 3) so as to attract the flowing air (from south to north) in the road inside the building and also the morning sunlight. A common room with provision for living and dining has been placed on the south adjacent to it, while the master bed room has been placed on the northeast side with door and window openings at south from the balcony. Another bed room has been placed on the south side after the common room, and it has access to a balcony placed in the southwest (more effective in winter for afternoon sunlight) and a toilet with dressing room on the northwest. An opentype staircase has been placed on the north side flanked by a common toilet adjacent to the master bed room, and the kitchen of the family on its west side. Windows to the common room and second bed room facing the south side have been placed in such a way that air flow through the narrow space between two southern buildings can come into the rooms, and they would have plenty of sunlight. It was expected that the air-flow from all east, south and west facing rooms would flow to the northern side staircase and the hot air would go up and be ventilated through the open windows at the various floor-levels of the staircase and the attic (stair cover) (Fig. 3 & 4). The main entrance to the building has been through the covered space below the upper floor balcony with a provision for car parking. That space was given accentuation by providing a wall for sitting, as a symbolic reflection of rock (small ground-floor open verandah for sitting) of old buildings of Kolkata; a geometrical coloured floor graphic work following alpana (traditional drawing on floor) with symbolic representation of flowers, kites, fish, etc.; and curved steps (conjugated segmental arcs of three circles and as if coming from river to the bank) to enter to the entrance lounge and the chamber room of the owner. From the entrance lounge, a curved wall with a glass door opening gives view of the staircase as the picture-perspective. The staircase is articulated with grill work, teak-wood handrail and different colours for tread and riser and opposite walls. The common rooms in upper floors have been delineated with gateway symbolizing old gateways. Floors of rooms were with granite-finish and those of staircase and balcony were of mosaics. As Kolkata is very hot and humid and top floors become very hot inside, so to reduce heat induction from roof, lime terracing of average 100mm thick has been provided on the roof. Various classical architectural forms of bygone era, as well as motifs of rural architecture have been presented symbolically in the façade design of this building with interplay of masses in static and dynamic forms, straight and curved lines, etc. Symmetry of classical architecture has been demonstrated through various vertical zones with individual symmetrical lines and finally the grand symmetry has been imparted by the placement of a triangular roof over a rectangular box at the top floor. Various colours have been used in the individual or mixing shades of white, red and yellow to match with the existing setting. The top floor has been projected up to permissible limit in such a way and with a form that the lines of parapets of the building behind it have been maintained and continued by the lines of parapets of the new building. The objectives mentioned earlier have been achieved thoroughly. The building covers in total about 990 sq m built up area in three floors and the cost of construction was Rs.18 lakh as recorded up to finish of project in June Figure 5: Detail of Column Capital

4 Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Architecture and Civil Engineering (AARCV 2012), 21 st 23 rd June Figure 6: Building Showing Urban Design Philosophy Respected IV. THE RESULT By installation of data loggers in various rooms of the building in summer of 2011, it has been revealed that only the ground floor is less hot than the floors above. In the top floor, the southwestern bed room is 1 0 C-2 0 C hotter than the common room. While outside temperature was about 36 0 C at 2:00pm in June, the inside temperature was then recorded as about 32 0 C. The indoor temperature starts to decrease during the night after 1:00am. By around 3:00am the indoor temperature was 32 0 C while the outdoor temperature was 29 0 C. The common room at first floor recorded a temperature of 32 0 C at 3:00pm while outdoor temperature was about 36 0 C, and at about 3:00am the indoor temperature was 32 0 C while outdoor temperature was 29 0 C. So, more or less, the two upper floors have the same type of indoor temperature; and relative humidity in interior being less than that in outdoor atmosphere; that is primarily because of the induced air flow and the lime terracing on the roof. Climate-wise, the habitants feel less hot in summer in the building than while being in some other buildings of their relatives and friends. The building merges with the surrounding architectural and traditional setting while retaining its own individuality. People from the junction of the two roads look at the building and hold their pace for a moment to look at it clearly. The building has an image of class and quality in the neighbourhood. The objective of the designed is fulfilled. Till date no air conditioning apparatus has been required for installation in that building. Jean Nouvel s Fondation Cartier (Fig. 7) of 1994 in Paris maintains the parapet line by introducing a false façade abutting on the street. The author s building (Fig. 8) of 1999 in Kolkata maintains parapet line by following building bylaws of Kolkata with a front open space of 1.2m and with allowable projection limit. Figure 7: Foundation Cartier by Jean Nouvel in Paris Figure 8: The House of Samar Banerjee in Kolkata V. CONCLUSION Architecture is a product of a human-brain. The creative faculty of an architect varies from person to person depending on his/her education, practical and life experience, ability for lateral thinking, an appreciation of the way of working about visual images, experience from moving around the world and observing others works, and on one s intelligence, sense and sensibilities. With the rising concern about global warming and climate change, the architects should be more open for exploration and application of means and ways for making their architecture climate responsive and less energy consuming for the safeguard of the environment and humankind of the future.

5 Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Architecture and Civil Engineering (AARCV 2012), 21 st 23 rd June REFERENCES [1] Bose, S. 2000; Residential Building for Samar Banerjee. Published in Journal of The Indian Institute of Architects, JIIA Volume 65, Issue 11, November 2000, pp [2] Spreiregen, P.D. 1965; The Architecture of Towns and Cities. Published by American Institute of Architects, USA, p.71. [3] Pellegrino, M. 2011; Research on Climatic Performance of Buildings (Case Study: House of Samar Banerjee). Post-doctoral research done under supervision of Dr. Shivashish Bose, Associate Professor, at the Department of Architecture of Jadavpur University during September 2010 to June 2011.