Climate specific, Energy efficient, innovative multifamily housing strategies for 3 Indian cities

The exponential population growth in Indian cities has resulted in an increase in the current and future housing demands. This demand has led to fast growth of residential development to supply such needs, and thus the same prototype of building is replicated across all cities without much heed to energy or climate. This has caused an overall increase in energy usage and rise in the heat island effect. Usage of air conditioning to tackle the heat has become a common practice to deal with rising temperatures. 

This research project proposes the use of passive strategies to this heating and cooling problem by studying vernacular architectural solutions to help reduce the energy needs of a multifamily residential building. Strategies which can be adopted or scaled for multifamily residences will be compared across the three climates. By studying elements such as orientation, shading, perforated screens, courtyards, wall systems, passive cooling techniques, the project aims to develop a matrix of solutions. These strategies are used to design three different residential complexes to highlight differences and to understand similarities among them. Simulation for the top 4 passive strategies are done to quantify the energy savings. 

Broadly, the project looks to understand how multifamily residences can be climate specific and thus, more energy efficient in dense cities