Skyscrapers, How Sustainable are they?

Sometime back the news of 'The 42' at 268 Mtrs in Kolkata eclipsed South Mumbai's 'The Imperial' as India's tallest building created a huge media bytes. The emergence of these residential skyscrapers is not an unexpected trend. As cities gear up to cope with the increasing population, the tall building may well become the new normal, not by choice, but by default.

In the city like Mumbai, which has some of the costliest real estate in the world, land remains the largest head in the overall cost, so it is given that one expects to build more per every sqft of land available.

While tall structures typically serve as landmarks, they are also increasingly used to showcase progressive corporate image of the city. In the last couple of years, globally 35+ skyscrapers taller than 300m have been constructed, with five of them eclipsing the height of the Empire State Building in the world. Since 2012 China has added more than 50+ skyscrapers over 300m and in UAE for decades construction has been relentless, and much of that development has been oriented vertically. Today, Dubai is home to nearly 1,000 high-rise buildings, and there are more than 10 projects currently under construction that will hit or exceed the 300m mark. While the skylines of many European cities are conspicuously low-rise, an exception to that rule is in Moscow’s International Business Centre, where four 300m+ towers have been completed since 2012.

In the early 20th century, the United States was the undisputed champion of skyscraper construction, but that has tapered off dramatically. In fact, only six commercial towers over 300m have been constructed in the last 20 years. The exception may be the city that started it all: New York. There are currently 30 skyscrapers under construction in NYC, fuelled mainly by high demand luxury real estate market.

Around all this hype about high rise development, the burj khalifa to sears towers, the question that has gone begging is how sustainable and safe are these buildings?

Post the 70’s world over, the architect and planners have put strong importance towards the various safety features in the high-rise buildings. Now most of the new age buildings come with state of the art safety features. But sustainability, well that is question that remains to be answered.

The state of current global climate issues is forcing every industry to look into conservation and eco-friendly materials, production processes and waste management. From land, air and sea pollution to natural resource depletion and waste disposal challenges, pressure is mounting from governments and the wider public alike to introduce cleaner construction and operational practices.

The conventional skyscrapers are in a way a big detriment to the environment. They are vast energy consumers and waste producing vessels in their own right.

There is some evidence on the relationship between height and energy that is being used. Higher we go, there is exponential increase in energy consumption too. So not only the energy consumption goes up, as we go higher, winds also can contribute to increased energy consumption in several ways. They remove heat from the surfaces of buildings, They increase drafts, meaning that the air inside requires more heating or cooling..

It’s sometimes suggested that a concentration of tall buildings around public transport hubs can help shift travelers from cars to buses or trains, and so reduce energy consumption in transport. This may be true but it simply means, the location should have high density not high rises. Most Planners and designers simply replaced the high density with high rises. But having said so, the start of the 21st century have brought much more awareness and willingness to design and build buildings to make sustainable not only in form of construction practises but also make it more operationally sustainable.

The new generation of skyscraper are moving in altogether different and very green, direction, which is very welcome move. For India which in absence of technical advancement like the western world have in fact remained fairly green in terms of building operations compared to their counter parts. USA can boast of constructing more skyscrapers than any nations, but they build in the time when there was practically no awareness of the Environmental effect of such activity.

The designers or developer had no thought of thermal performance in their mind. Often there was little to no form of natural ventilation within the building, making these behemoths constantly climate-control hungry. They require continuous heating in winter and cooling via air conditioning systems in hotter months. And once inside, their wide dark spaces are in constant need of artificial lighting.

And without knowing the internal workings of any particular building, even to the untrained eye a simple look at the predominantly glass facades of most modern skyscrapers will tell us that they will waste the energy being pumped into them, because they either trap or lose all of their heat. In fact, the heat loss or gain can be up to ten times greater through a half inch plate of glass compared to that of a typical masonry construction filled with insulation.

Cities like Mumbai, which has seen exponential growth in the last decade. According to data compiled for Asian Age in 2016, 32 skyscrapers were completed in the city between 2008 and 2015, of which 21 skyscrapers had 35 - 50 floors. Though this rapid development bodes well for a city’s wealth prospects, it doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of life for its existing. World One Towers is one such luxury residential sky scraper, but it is one of those revolutionary building trying to optimize the use of energy and tries to utilize as much as possible renewable energy in the construction and operations. One snap shot of is that World One will have its own rain water harvesting plant, reducing water consumption by almost half. The use of solar energy in a city that enjoys 300 days of sunlight per year will save around 40 percent of electricity consumption. Waste segregation systems and a recycling plant will also form part of the complex.

This are some of the newer ways of construction and operation of sky scrapers, which for all practical purposes are going to be part of the 21st century India.

Ahmedabad also after resisting the urge to go vertical has allowed building permission upto 70th Mtrs in last couple of years and now is home to at least couple of such buildings.

Let us hope that in the mad rush to make Ahmedabad, the Dubai/ Shanghai of the world, we do not embrace to the unsustainable way of construction. Infact Ahmedabad is home to some of the world famous modern day architecture masterpieces by likes of Le Corbusier / BV Doshi etc. and not to forget the right climatic approach to dense communal living in form of the Pols of the old city.

Speaking of the Ahmedabad, along with the modernization at building level, the city has been on the forefront on developing / maintaining the urban fabric of the city.

Revitalizing Kanakaria Lake, Food Street at Law Garden, Riverfront are some of the urban revolution that have come about by the visionary approach of the locals. The fact that Ahmedabad today can boasts of one of the longest and the first of the kind riverfront development, speaks a volume of the dedication and passion of the locals who work towards making it a success.