Chandigarh, September 15
The world energy scenario shows that buildings and construction consumes the major share of the global energy. There is a close connection between today’s building designs and increasing energy crisis, which is rising day by day.
However, comfort can also be achieved with less consumption of energy. Thus introduction to sustainable building design measures can make an important contribution to minimise the energy crisis.
Issues pertaining to the significance of green buildings came up during a conference on “Building Green Cities” at Government Museum and Art Gallery here today.
The conference was organised jointly by the Embassy of Switzerland in India, Indian Institute of Architects, Chandigarh-Punjab
chapter, and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich.
Surinder Bahga, chairman of Chandigarh-Punjab chapter of Indian Institute of Architects, said: “A green building uses less energy, water and natural resources, creates less waste and is healthier for people compared to a standard building.
We should adopt various mechanisms for reducing power consumption substantially in a bid to combat climate change.” Dr Matia Celio, science and technology counsellor, Embassy of Switzerland, said “sustainable urban development” and “renewable energy sources” had been pinpointed by the Swiss and the Indian governments as priority research areas in the programme of cooperation. Switzerland Ambassador Philippe Welti was the guest of honour.
Technical talks were delivered by Prof Dietmar Eberle from Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, Prof Daniel Spreng, Centre for Energy Policy and Economics, ETH Zürich, and Gerhard Schmitt, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich. The sessions were chaired by Jit Gupta, director, Bhaddal College of Architecture, Ropar.