Prashanti Rao

By Prashanti Rao and Janmejoy Gupta

Buildings that are carefully designed using passive strategies for natural ventilation and day lighting reduces our dependency on electrical energy meanwhile ensuring thermal comfort inside the building. Similarly, carefully planned vegetation around the building helps in reducing the urban heat island effect and electricity consumption. Methodology adopted for presenting this study as book chapter, first by understanding the concept of landscape with respect to typologies and components. Secondly discussing the physical parameters in terms of temperature, precipitations and humidity of varied prevailing climatic conditions and varied methods adopted through landscape interventions and techniques to overcome the extreme conditions throughout the year, which in turn helps in reducing the consumption of energy.

Part of the book: Design of Cities and Buildings

By Prashanti Rao

The planned green spaces are the most significant social spaces for people to interact on a daily basis and also considered as one of the sustainability indicators for maintaining the well-being in residential Communities. The benefits of green space for wellbeing are extensively recognized and progressively more documented. Due to increasing urbanization and housing demand, Residential communities are growing in suburbs and few in the urban core. Due to which depletion in per capita green space is recorded. This book chapter intends to look into the challenges of the residential communities and how Green Spaces (Passive and Active) within the communities helping in bringing back the quality of life and well-being. Further, it discusses the benefits of green spaces at the community level, through case studies. Conceptually this entire study propels the belief that the residential communities usually comprise of the varied age user group and all of them have the right to led a better quality of life. It can be possible only when they are accessible to green space and avail maximum perceived benefits like safety and security concerns, healthy environment, and social cohesion. Housing environments should enable residents to have positive experiences through the allocation of diverse green environments, which lead to physically and mentally happy, healthy living. Such positive experiences affect their happiness level, thus leading to sustainable lives.

Part of the book: Improving Quality of Life

By Prashanti Rao, Somaina Islary and Kapil Natawadkar

Increasing urbanization has resulted in urban stress, which not only has affected the cognitive development of children in schools but also adults at workplace. Various research studies have been conducted in this field, and many computational tests were showcased to prove the facts. Still there is a huge gap while designing the school campus and workplace. This study is based on comprehensive portrayal of greenness at both these spaces. The findings of the study shall provide an insight to policymakers and architects with evidence for feasible and attainable besieged interventions such as improving green spaces not only outdoors but also integrating them with inside spaces at school campus and at workplace.

Part of the book: Urban Green Spaces