Rank holders stand tall

A soaring sustainable skyscraper, 632 metres tall, is set to become the tallest tower in China. To come up in China’s rapidly developing Luijiazui Finance and Trade Zone, the skyscraper will feature a high-performance façade that shelters nine sky gardens, a rainwater system and a series of wind turbines on its parapet.

It will be composed of a set of nine cylindrical buildings stacked on top of each other and surrounded by an inner façade. The carefully considered structure and texture work together to reduce wind loads on the building by 24%, saving building materials and construction costs. It will be completed in 2014.

Impressive.

There sure is a scramble for the label of ‘sustainable’ but how authentic are these claims? In many cases, there are the lip services paid to renewable energy. The embodied energy of materials used is ignored. Out of this world design threatens to dislodge practicalities.

Are architects adding eco-bling (hype) to their buildings? And not dealing with fundamentals? Seems so going by Dubai’s proposed Anara building which actually houses people inside the wind turbine atop! ‘It is an energy nightmare, it is terrifying!’

Compounding the problems in the area of buildings and architecture are the rating systems. Builders would like to boast of the US LEED rating, but many critics have pointed to the lack of relevance to local conditions in the way the rating has been designed and is followed religiously.

It is to plug this lacuna that the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) took the initiative to adapt the rating to Indian conditions. CII with Godrej GBC are the sole licence holders to offer LEED India rating programs.

How satisfactory are the changes in the rating system? Do we need a rating system at all? If you have an opinion let us know.