Events

Climate sensitive architecture in ancient Buddhist Monasteries and their relevance today, Professor Sat Ghosh (VIT University, India)

Date: Friday 22 September 2017 14:00 - 15:00

Location: SEMS Seminar Room (Third Floor Engineering)

Climate sensitive architecture in ancient Buddhist Monasteries and their relevance today

Abstract Architectural style is a medium for the promotion of cultural identities and cohesion. The paper shall showcase two specific, but nevertheless, distinct styles of communal functioning within unique architectural strongholds in the ancient Ratnagiri University in India, and the monastic complexes in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. The common thread linking mass housing in both complexes about 2 millennia ago with present day housing patterns, is in the application of sustainable building practices using intelligent building forms, fabric and orientation. This paper explores this commonality from a modern perspective using CFD. The need for this revisit becomes even more relevant in the wake of the Paris Agreement and more recently the Kigali Agreement. The discourse on providing indoor thermal comfort cannot be decoupled from the climate change story—heating, ventilation and cooling consume a large amount of energy and have a deep underlying link with the targets set at Paris and Kigali. The onus will be on a large number of stakeholders to meet these targets—engineers, architects, manufacturers, policy-makers, researchers and consumers. This paper aims at reminding the stakeholders of the richness and the usefulness of their vernacular architecture in upholding the ideal of sustainability.

Short Biography

Professor Sat Ghosh

Professor Ghosh is currently Senior Professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering, VIT University, India. He is also a member of the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK. He has also worked at the University of Cambridge on Environmental Fluid dynamics for nearly a decade. Apart from being a leading cloud microphysicist, and an Associate Editor of Atmospheric Science Letters, published by the Royal Meteorological Society of Great Britain, he also researches on Sustainable and climate modulated Architecture. His papers have been published by the Royal Society of Great Britain and other leading scientific journals across the world. CNN-International and the BBC also covered stories on his research. He was recognized with the prestigious Atmospheric Science Letters Editor’s award by the Royal Meteorological Society of Great Britain in 2012. His most recent research on a unique cyclone alerting system received world-wide publicity and the story was picked up by the international media. He has authored several books on the CFD of the Built Environment and they have been published internationally.