For the past few years, the same headlines blanket news channels in India and the world – “Air Pollution in Delhi has hit dangerous levels”. Amidst mounting levels of air pollution, the mucky Yamuna and sinking forest cover, there are very few things left for India’s capital city to really value. One among those few cherishable things is Green One, India’s first green home that saves whopping 40% electricity.

Here are the top highlights of this impressive building structure:

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• ‘Green One’ The Dream Of Proshanto Roy

‘Green One’, house number H-1456 is located in South Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park (CR Park), which is less than 100 meters from the local police station. This house is a dream of Proshanto Roy a tech-journalist who aspired to construct an environment-friendly when 90 % of Delhi is not fit to live in and is also getting shaved of its green cover.

Proshanto Roy was influenced by ITC Green Building in Gurgaon. He decided to pull down his house in CR Park and rebuilt it the Green Way.

• 5 Star Rated By TERI GRIHA

Formerly, only large commercial buildings or a few large residential complexes were green buildings. In fact, LEED and GRIHA systems were designed for large buildings and were not practical for standalone houses.

In the beginning, Proshanto knew it wasn’t going to be easy. He went to TERI and put forward his plan to build the first-ever certified green home. On requesting TERI to simplify the TERI GRIHA system, they readily agreed as they already had plans to do so to encourage more Green Buildings in the country.

Green One, was certified by TERI and rated five stars in the year 2014. Following that, it became a pilot project for its new SVAGRIHA system for green homes.

Read: Architecture as a hobby makes a retiree a bonafide eco-friendly builder

• Built With Recycled Building Materials

Proshanto’s home uses many environmentally friendly features to be truly Green. But, the real deal for this four-storey home is the actual materials used for construction. Green One is fully constructed with recycled and eco-friendly building material. The construction material used to build the house was sourced locally and recycled, like fly-ash bricks, repurposed bricks and reused materials like old wooden door frames. The outer walls were build using lighter weight autoclaved aerated concrete (ACC) bricks.

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• The Overall Fenestration Design Reduces The Heat Gain.

The overall fenestration design helps to reduce heat gain during the summer months making the house much cooler. The building materials used not only contribute to make the house cooler, but they also halve its weight.

• Can Save 40 Percent Energy

Coming to saving natural energy, Green one can efficiently save a whopping 40% electricity. Green One’s monthly power bills are under 2k per floor, which is about half the bills of similar floors in other houses nearby.

The house makes efficient use of solar energy and minimal use of air conditioner inside this building, in addition to that, all the electronic equipment’s used inside the building are of 5-star rating. This house is India’s first independent residential building to preserve the natural resource at such a big scale and is going to go long way in conserving the environment.

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• Allows Ample Of Natural Light

Around, 54.72 percent of the total living area of this house falls under the day-lit zone, which means the building structure design facilitates sunlight on every floor and every room. Moreover, glass with low solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) has been used to safeguard the same. In simple terms, the use of light during the daytime is considerably less. For the darker hour needs, artificial lights having low power density (LPD) have been used.

Mr. Prasanto moved to a rented apartment to pull down his old house where he lived for 30 long years and rebuilt it as a Green One. It cost him a little less than Rs 4 crore to construct the house.

‘Green One’ Is A Hope When World Is Standing At The Edge Of Global Warming

Even today there aren’t many financial incentives for either the home or solar energy…so the economics don’t really favour choosing a green home. Green One is a ray of hope and is setting an example at a time when the world is standing at the edge of global warming.

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Curated by editor at  Wienerberger India

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