The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Bangalore climate helps save energy’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 08, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Bangalore climate helps save energy’

Govind D. Belgaumkar

Volkwin Marg, a German architect, is here to exhibit the works of his company

BANGALORE: Huge blocks of buildings in Electronics City may be fine in that they are perfectly suited to the IT industry. So may have been the cluster of buildings at ITPL. But are they energy efficient? Do they match the identity of the city?

German architect Volkwin Marg (70), who has worked in the field of town planning, does not think so. “From what I have read, I learn that they have ignored the traditional identity of the place.”

In an interview with The Hindu, Prof. Marg, who was with the Chair of Town Planning, Aachen University of Technology (1986) and German Academy for Urban and Environmental Planning (1974), said: “You have a climate that permits the use of minimum energy and maximum use of natural ventilation.”

Prof. Marg, who is here to exhibit the works of his company at the Max Mueller Bhavan, said good town planning meant holding on to the traditional identity of places.

In Bangalore, it could mean keeping greenery, insulating buildings and not losing so much energy. No, he does not suggest doing away with air-conditioners. He said that “artificial climate is required and that we have to go for a mixed strategy” where dependence on air-conditioners is minimum and seasonal.

The goal should be to build energy-saving, sustainable infrastructure keeping ecological aspects in mind, said Prof. Marg, who has many publications and lectures on architecture, urban planning and cultural politics to his credit.

He said the uniqueness of a place is decided by the behaviour of its people (including religious attitudes), landscape and climate and a keen study of the function of the given space. It is possible to manipulate the way people want use a space but “not too much”, according to him.

Prof. Marg does not advocate too much of vertical growth, asserting that he would love to live with trees around where he can hear human voices.

He hates a situation where “a child has to go to the 13th floor in the lift in search of his mother”. A town with buildings not going beyond the fourth floor is advisable. A solution is to split the urban areas into different blocks or encouraging growth of satellite towns.

One major challenge of urban planning is to ensure that public and private areas do not adversely affect one another. You have to keep the spaces open yet achieve privacy, he pointed out.

Opposing problems

The challenges architects face in the West are contradictory to those faced by their Indian counterparts. In the West, infrastructure should shrink year after year because population is progressively shrinking. It is the opposite in India and other Asian countries.

The growth centre of the future is Asia and it is with this in mind that his company, Meinhard von Gerkan, Volkwin Marg and Partners (GMP), of which he is a partner, is exhibiting its expertise in building infrastructure. Suggesting that Indian architects are best qualified to deal with the problems here,

Prof. Marg hopes his company’s expertise will help them. The company, which is building football stadiums in Africa has inter alia designed, among others, a railway station, airports and trade fair halls — all with spraw ling roofs with minimum number of pillars.

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