 Location Ahmedabad, India

 Architect/Planner Nimish Patel

 Client Torrent Research Centre
 Date 1994- 1997
 Building Type educational
 Building Usage research center
 -Total land area: 125,000 sq mts
 -Built-up area: 38,000 Sq mts
 -Laboratories: 24,000 Sq mts
 -Investment: US $ 40 million
 The TRC (Torrent Research Centre) is a complex of
research laboratories with supporting ancillary facilities
and infrastructure located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.
 Almost the entire range of pharmaceutical research is
carried out here with the cleanest requiring a Class 10000
atmosphere, and the dirtiest emits obnoxious gases.
 The 30-acre relatively flat site is located in the vicinity of
other institutional buildings.
 The brief was well defined as the need to optimize overall
project costs so as to achieve a balance between all the
needs, with the worth of the money spent fluctuating
within five per cent.
 In summer, during the month of March and June, the
weather is very hot and dry.
 The average temperature ranges between 23 Degrees to
43 Degrees.
 The highest recorded temperature is 47 Degrees.
 Design maximizes the use of locally available natural
materials and avoids the use of synthetic materials.
 RCC-framed structure with brick in-filled walls, with glossy
enamel paint on cement/vermiculite plaster on the internal
surface.
 All internal plastered surfaces are either curved on the
inside or curved on the outside corner edges to minimize
dust collection and cobwebs at the junctions and corners.
 For greater dust and cobweb control, the downturned
beams are eliminated from the clear spaces, through a
system of constructing the RCC slab, using hollow concrete
blocks on the flat form work, forming voids in which the
RCC coffered slab is cast.
 Vermiculite, a natural mineral, is
extensively used for the insulation in roof
and cavity walls to achieve the required
R-values, along with cement-brickbat-based
waterproofing
 PDEC system has been designed and
adopted for space conditioning of the
building.
 Daylight integration has been made for
reducing energy usage.
 Innovative use of half-round ceramic pipes,
on the outer face of the inlet and exhaust
shafts of the PDEC system, to reduce the
entry of larger dust particles by creating
local turbulence.

VERMICULITE
 A technology closely related to the solar chimney is the
evaporative down-draft cool tower. In areas with a hot, arid
climate this approach may contribute to a sustainable way
to provide air conditioning for buildings.
 The principle is to allow water to evaporate at the top of a
tower, either by using evaporative cooling pads or by
spraying water. Evaporation cools the incoming air, causing
a downdraft of cool air that will bring down the
temperature inside the building. Airflow can be increased
by using a solar chimney on the opposite side of the
building to help in venting hot air to the outside
 PASSIVE EVAPORATIVE COOLING
 MICRONIZERS PROVIDE A DOWN DRAFT OF
COOL AIR
 NIGHT VENTILATION.
 AMBIENT TEMPERATURE 41 TO 45 C.
 INSULATED BUILDING MASS AND ROOF.
 CONTROLS: MICRONIZERS TO BE CONTROLLED
AUTOMATICALLY BY REFERENCE TO AMBIENT
TEMPERATURE AND RELATIVE TEMPERATURE
 MAXIMISE VENTILATION RATE WITH
MICRONIZERS SWITCHED OFF.
 CEILING AND WALL FAN TO INDUCE AIR
MOVEMENT IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS
NATURAL FLOW.
 AIR SPEED UPPER LIMIT 1.5mt/sec.
 POSSIBLY CLOSE ALL EXHAUST IN THE
AFTERNOON.
 MINIMIZE VENTILATION RATES.
 INLETS CLOSED BY SHUTTERS.
 EXHAUST ALSO CLOSED BY SHUTTERS.
 INSULATED WALLS AND ROOF REDUCE HEAT
LOSSES.
 ENCOURAGE VENTILATION DURING THE DAY
(possibly evaporative cooled on hot days)
 CLOSE INLETS AND EXHAUST AT NIGHT.
 The design of the building facilitates generating an air
draft, assuming still air conditions.
 The air heats up in the peripheral shafts, rises and
escapes through the openings at the top.
 The air in this volume gets replaced from the usable
spaces, which in turn receives its own replacement
through the concourse area, on top of which the air
inlets are located.
 The entering air is sprinkled with a fine spray of water
mist at the inlet, during hot temperatures outside.
 This facilitates downdrafts.
 At each floor level, sets of hopper windows designed
to catch the descending flow, can be used to divert
some of this cooled air into the adjacent space.
 Having passed through the spaces, the air then exits
via high level glass louvers openings which connect
directly to the perimeter exhaust shafts towers that
suck the air and create a circulation across the building
insuring the displacement of fresh air along the day.
 During the warm humid monsoon season when the
use of the sprayed water would be inappropriate, the
ceiling are brought into operation to provide
additional air movement in the office and laboratories.
 In the cooler season the operating strategy is designed
to control the ventilation, particularly at night, to
minimise heat loss, this is done simply by the users
adjusting the hopper windows and openings in their
individual spaces to suit their requirements.
 External surfaces are white, the walls painted, the roof
using a china mosaic finish
 Overall control of the solar heat gain is achieved by
judicious design of the glazing.
 The fixed windows are the only decided quantum and
shaded externally, not only in the horizontal plane by
overhangs, but also in the vertical one by the air
exhaust towers which project from the façade.
 The buildings are thermally massive -the reinforced
concrete construction framed structure has cavity
brick walls, plastered inside and out, and the hollow
concrete blocks filling the roof coffers, also plastered
inside with vermiculite used as an insulating material
on both roof and walls.
The consequences of this major experiment have been
under observation since the first occupation of the
buildings, and will continue to be carried out for the
coming years.
• In the summers, the inside temperatures have generally
not exceeded 31°C to 32°C, when the outside
temperatures have risen up to 44°C, a 12°-13°C drop
• The temperature fluctuations inside the building have
rarely exceeded beyond 3°C to 4°C over any 24 hour
period, when the temperature fluctuations outside
were as much as 14°C to 17°C
 The economic viability of the project is demonstrated
by the following indicators, which are computed for
the total project, on the basis of the results from the
buildings under observation.
 •Additional civil works cost of the project including
insulation etc. works out to about 12% to 13% of the
civil works cost of a conventional building.
 Air-conditioning plant capacity saved, is about 200 M.
Tonnes.
 The cumulative capital cost of the civil works and the
A.C. plant works out to approximately Rs.50.0 lakhs
more than the conventionally designed buildings.
 •The annual savings in the electrical consumption
including the savings on account of less use of artificial
lighting during the day is approximately Rs.60.0 lakhs.
 The pay-back period of the additional capital cost,
from the saving of the electrical consumption alone,
works out to a little less than 1 year.
 The pay-back period for the cost of the construction of
the entire complex, from the savings of the electrical
consumption as well as plant replacement costs, works
out to around 15 years.
•It is possible to make a difference in the human comfort
conditions without having to depend on excessive use
of electrical/ mechanical energy and with basic and
elementary architectural systems.
•The process of achieving human comfort levels was
based on the fundamental understanding that comfort
condition is not dependant on absolute figures of
parameters, but on the difference felt by the human
skin, in the temperature and humidity conditions over
a period of time.
•The process on the one hand minimized the impact of
the external heat within the building through
adequate measures of insulating the building’s
external fabric, and on the other hand created an
effective system of sealed evaporative cooling.
Submitted by:
Abhilasha fogla