On how to go about thinking of a Green home from a house to a city.

1. Green Buildings – from the home to
the city
Urban Permaculture ideas
S.Vishwanath
www.biome-solutions.com
www.rainwaterclub.org
You-tube, Twitter, Slide-share, Face-book :
zenrainman
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2. What is permaculture ?
• One definition (there are many )
• CREATING SUSTAINABLE HUMAN HABITATS BY
FOLLOWING NATURE'S PATTERNS
• Comes from permanent agriculture and then
permanent culture
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3. Who is it for ?
• It is for everyone wishing to live sustainable
and tread more lightly on the Earth.
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4. Ethics
• Earth care
respecting the earth the source of life
• People care Fair share
Helping each other to live using the earths resource
sustainably equitably
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5. Permaculture principles
• Work with nature not against
• See solutions not problems
• Seek diversity not monoculture
• Every element should serve many functions
• Yield is limited only by imagination
• Work in cycles and zones
– Source Permaculture a beginners guide –G.Burnett
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6. Earth
• The removal of good top soil for brick making
destroys the soil in the peri-urban areas of
cities
• The use of sand for construction destroys
rivers and water sources as well as land due to
a process called filtered sand
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7. Earth
• Every site has earth
• In the design of the building incorporate earth
• Remove the top soil and keep it
• Design a basement to excavate earth
• Use this to make earth blocks /cob/rammed earth
for construction
• The material for walls can come from the site
• Sand requirement can be reduced by 50% – 60 %
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8. A basement provides earth for the house
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12. Making Earth Blocks at site
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13. RAMMED EARTH WALLING

14. A thermally stable place

15. 09/15/09

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17. What the city does/should do
• Property tax rebate for earth construction
• Approved as a building material in building
codes
• Encourage skill development in earth
construction
• Develop and encourage building codes
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18. Water
• Water the city comes from the Cauvery 100 km
away and 300 mts below
• There is a limit of 1500 MLD available
• Costliest water in Asia with embodied energy of
1.8 Units per Kilo-litre of water
• SOLUTION
• Use rainwater falling on the site wisely
• Capture it as high as possible and store
• With the excess, recharge groundwater
• Recycle and reuse all water
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20. We need to return to the culture
of the open well
Where the well talks to us daily
Where water can be drawn without electricity
Where water can be recharged
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21. Collect rooftop rainwater
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22. A rain barrel to collect water from the
stair-case roof
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23. A simple cloth filter to clean rainwater
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24. Checking rainwater for bacteria – h2s vial test
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25. SODIS- Using the sun to kill bacteria
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26. Keeping the roof clean is important
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27. What the city does
• Made rainwater harvesting compulsory
• For every square metre of roof area 20 litres
of storage or recharge
• About 100,000 buildings are harvesting
rainwater
• 100 ‘tanks’ or urban lakes are being revived
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30. Water table in Bangalore
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31. Energy
• Use solar energy for
– water purification
– Cooking
– Water heating
– Lighting
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32. Solar cooking
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33. Use a bio-mass water heater
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34. Solar water heating
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35. Solar lighting
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36. What the city does
• Solar water heaters now compulsory for new
buildings
• Bangalore has the single largest installations
of solar water heaters in India
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37. Nutrients
• Compost kitchen waste
• Use ‘Eco-san’ principles and recycle nutrients
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39. Kitchen organics composter
www.dailydump.org
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40. Use ‘Ecological Sanitation’ generated
fertilizer
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42. • COMPOSTING TOILET (SQUATTING PAN)
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43. COLLECTORS 43

44. BATHROOM LAYOUT 44

45. What the city does
The business of waste
• Sewage treatment insufficient and not all
households are connected
• Untreated sewage is killing rivers though
providing nutrients to farmers

48. Vijayapura- falling groundwater tables

49. Waste-water from the city

50. Used productively

51. Growing vegetables too

52. STP’s need to be linked to reuse

53. Nature as treatment

54. Lake ecosystem

56. • 37 acres on Sarjapur
Road
• 360 plots
• No BWSSB supply
• Only groundwater as
source.
• Incident rainfall =145
million litres

57. What Rainbow Drive did
• Banned private bore-wells
• Shared community bore-wells 3 numbers
• Made recharge as a community , over 260
recharge wells
• Put in a place a tariff system based on true cost
• Treated wastewater from WWTP being used for
non-potable use
• Now almost completely self sufficient for water

58. What we need
• Scientific inputs from the WHO guidelines for
a sanitation safety plan and a waste-water
reuse plan to manage negative impacts
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59. India Sanitation (Census 2011)
Septic Tanks
• (million)
• Urban 30.09
• Rural 24.67
• Total 54.76
Pit toilets
• (million)
• Urban 55.97
• Rural 17.68
• Total 73 .65
• Grand Total 128.41

60. Septic tanks and Pit Latrines
Another 113 million rural households
and 14 million urban households will
build toilets and mostly pit toilets in
the near future
This represents a massive sludge
management challenge

62. Vacum sucking a pit latrine

63. the honey-sucker can reach 250 feet

64. It has eliminated manual scavenging

65. There are 300 of them in Bangalore City

66. The trucks are indigenously designed

67. In many apartments a daily visit

68. Nutrient value is recovered

69. But how to avoid soil and groundwater pollution ?

70. Nutrient analysis in progress

71. Farmers have understood the nutrient value

72. The crop

73. The fruits

74. Nutrient management policy
• Solid waste management
• Sewage management
• Septage management
• All on the basis of nutrient reuse.
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75. BEFORE AND AFTER ECOSAN
CONSUMPTION (ltrs of water/day)
• DRINKING 3
• COOKING 4
• BATHING 15
• CLOTHES 23
• UTENSILS 25
• GARDEN 25
• FLUSHING 40
• TOTAL 135
• 3
• 4
• 15
• 20 ECOSAN
• 25 saving
• 0 67.5
• 0.5
• 67.5
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76. Roof-scape Bengaluru...........
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77. Roofs are
• Sterile,
• Uninteresting
and
• Heat sinks
• Yet they
receive almost
all of the rain,
sun, wind and
life
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79. Can roofs be smarter ?
Since they receive
– maximum
– Can they solve a city’s
– water,
– storm-water,
– energy,
– wastewater,
– Food and
– bio-diversity problem ?
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80. How about?
A roof that grows rice
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83. Uses only treated grey water to grow
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84. Harvests rain
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85. RAINWATER AND ECOSAN
BANGALORE’S SCENARIO
100 SQ MT OF ROOF
PRODUCES:
• 97,000 LITRES RAIN
• 88,000 LITRES
HARVESTED
DEMAND:
67.5 Ltrs/day X 4 pers X 365
= 98,550 LITRES
OUTCOME:
• 325 DAYS OF WATER
DEMAND SUPPLIED
FROM RAIN
• ZERO SEWAGE RUNOFF
• NUTRIENTS USED
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86. Uses the Sun
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87. Biome Environmental Solutions Pvt
Ltd
PROVIDES FOR BIODIVERSITY
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92. Roof produces and takes care of
• 100 sq. mt. 100,000 litres of water
• 100 sq. mt 200 kgs of rice and vegetables
• 100 sq. mt. All the grey water –100 ltrs/day
• 100 sq.mt All the urine 1500 litres / year
• 100 sq. mt All the solid waste generated
• 100 sq mt 32 different species of birds
• 100 SQ mt heat 100 litres daily
• Light 12 bulbs
• Cook for 4 people lunch and dinner
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93. So what can a smart roof do?
• Provide
– Food security… and grow rice, banana, vegetables
– Water security .. and treat waste water
– Energy security… and keep the house cool
– Ecological security… and help save the sparrow
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97. The future then…
60% of built Bangalore or any metropolis is roofs.
What do we do about them?
Heat sinks
or
Designed Ecological spaces
The choice is ours.
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