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India has a rich tradition of climate responsive architecture, incorporating several variations of passive design strategies that have been layered over time with the cultural, social and environmental context of the immediate geographical region. Designing climate responsive buildings is challenging, requiring an understanding of building physics, as well as the way buildings are designed, constructed and operated in a given cultural context. The process becomes more difficult with the ever-increasing comfort expectations. Unfortunately, it is easier to install air conditioners in a poorly designed building than to design a high-performing building to begin with.

This paper is based on a study to evaluate the thermal performance of climate responsive buildings. We studied six modern institutional and office buildings in warm-humid, hot-dry and composite climate zones. Collectively, they incorporated a range of passive …