Appraising Building Envelope for Existing Academic Building at SVNIT, Surat

Abstract

Purpose- The building envelope helps to create a physical barrier between the outer and inner climate of a location. In the case of an institutional building, it is often noted that the actual functional hours are only during the day time, from early morning to sun-down. The Purpose of this paper is to analyse, how an existing institutional building, located in Surat, Gujarat behaves under the Hot and Dry climate conditions and if the envelope performance of the building fulfils the basic requisite of its functions.

Design/ Methodology- This research study undertakes a comparison of the present conditions of the building with the basic standards of Energy Conservation Building Codes, 2017 to identify the gaps in the building design. The focus is to understand if the indoor conditions of the building are good for working in all weathers of the city and identify the gaps which can be improved for better indoor ambience.

Findings- The findings of this research can be classified into two parts, namely aspects that cause drawbacks in building envelope performance and identification of possible changes in existing envelope to improve the performance to optimize the energy demand of the building.

Originality/ Value- The research work will help to identify possible changes for the existing institutional buildings, which can be implemented on a larger scale of campus level, thereby creating an energy efficient area.