Solar and Green Building Guidelines for Hot Arid Climate in India

There are, presently, two schools of thought when it comes to designing buildings that promote sustainable development. One school emphasizes materials use and ‘‘green’’ buildings, while the other emphasizes energy use and energy efficient buildings. The promoters of ‘‘green’’ buildings often claim that the reduced energy use during operation of the low energy and solar buildings is counteracted by the increased embodied energy in these buildings. This paper gives categorical analysis of the technologies available for Low energy and green architecture and emphasizes the need to integrate both in residential buildings to of lower the energy use in operation during the lifetime in a residential building in hot arid climate. The results also show that there should be little difference between the approaches of the two schools of thought. The best buildings will generally be those that are both low energy, and ‘‘green’’. This paper also gives policy guidelines to integrate them in the building bye-laws for hot arid climate