Riverfront Stewardship: A Sustainable Design Proposal for a Net-Zero Building in Pune, India

Project Year: 2021

Academic Project: MS Sustainable Design Thesis II

Pune City began to develop around the two important rivers Mula and Mutha passing through core center of the city. Rivers in Pune, like many other metropolitan Indian cities are also encroached upon either by urban development or waste dumping. This thesis study aims to understand different factors affecting Pune River and riverfront pollution and proposes a riverfront stewardship, which is a net-zero energy building along the riverfront that will adopt the river to bring back to its natural ecology. 

The proposed riverfront stewardship facility aims to spread public awareness through education, bring sensitivity towards environment and demonstrate energy efficient building strategies on site to set an example for future sustainable riverfront development in Pune. Some of the research methods like systems thinking model, four perspectives of Integral Theory for sustainable design used in the process, helped to explore, understand and analyse the Pune river and riverfront issues holistically on the different scales.