Rapid urbanization is altering the micro climate of Indian cities by reducing the wind flow and increasing the temperature in heavily dense areas. Since there is no appropriate guidelines related to climate in building regulations, human comfort is largely compromised. Although the major role of building code is to provide healthy environments for the citizens, the available road width is becoming the foremost aspect in deciding the setback, ground coverage and FAR regardless the region's climate and its design prerequisite. To understand various issues related to existing building regulations for different climates, a study is conducted on building regulations enforced in hot and dry and warm and humid climates for major cities like Jaipur, Trichy, and Bhubaneswar. Existing building regulations for the three cities are compared and analyzed in respect to their climate in the first stage of study. In the second stage, a Multi‐storeyed group housing development from Bhubaneswar is considered for experimentation. Similar Hypothetical samples for Trichy and Jaipur are created keeping the site extent fixed, number of Blocks constant and simulated using Cradle‐ sc STREAM for wind flow. Considerations for revised building regulations are suggested so that quality of comfort can be improvised for different regions. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 1901–1907, 2018

Objective: The overall goal of this investigation is to describe the pattern of distribution of various socio-economic groups in Bhubaneswar, India. Background: Social stratification studies are inconsistent across countries. While the deprived communities are clustered around the center of the city in the US and Shanghai, recent Indian studies showed that they are mostly located at the periphery of the city. Most of these studies have used census data to differentiate the socio-economic groups. However, there are limited studies that examine the spatial structure of various socio-economic neighborhoods in India. This study is unique because it combines census data and satellite images to examine how different socio-economic neighborhoods are different geographically and spatially. Method: Census tract or ward is considered representative of neighborhoods. Census data on socio-economic indicators such as household size, literacy, home ownership, car-jeep ownership, availing banking facility, and workers population are used for an empirical PCA analysis. The wards are divided into five quintiles based on their deprivation index. A spatial study is performed for two of the most deprived neighborhoods and two of the least deprived neighborhoods using satellite maps. Results: The least deprived neighborhoods are located mostly around airports. However, the most deprived neighborhoods are located at the periphery. Informal housing or slums are not clumped in deprived neighborhoods only but are distributed throughout the city. All four wards studied are heterogeneous with informal housing combined with independent housing and apartments. Conclusion: Most deprived and least deprived neighborhoods are not differentiated based on informal housing locations but on parcel and apartment size.

Unequal distribution of physical activity resources for the disadvantaged has become a major topic of discussion in today's world. The resources include parks, urban greenery, and private facilities for recreation to name a few. Although morphological indicators such as street connectivity, block size, and block length are important for walking, limited literature explains how these built forms vary for neighborhoods of different socio-economic groups. The study can be important in Indian conditions since walking is a necessity for work as well as for leisure for a certain group of people who cannot afford to buy motorized vehicles. Assessing spatial inequality for them can contribute to recommendations for sustainable planning. This study compares four neighborhoods of different property values in Bhubaneswar, India to examine the inequality in the built-form distribution. India is specially chosen for this study because standard rules for subdivisions are almost missing there. Seven built-form indicators are compared for the four neighborhoods. The analysis shows that a variation in built form does exist between neighborhoods of different socio-economic groups. Longer blocks, higher block density, and higher plot density are observed for neighborhood of lower socio-economic status. However, neighborhood predominated by informal housing is compact and found to have the best walkability conditions.

Urban green spaces (UGS) are linked with numerous health benefits. However, recent studies have highlighted an increased level of disparity in their distribution across different socio-economic groups. Adequate number of UGS and their size play an important role to achieve spatial equity. The purpose of this study is to analyze the availability of UGS across all socio-economic groups of Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India. Methods: The socio-economic groups are created by using the ward level socio-economic census data of Bhubaneswar and and PCA method of analysis. The UGS are identified using satellite images if they fulfil the criteria such as: named as a park or garden and has a definitive boundary in the year 2021. A one-way ANOVA is used for the analysis. Result: The study revealed a non-uniform distribution; 27 out of 67 wards do not have any form of parks in their vicinity. From the equity point of view, the UGS distribution is examined for parks and overall UGS. There is no major difference found in terms of availability of parks in different SES statistically. However, park area average is observed to be the higher in middle deprived communities (26738.32 m2/neighborhood) followed by least deprived communities (22386.7378 m2/neighborhood) but the average number of parks seem to be the lowest in the least deprived communities (1 park/neighborhood). The land allocation per capita for overall UGS came to be the highest for the most deprived neighborhoods (0.0146 km2/1000 population). The bigger UGS are in the most deprived wards probably because there is availability of land and low population density.

Bhubaneswar with a warm and humid climate and with humidity much higher than the comfort level requires an enhanced natural ventilation to achieve long term quality of life. The building code which regulates the fabric of the city at present follows a standardized set of regulations governed by National Building Code of India and is developed without giving much consideration to climate. Ground coverage is an important parameter which regulates the footprint of the blocks and allows natural ventilation to buildings as well to outdoor. At present, Bhubaneswar does not prescribe a ground coverage for its apartments and completely dependent on FAR control. As a result, the developments consider quite high ground coverage in certain areas. This particular research focusses on analyzing the current situation of multi storied apartments and proposes a few climate centric recommendations for the byelaw. To examine the situation and arrive at a strategy, a simulation study has been carried out by altering the ground coverage and building orientation of a multistoried apartment consisting of 5 residential blocks to analyze the effect of natural ventilation. The study inferred that, building layout and orientation in relation to wind direction plays an important role for natural ventilation in the outdoors. A climate centric byelaw ideally should consider both while formulating its building code.