Social Discussion on Interesting Topics

Prasanna Kumar – Engineer

Good morning all, first of all I will thank chairman, board of studies, professor Rajan, and also Bharath for his relentless effort for collecting all people who are busy in their practices and to contribute to today’s workshop and already one day is over. I am the only engineer I think who will be talking very differently from the architects. It is indeed an honour and privilege to share my experience on the building services.

What is the need of the day, we are here because quality education is at the heart of every national agenda and while a strong business climate induces economic growth, the important barometer of a healthy social climate is still the education landscape of the society. Also country will boost its business sector with the human capital of a strong educational orientation. With this objective where we are studying the curriculum and change of curriculum for the academic years, is the curriculum design, the teaching approach and creation of information centres. I am all oriented towards the actual practice of a practical subject in the day today, teaching is also required. Building services, water supply and sanitation, these are all in the portions. The objective is to impart the knowledge, it is not that the architect should not call the engineer to do something, at least to know and understand that there is a requirement, they have to study on the different curriculum that are designed from engineers for architects. This is the outline on the booklet that is circulated to us, which I am trying to modify, including all this and making more contemporary, what we are practising. All the twelve topics of the curriculum remain same. First of the entire introduction to environmental and health aspects is not covered in the curriculum. We need to tell the architect why we need to know the history of plumbing. It is not a new subject; it is as old as the civilisation. What are the diseases, water related diseases, epidemics, urban and rural sanitation, every topic I have taken in detail. Water supply, sewerage system, storm water drainage, the plumbing different methodologies are involved, we have a detailed plumbing organisation, non-profitable organisation who are working on this. One of the topics we need to teach architectural students, is the solid waste management per say, it is a big subject, both in the practice and in corporations, because the knowledge level which is very less over here. The fire and life safety systems, this is very important for the architects, because unless and until you consider this in the drawing you are redoing everything. Apart from that you have this special requirement that is not covered, which is the LPG gas, medical gases, HSD, solar, of course it is covered. I have generalised into different topics here. Site visits are mandatory, as you said, showing a temple in the power point presentation or showing at the site makes a lot of difference, and at least they should know the terminology, what they study, water treatment plant, sewage treatment plant, LPG yard, look and feel they need to see at the site. Nothing looks pretty at site, so whenever we ask for space there is always a clash between architect and engineer to accommodate all these things. They should know it in the first place. And multi storied residential building; they should know that what is the special requirement of each of these things there should be a talk. It should not be assumed or it should not be a left out subject for them. Commercial buildings, hotels, hospitals and IT buildings on the whole what we are saying is, it should be in adherence to NOC standards, at least they should know the terminology, no objections and certificates are required not only on building construction site alone, whether it may be BDA, BBMP or such organisations. They need to know from fire authority what the requirement is. They should know the codal requirement, technological update, innovation, space optimisation, environmental concern, and sustainable design solution, everything said and done, ease of constructability they have to achieve. These are the few codes that they have to be made aware of. National building code, what is related to plumbing, sewerage. There is new code from the Indian plumbing association, they have put lakhs of rupees on their own for creating this code, 2014 has released now.