Shivajirao Gaekwar shares the latest update about this spectacular home

New York: Nivim Goa is slated to be the first certified green home in Goa aiming for the ‘Gold’ level certification. The green home certification is administered by the Indian Green Building Council, an Indian counterpart to the US Green Building Council.

The green homes certification provides a comprehensive list of strategies to be employed while building a residence where the goal is to reduce the impact of the construction activity and building occupancy on the environment.

 An important criteria at Nivim was to employ green practices without sacrificing the luxury lifestyle for its occupants and architectural design of the house. Read about some of Nivim’s notable green features.

Green building practices today are a combination of common sense traditional wisdom as well as new innovations in technology, material and building construction practices. At Nivim Goa, sustainability was a criteria from day one of design and construction and a factor considered at all stages of decision making.

 Impact on the environment was a key factor while designing the house. During construction, Nivim Goa minimized use of energy and resources by using local materials and materials with high recycled content while also minimizing waste. During operations, the house will consume less energy and water, use solar energy, recycle and resuse rain water and grey water on-site while providing a healthy environment for occupants.

But ‘Why build green’ in the first place? “For Nivim, the decision was easy – to preserve the special character of Goa and to retain it in the pristine condition that brought us here in the first place”, says Anjali.

Below are reasons on ‘why building green’ is critical to eco-sensitive environments such as Goa:

– Buildings consume large amounts of energy and resources during construction and generate waste

– Building continue to consume energy, water and other resources during their lifetime along with continualy generating waste (domestic waste, solid waste and water waste), all leading to burdening existing infrastructure

– A building on a previously vacant greenfield site changes the land and its relationship to the environment:

– buildings change the natural landscape of the site by reducing existing vegetation, changing natural topography, and water patterns

– create concrete barriers to absorbtion of water back into the earth thus increasing storm water runoff (leading to flooding, water logging) and fall in underground water table (due to reduced recharge)

– buildings absorb more heat and impact the micro-climate of the place

– result in loss of habitat for animal and bird life

This property is featured in Saffronart’s Prime Properties Monsoon 2012 Catalogue.

Read our entire coverage of Nivim Goa.

 * Please note that NIVIM Goa is under-construction and is expected to be completed by August 2012. The images on this blog show the work-in-progress and not final finished product.

 For more information on this house, write to [email protected].