Ronita Bardhan

University of Cambridge | Cam · Department of Architecture

This study presents results from an experimental investigation of the severity and sources of household air pollution across two low-income housing archetypes in Mumbai. Experimentation was carried out in Dharavi—one of the world's largest slums—and two nearby communities representing Mumbai's current slum resettlement scheme. Household surveys wer...

Thermal adaptation in low-income housing of Mumbai, India is investigated using a longitudinal field study and in-situ field measurements. 705 set of responses from two different neighbourhoods were analysed to understand the patterns of behavioural adaptation. Spatial configuration, temporal factors and underlying societal norms influenced the com...

India locked down 1.3 billion people on March 25, 2020, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. The economic cost of it was estimated at USD 98 billion, while the social costs are still unknown. This study investigated how government formed reactive policies to fight corona-virus across its policy sectors. Primary data was collected from the Press Inform...

Many governments have begun to adopt aggressive targets for electric vehicles. However, studies of the drivers of electric vehicle (EV) adoption are scarce. Social media interactions can provide a new data-driven vantage point to explore such drivers. This study uses data from 36,000 public posts on Facebook to investigate inter-sectionality in EV-...

Understanding the variability in intra-urban forms is essential for protecting future-proofing cities from climate volatilities. However, the classification of urban forms is costly due to its reliance on high-resolution datasets, limited in the Global South's low-income cities. Additionally, the current classifiers are constrained in characterizin...

The nexus of thermal comfort, affordability, and resilient buildings is receiving great attention in the rapidly urbanizing world. Understanding the thermal comfort needs, and preferences of the low-income population are crucial in developing an equitable approach to fight climate change and meet sustainable development goals. However, thermal comf...

The supplementary data consists of two PDF files, the first of which contains the foundation and (re)construction years of the 107 selected courtyards in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and the second of which provides the UTCI and air temperature maps at 1.5 m height from the validated ENVI-met models.

The building and construction sector accounts for around 39% of global carbon dioxide emissions and remains a hard-to-abate sector. We use a data-driven analysis of global high-level climate action on emissions reduction in the building sector using 256,717 English-language tweets across a 13-year time frame (2009–2021). Using natural language proc...

Hybrid working has reshaped people’s routines and working habits, while the workplace needs to evolve with the new working pattern. Co-working space is seen as an alternative work environment, for cost-effectiveness, the opportunity for flexible design and multi- use. This study investigates the occupancy patterns and occupants’ behaviour using mul...

The work pattern has been reshaped towards a hybrid style since the lockdown in the pandemic, while the office design needs to be evolved with the change in working mode. It is important to understand how to design the workspace to meet the new demand. This study investigates the environmental performance of a flexible co-working space in London by...

Provision of affordable housing and energy access is an urgent challenge in India and South Africa. This study adopts a participatory filmmaking approach to understand women’s agency in low-income domestic housing in Mumbai and Cape Town. Through their films, the women shared insights of how the transitional housing environment has impacted their e...

Climate change is a global problem, but climate solutions primarily need to be deployed at a local level. Local stakeholders play a vital role in taking decisive action to meet national and international climate targets. Effective local, regional and national policy and governance frameworks are needed. During the 2021-2022 academic year, the Cambr...

This paper introduces a database of 34 field-measured building occupant behavior datasets collected from 15 countries and 39 institutions across 10 climatic zones covering various building types in both commercial and residential sectors. This is a comprehensive global database about building occupant behavior. The database includes occupancy patte...

This study set out to understand the dynamics of human thermal sensation and perception associated with outdoor thermal variability in urban contexts. Previous studies found that compact urban forms and green features can contribute to urban climate diversity, and conjectured whether the wax and wane of thermal stress can promote thermal satisfacti...

The pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) at the beginning of 2020 has restricted the human population indoor with some allowance for recreation in green spaces for social interaction and daily exercise. Understanding and measuring the risk of COVID-19 infection during public urban green spaces (PUGS) visits is essential to reduce the spread of...

The social well-being and health of the occupants of low-income housing depends not just on improved infrastructure and security of tenure but also on neighbourhood and apartment design characteristics. This study compares 14 best-practice habitat design models for low-income mass housing in nine Indian states, with Dharavi slum and slum rehabs in...

Does concrete have to be used widely? Given the large amounts of GHGs generated by concrete, what alternative materials and design optimisations exist? Ronita Bardhan (University of Cambridge) and Ramit Debnath (University of Cambridge) discuss some options for how we can immediately reduce concrete consumption. Link: https://www.buildingsandcitie...

This study evaluates the effect of complete nationwide lockdown in 2020 on residential electricity demand across 13 Indian cities and the role of digitalisation using a public smart meter dataset. We undertake a data-driven approach to explore the energy impacts of work-from-home norms across five dwelling typologies. Our methodology includes clima...

Double-loaded affordable apartments, which are commonly seen in tropical developing countries, suffer from poor cross-ventilation, particularly on the leeward side of the buildings. This study aims to parametrically evaluate closed-vertical void configurations to improve the ventilation performance of the double-loaded apartment building using the...

Rapid urbanization pressure and poverty have created a push for affordable housing within the global south. The design of affordable housing can have consequences on the thermal (dis)comfort and behaviour of the occupants, hence requiring an occupant-centric approach to ensure sustainability. This paper investigates occupant behaviour within the ur...

This working paper is an evidence submitted to the Royal Institution for British Architects that makes the case that the built environment must drastically reduce its carbon emissions to work towards net zero. Here we advocate for climate repair through the built environment by decarbonising UK’s building sector through both improved energy efficie...

Like many countries of rapid urbanisation, Ethiopia has an acute low-income housing shortage. Ethiopia’s Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) can be seen as an attempt to innovate low-income housing provision. Over 200,000 IHDP units have been built since 2005. Drawing from a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) survey in Amhara region, this...

International Energy Agency https://www.iea.org/articles/better-energy-efficiency-policy-with-digital-tools

The global pandemic has reshaped the use of working space dramatically, mainly due to the implementation of the working from home policy and indoor social distancing requirements. This calls for the rethinking of the current office design approaches and the proposal of specific design strategies to provide a safer and healthier environment for empl...

The microclimate shaped by urban form is one of the critical determinants for the success of public spaces. To date, hundreds of studies have revealed the potential of mitigating heat and cold stresses by spatial-enclosure strategies to reduce thermal discomfort. However, most of them have placed more emphasis on taming the thermal extremes, rather...

While public green spaces (PGS) are opined to be central in the pandemic recovery, higher accessibility to PGS also mean a higher risk of infection spread from the raised possibility of people encountering each other. This study explores the distributive effects of accessibility of PGS on the COVID-19 cases distribution using a geo-spatially varyin...

Thermal comfort actions in low-income group (LIG) housing are often dictated by the adaptive occupant behaviour coupled with socio-economic and socio-cultural regimes. This work aimed at exploring the influence of occupant behaviour on thermal comfort improvements within the slum rehabilitation housing located in Mumbai, India. The study focused on...

Indoor thermal comfort is critical to building sustainability besides improving occupants’ health, well-being and productivity. However, the applicability of existing comfort standards within different climatic conditions and contextual settings is often in question. This study presents the findings from a longitudinal thermal comfort study conduct...

Infrastructure systems are primarily located in urban areas. The urban climate is often different from the surrounding rural climate. It is generally warmer, rainier, less windy and more polluted. This means that more drastic effects of changing climate will be experienced by the urban infrastructure systems than the surrounding areas (Krayenhoff e...

A transverse field study was conducted in 1216 slum rehabilitation housing units of Mumbai to understand the occupant behaviour towards thermal comfort and energy consumption. The data were analysed using a structural equation modelling approach to investigate the effects of occupant factors on thermal comfort perception within the low-income popul...

Daylight and ventilation effective design guidelines remain under-researched in the current habitat design policies of India. This study is of its first kind where environmental metrics and occupant health status were investigated together in the recently developed two hyperdense multirise slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) of Mumbai. A mixed-mode r...

The low-income housing of dense metropolitan cities focuses solely on occupancy maximization, thus significantly neglecting indoor livability parameters energy-saving potential and daylight efficiency. The existing unit designs lack rational insight on fenestration detailing window size and location, which, when modified, impacts the indoor dayligh...

Slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) are critical transitional spaces in urban informality that has deep-rooted implications on poverty alleviation efforts. However, current literature reports systemic injustices in SRH on access to essential services, including energy injustices. This study investigated distributive injustices in the SRH across three...

Double-loaded affordable apartments are commonly seen in tropical developing countries to maximize total floor areas. However, the double-loaded apartments would possibly cause poor cross-ventilation, particularly on the leeward side of the buildings. This study aims to propose an alternative design for double-loaded affordable apartments for effic...

This article aims to exhibit the potential of natural ventilation (nat-vent) as a passive cooling method within the low-income tenement units in tropical climatic regions using Mumbai as a case example. Furthermore, it also highlights the significance of interior design and optimized location of ‘active zone’ in delivering improved experiential nat...

The thermal environment in Recreational Open Spaces (ROS) is primarily a result of the surrounding built form which includes buildings, trees, and surface treatment materials. To study the impact of land surface treatment choice and urban form on the thermal characteristics of open spaces, a case study assessment was undertaken in the dense urban c...

Like many countries of rapid urbanisation, Ethiopia has an acute low-income housing shortage. Ethiopia�s Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) can be seen as an attempt to innovate low-income housing provision. Over 200,000 IHDP units have been built since 2005. Drawing from a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) survey in Amhara region, this...

Slum rehabilitation housing (SRH) are critical transitional spaces in urban informality that has deep-rooted implications on poverty alleviation efforts. However, current literature reports systemic injustices in SRH on access to essential services, including energy injustices. This study investigated distributive injustices in the SRH across three...

Land use compatibility has always remained an integrally crucial factor for city development. Traditional contentious theories integrating land use planning principles, demand-oriented market development and industry-induced air pollution regulations have debated the adjacency of residential and industrial land uses. However, in the event of inevit...

Text-based data sources like narratives and stories have become increasingly popular as critical insight generator in energy research and social science. However, their implications in policy application usually remain superficial and fail to fully exploit state-of-the-art resources which digital era holds for text analysis. This paper illustrates...

This study looks into the socio-physical liveability through socio-spatiality in low-income settlement archetypes. Paradoxically, recently mushrooming slum rehabilitation housing which have delivered secured tenure to its inhabitants, face threats of being deserted from lack of socio-physical liveability. Recurring of informality issues has advocat...

Drawing from film studies, this paper introduces a new, experimental method to understand domestic practices and energy use in the home. The paper adopts the methodology of the AHRC CineMuseSpace project and applies it in the context of energy studies. A detailed keyword ontology was developed in order to identify practices, technologies and energy...

Future cities of the Global South will not only rapidly urbanise but will also get warmer from climate change and urbanisation induced effects. It will trigger a multi-fold increase in cooling demand, especially at a residential level, mitigation to which remains a policy and research gap. This study forwards a novel residential energy stress mitig...

India locked down 1.3 billion people on March 25, 2020 in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. The economic cost of it was estimated at USD 98 billion, while the social costs are still unknown. This study investigated how government formed reactive policies to fight coronavirus across its policy sectors. Primary data was collected from the Press Informat...

In this study, we investigate the association of building energy consumption with the site-based airflow characteristics in three different spatial configura-tions of buildings in low-income tenement housing, with the form fac-tor and compactness ratio of the buildings remaining constant. Energy simula-tions were performed for each of the building...

The urban built-up areas while providing shelter inimitably modify the thermal profile of its surroundings which impact the quality of life. Urban heat stress is the most significant indicator of alteration of the urban ecosystem. The variation in built-up areas alters the net radiation budget of urban land surface differently, leading to spatially...

The interaction of energy and buildings institutes a complex socio-technical system that influences the eudemonic well-being of the occupants. Understanding these drivers become even more necessary in impoverished areas where occupants struggle to avail essential energy services. The literature indicates that energy injustice can be addressed throu...

There is an increase in the middle income class in the tropical cities of the global south. Which has lead governments to focus on the provision of sustainable housing stocks. The design of these houses is a concern as they are often designed to maximize occupancy. Based on analysis of existing building design, the standard midrise buildings of Ind...

Text-based data sources like narratives and stories have become increasingly popular as critical insight generator in energy research and social science. However, their implications in policy application usually remain superficial and fail to fully exploit state-of-the-art resources which digital era holds for text analysis. This paper illustrates...

Distributive energy justice as a policy instrument is crucial to meet UN-SDG 7 targets at the poorest section of rapidly urbanising Global South. This study mobilised this policy instrument to derive poverty alleviation focal points across slum rehabilitation housing in Brazil, India and Nigeria. It emphasises on the social dimensions of energy ser...

Affordable housing for the low-income population, who mostly live in slums, is an endemic challenge for cities in developing countries. As a remedy for the slum-free city, most of the major metropolis are resorting to slum rehabilitation housing. Rehabilitation connotes the improved quality of life that provides contentment, yet what entails reside...

This paper presents a review on thermal comfort research that is informed by changes in occupant behaviour, lifestyle and income leading to rebound or pre-bound effect. It explores the current state of research in thermal comfort domain through a systematic review to identify the gaps and opportunities specifically focusing on energy-intensive deve...

Architecture and planning play an important role in ensuring good light and ventilation to provide a healthy and livable environment. To investigate the strength of association between structural factors of slum resettlement colonies buildings and the burden of tuberculosis (TB), a questionnaire-based semi-quantitative survey of 4080 households was...

Green spaces are an integral part of urban landscape and offer numerous benefits related to quality of urban life. However, due to various factors, the distribution of green spaces among city neighbourhoods is often skewed. Hence, urban planners require effective tools to routinely map and monitor the greening/ un-greening phenomena among the neigh...

This study optimized the ventilator and furniture location of a tenement unit in a low-income urban habitat to obtain maximum experiential indoor environmental quality (e-IEQ) over the breathing zone. Hypothetical interior layouts using a combination of the two design parameters of ventilator location and bed position were generated for optimizing...

This study aimed at investigating the potential human factors influencing household electricity consumption. The specific focus was on the occupant behaviour, practices, habits and attitude towards energy in low-income housing. Household data was collected through a transverse survey in slum rehabilitation colonies of Mumbai, India. A structural eq...

Technology acceptance plays a critical role in adopting thermal comfort strategies. Not only economic but socio-cultural context becomes pivotal when preference is considered. Yet, the fuzziness of what is acceptable remains under-researched in thermal comfort studies. This work intends to determine an optimal set of strategies for providing therma...

The way occupants adapt to an environmental setting directly affects their perceived thermal comfort. This study examines the variation in thermal comfort perception due to diversified occupant behaviour. The self-reported occupant behaviour patterns within the social housing were clustered into three groups based on the newly developed index, Adap...

This study intends to optimise the indoor design layout of a multi-rise low-income tenement unit that would not only improve perceived indoor environmental quality (IEQ) but would also harness maximum cooling energy-saving potential. The research framework initiated with household surveys, in-situ environmental sensor deployment and sequential comp...

Gender mainstreaming in slum rehabilitation is a critical determinant for the success or failure of it. Slum rehabilitation in Mumbai is a hallmark example of a participatory process which is supposed to improve the quality of life and well-being among the rehabilitated occupants, on paper. Yet our findings show that the key stakeholders’ (i.e. pol...

It was found that the standard design of multistory apartments of Indonesia and Mumbai consists of a double loaded corridor to maximize the floor area regardless of the orientation. Consequently, the occupants on the leeward side may encounter poor cross-ventilation. This study aims to determine optimum void design allowing sufficient cross-ventila...

This study intends to optimise the interior layout of two low-income multi-rise tenement designs that would provide effective indoor environmental quality (IEQ) over the breathing zone. A variety of interior layouts were generated for both space constrained tenement units by introducing and varying interior architectural parameters and their respec...

Although built-up areas exacerbate the urban heat island (UHI) effect, the thermal impact of heterogeneous urban areas remains unknown. In this study geographically weighted regression (GWR) is used to examine the locally variable relationship between land surface temperatures (LSTs) and urban built form (UBF) indices. Sky view factor, built covera...

This study intends to optimize the interior design layout of a low-income resettlement tenement unit that would deliver improved indoor environment experience, and harness high cooling energy saving potential by maximizing natural ventilation utilization. A mixed-mode research framework including ‘Sampling based parametric modelling’ followed by ‘c...

This study explores the effect of slum rehabilitation on appliance ownership and its implications on residential electricity demand. The low-income scenario makes it unique because the entire proposition is based on the importance of non-income drivers of appliance ownership that includes effects of changing the built environment (BE), household pr...

Slum rehabilitation policies in India is observed to have a rebound effect on the occupants, where rehabilitated occupants move back to the horizontal slums. In this study, we investigate the cause behind this rebound phenomenon based on a theory of homeostasis, where the loss of homeostasis refers to occupants' heightened discomfort and distress i...

The progress of urbanization in the developing world has had various consequences. Of these, informality is one of the most significant. The complex demographic makeup of the developing world has made the difference between formality and informality vague. In this entry, urban informality is examined by looking at evidence from the city of Mumbai....

The thermal profile of the urban built-up area is essential for reducing the impact of built-up areas on urban heat stress. This study quantifies the variations in the outdoor thermal profile of built forms in a heterogeneous urban area. A two-step process was adopted to quantify built form induced heat stress. The build form typologies referred to...