Passive design works by careful planning and responsiveness to climate. It starts with understanding the site: its orientation, solar exposure, prevailing wind patterns, humidity levels, and microclimatic behaviours.
Quite often, the constituent elements of architecture have a certain permanence and stasis about them and resist change. One could say that, at its most basic, a building is an interplay of three major elements that create a unique concoction of a space that we then call ‘Architecture’: Floors that define the plane on which human activity unfolds, Walls that enclose the spaces vertically while also allowing leakages into other spaces as well as the larger context, and the Roofs that further delineate these spaces from the sky above.
Passive design strategies are often techniques that are deployed in the production of these three constituent elements in such a manner as to create a conducive and comfortable built environment with the least reliance on non-renewable resources as well as energy. It is, thus, an intelligent way of doing architecture that is deeply informed by our knowledge and understanding of how our universe works: how light travels, how heat gain happens or how winds can be channelised.
By aligning the built form with these natural forces, we can control heat gain, enhance airflow, and bring in ample daylight. Material choices, shading devices, landscape planning, and positioning of openings all work together to create a self-regulating environment.
Traditional architecture tends to emphasize aesthetic concerns first, with performance usually considered later. Passive design flips this: it’s performance, comfort, and climate response that lie at the heart of the entire design process. While traditional design may incorporate climatic considerations intuitively, passive design relies on data, analysis, and optimization to reach the optimum. It is not about adding features; it is about embedding environmental intelligence in the DNA of a building from the very first sketch.
Passive design reduces the need for mechanical heating, cooling, and lighting, which means far less energy is used. This directly lowers the building’s carbon footprint and brings down operational costs over time.
It also creates healthier and more comfortable indoor spaces. Temperatures remain more stable, daylight improves, air quality gets better, and the building becomes naturally more resilient during extreme weather or power cuts. Overall, it delivers comfort, efficiency, and sustainability at the same time.
Read the full story that first appeared in Architect & Interiors magazine Dec 2025 issue here:
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