CII Institute of Quality, Bangalore

The CII Institute of Quality Bangalore has been sponsored by ABB Ltd and is spread over 4 acres of scenic land on the western outskirts of the garden city.The Institute is a modern piece of eye-catching architecture blending into the hilly terrain in which it is located.

The building has been designed to be eco-friendly, with minimum impact on the environment and using green energy saving technologies.

The landscaping has been designed to enhance the beauty of the surroundings and provide a peaceful ambience suited to an institute of learning. The Building has some unique features.

Passive Downdraft Environmental Cooling (PDEC)

At the very outset, CII decided to introduce environmental cooling instead of costly and energy hungry air conditioning. Accordingly, PEDC was integrated into the architecture at the design stage.

This system has been developed after study of ancient public buildings and palaces in India, which were instrumented to record all aspects of indoor air quality.

The data recorded over a period of one year was then used to design a CAD programme, for adaptation and design of cooling systems for buildings. Basically, the system consists of 15-meter tall wind catchers, which are towers that capture and deflect airflow into a large plenum chamber, which is located adjacent to the main building. From the plenum chamber, the air is fed into the various training halls.

The warm air rises and is bled away through vents. During hot weather, micronisers, located at the top of each tower dispense an atomized spray of water, which mixes with the incoming air, evaporates and produces cooling. Incoming temperatures can be thus lowered by 10c, which is sufficient to bring indoor air temperature into the comfort zone. More importantly, the air being fed into the building is always new and not re-circulated. Therefore it is always fresh and oxygen rich. No one feels sleepy and drowsy during sessions, even after a sumptuous lunch!

Day lighting

The entire building has been designed to use natural light. There is no need to use power for lighting even on the dullest day. On bright days, excess light is filtered through specially designed blinds. Together with power saved from air conditioning, this represents huge energy savings during normal operation of the institute.

Water Management

Since water is not provided by the civic authorities, CII-IQ accesses and treats ground water from bore wells to meet its requirements. The waster used is of very good quality and all of it is recycled through septic tanks and re-fed into the environment through soak pits.

Rainwater falling on the building and site is also channeled into natural reservoirs and absorbed as ground water.

Building Materials

In order to save costs and energy, all materials in the building have been obtained from local sources. Further, no polished granite / marble has been used. Only eco-friendly materials like rough granite, local stone, recycled wood, cement and steel comprise the building. Yet, the unique design and beautiful landscaping provide a unique experience for the participants who come to the institute to imbibe its ambience and learning.