Trial / Demo
Our involvement in the Rani Ratnavati Girls’ School began when our firm, Design2Occupancy, was brought into the project through architect Diana Kellogg and her team. What immediately stood out was that this wasn’t just another building project, it was a vision rooted in culture, climate, and community. Located in the heart of Rajasthan’s Thar Desert, where summer temperatures soar above 45°C with minimal humidity and intense solar exposure, the school was designed to function without air conditioning, fans, or artificial lighting. And yet, it delivers year-round comfort and usability, entirely through passive architectural strategies.
But beyond its technical achievement, the school carries a deeper social significance. It was built as part of a broader initiative to empower girls through education in a region where access to learning is often limited by geography, tradition, or resources. The building serves as a beacon of opportunity, offering not just classrooms, but dignity and hope. Its design, crafted from local Jaisalmer sandstone and shaped in an elliptical form, evokes both tradition and progress. It shelters and inspires. The jali (lattice) facades, shaded courtyards, and careful orientation are not only aesthetically powerful, but deeply functional in how they regulate heat, channel airflow, and invite light.
This project has received international acclaim for its elegant simplicity, contextual sensitivity, and climate-resilient design. It stands as a rare example of how architecture can align beauty with performance and purpose with place. For me, it was a revelation: a structure that doesn't rely on complex mechanical systems to solve environmental challenges, but instead listens to its surroundings and responds with intention.
Figure 1 Original vs Modeled Building Structure
Coming from a technical background, I’ve worked on many buildings where sustainability is added on as a feature. Here, the architecture itself is the system. There was no fallback. Comfort, daylight, and ventilation had to be earned through the strength of design alone. That made the simulation process both rewarding and critical, we weren’t testing how machines performed, but whether architecture alone could carry the burden of performance. And it did..
Passive Principles Rooted in Local Wisdom
The Rani Ratnavati Girls’ School is built using local Jaisalmer sandstone, a material known for high thermal mass and low embodied energy. Its oval form minimizes heat gain and enhances shading throughout the day.
Key features include:
Figure 2 Showing Sun path Analysis
In this project, IES VE was not used to simulate HVAC or mechanical systems, it was used to verify whether passive strategies alone were sufficient for comfort and daylight.
We used the software to:
The results showed that the classrooms stayed cooler than outdoor conditions and remained well-lit during daytime hours without artificial lighting.
Modeling Passive Design in Harsh Conditions
This project was unique in that it had no mechanical fallback, performance relied entirely on architectural elements such as the building envelope, material behavior, and spatial layout. This required a modeling approach that was both precise and context-aware.
Beyond accurately representing the building’s massing and orientation, the simulation had to account for subtle interactions between design features and environmental inputs. For instance, the interplay of solar radiation, thermal lag of stone, and air movement within shaded zones had a compounding effect on comfort conditions. We focused on simulating extended time periods to capture performance across daily and seasonal cycles rather than single-point extremes.
Crucially, the modeling process also required careful alignment between physical conditions on-site and the assumptions made during simulation. This meant iterative refinement of envelope characteristics and close coordination with architectural drawings to ensure fidelity between design intent and digital representation.
Figure 3 Daylight Analysis of Classroom
Rather than optimize a system or control strategy, the goal here was to demonstrate that a building, shaped by environmental logic and cultural resonance, could meet performance benchmarks on its own terms.
Results & Visuals
To evaluate and communicate the performance of the Rani Ratnavati Girls’ School, a range of simulations were conducted using IES VE. The analysis focused on daylight availability in the primary learning areas as well as seasonal thermal comfort across the school’s operational hours. Visualizations of daylight distribution demonstrated that the building consistently achieved sufficient natural illumination in classrooms, reducing the need for any artificial lighting. Thermal simulations aligned with regional climate conditions indicated that the passive strategies in place, including high thermal mass, shaded courtyards, and strategic ventilation, contributed to a significantly cooler indoor environment. On average, indoor temperatures were observed to be approximately 5°C to 8°C lower than the outdoor ambient levels during peak summer periods. These findings confirmed that the architecture itself effectively managed both heat and light to maintain a comfortable and functional learning atmosphere.
Figure 4 Daylight Simulation Visuals
Figure 4: Daylight simulation results illustrating natural light distribution across classroom interiors, demonstrating adequate illumination levels throughout the day without the need for artificial lighting.
Form That Moves Air
The building encourages natural airflow through a thoughtful combination of open courtyards, strategically placed windows, and permeable Jali facades. These elements work together to support passive cross-ventilation, helping to reduce indoor temperatures and maintain comfortable air movement even in the intense heat of the desert. The architecture facilitates airflow not through mechanical means, but by leveraging the building’s geometry and openness, allowing hot air to rise and escape while cooler air is drawn in at the lower levels.
Although we did not perform direct airflow modeling such as CFD, the simulation results reflected clear thermal comfort benefits that aligned with the intent of the design. These outcomes support the effectiveness of the passive ventilation strategies employed.
Figure 5 Building Architecture
This passive design logic is also visibly reflected in the building’s architectural form, as seen in “Figure 5 Building Architecture”, which showcases how the form opens to the environment while maintaining protection from solar exposure and dust.
Proof Through Passive Logic
The Rani Ratnavati Girls’ School proves that we don’t always need complex systems to solve complex problems. Sometimes, the answers lie in deeply understanding the climate, listening to tradition, and letting architecture lead the way. Using IES VE, we didn’t just validate performance, we told the story of a building that works in harmony with its surroundings.
This project reminded me that sustainable design doesn’t have to be futuristic, it can be timeless, local, and elegantly simple.
