| Abstract: |
With more than 600 million urban residents expected to live in India by 2035, its rapid urbanization puts extreme pressure on the infrastructure of these metropolitan centers, and requires resilient, energy-efficient, and sustainable building systems that can endure climatic, demographic and economic pressures. This empirical analysis of 50 smart structures and an equal number of conventional counterparts located in 10 major Indian cities spans 24 months and employs mixed-methods research design to understand different components of smart sustainable structures based on IoT-enabled structural health monitoring, AI-driven HVAC systems, self-healing bio-concrete, energy harvesting building envelopes, adaptive environmental controls. Results confirm that smart buildings have 33.8% lower lifecycle energy consumption, 36.1% lower operational carbon emissions, and almost a 69.4% better predictive maintenance effectiveness and near real-time anomaly detection (in seconds as opposed to weeks). These systems are more expensive to build and present higher embodied carbon, but achieve carbon break even in 19 months and financial ROI in 7.4 years with over a 64% reduction in repair costs, Statistical validation through ANOVA, multivariate regression, and Monte Carlo simulations shows that these results are robust, and that integrated smart technologies can significantly improve environmental as well as operational performance. The study findings as a whole support the transition towards smart adaptive infrastructure in line with India’s Smart Cities Mission and long-term goals of climate resilient development. |
