International Journal of Engineering Applied Sciences and Technology, 2021 Vol. 5, Issue 12, ISSN No. 2455-2143, Pages 280-290 Published Online April 2021 in IJEAST (http://www.ijeast.com) 280 ROLE OF PASSIVE TECHNIQUES TOWARDS ACHIEVING ENERGY- EFFICIENCY IN HIGH DENSITY DEVELOPMENTS -A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN STAND-ALONE HOMES AND MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL DWELLINGS Anup Naik Mamatha P. Raj Department of Architecture Department of Architecture BMS College of Architecture, Bangalore, India BMS College of Architecture, Bangalore, India I. INTRODUCTION Almost 55% of the world population (i.e., 4.2 billion people) resides in cities, with the percentage estimated to increase to 70% by 2050. According to the handbook of urban statistics, India is urbanizing rapidly with a growth of 2.76% in urban population (377.1 million inhabitants) from 2001 to 2011. The latest number of inhabitants residing in Indian cities has risen to 34.47% of its total population as per a report made in 2019 by world bank. The Indian urban population has seen a constant growth of 2.5% per annum, at an average, since the late 90’s. More than half of the total population will reside in urban regions of India by 2050. In this scenario of urban development in India the land available for construction is reducing rapidly, bringing multiple issues to light, both at, macro and micro level. The need to accommodate increasing population in limited urban space builds tremendous pressure on the natural resources – majorly on the availability of land. With increasing population, development and construction the natural ground coverage is reducing rapidly. This in return affects two phenomenon – the ecological system of the region and heat island effect. This further leads to increasing environmental temperatures, and hence adverse effects of climate change, due to immoderate reflection of sunrays from artificial and man-made surfaces. These increasing temperatures not only are responsible for bigger environmental issues but also effect the indoor ambience and human comfort in a built space. Along with increasing temperatures and inappropriate design of a space additional energy is consumed to maintain internal environment of a closed space. Construction industry in India consumes, approximately, 30% of the total energy with residential buildings alone accounting for 70% of it. The energy consumed can be segregated further into three parts, first for construction of the space, second for maintenance of the space and third for destruction of the space. This consumption of energy further leads to emission of harmful gasses leading to climate change thus forming a vicious cycle of climate change due to excessive energy consumption and increased energy consumption to combat impacts of climate change. Heat Island effect caused due to reducing natural ground cover and increased built structures is a major cause of changing climate and needs a sensitive approach in order to reduce its adverse impact on the environment. Development is inevitable, thus this issue of reducing natural ground and increasing temperatures should be dealt with a sensitive perspective to achieve sustainability. This paper looks at a comparative analysis of two case studies – one with higher natural ground cover (or higher built to unbuilt ratio) and other with a larger built footprint (or lower built to unbuilt ratio) – in order to understand the innovation in design as well as technology to achieve sustainability in either of the