E-Paper
Green House Effect
Actor Abhay Deol is building an energy-efficient eco-friendly home in Goa.
Abhay Deol has decided to go green. The actor is building an eco-friendly home in Goa, which will be energy-efficient and will leave a low carbon footprint. As the ambassador of Al Gore’s climate project, this move is in line with the actor’s commitment towards protecting the environment.
The bungalow will be built over an acre of a piece of land, situated by the side of a mountain in North Goa. “Abhay is an environmentally conscious person, and he wants his home to have eco-friendly features such as solar panels, rainwater harvesting, and a waste management system. We are using soft solar cells that will be stitched on the curtains of large windows to tap solar energy”, says architect Muninder Chowdhary, who has designed the bungalow along with his wife, Vishaka Chowdhary, also an architect and Abhay’s childhood friend. A four-bedroom home with an open kitchen and a 22-seater private theatre, the home will reflect Abhay’s perspective on a sustainable design conforming to Leadership in Energy and Enviromental Design (LEED) standards, the international standard of design for eco-friendly properties.
While this may be seen as a novel move by a Bollywood actor, top actors in Hollywood already boast of green homes. In 2005, Johnny Depp converted his 35-acre Bahamas home to a solar-hydrogen powered entity. Cate Blanchett spent as much as 1.5 million AUD in 2007 to give a green makeover to her mansion in Sydney. Not only this, the actor and her husband Andrewn Upton have also solar-powered the Sydney Theater building, thus helping produce 70 per cent of the total energy requirements. Brad Pitt has been a big ambassador for environmentally sustainable habitats, especially in New Orleans. Other celebs living a green life include Alicia Silverstone, Edward Norton and Cameron Diaz. Besides living in eco-friendly mansions, these stars also flaunt non-polluting green cars. Hollywood biggies like George Clooney, Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio are often seen in their electric cars in Los Angeles.
