Mela Ram Sharma was an Indian architect and building scientist whose career focused on climate-responsive design research. He studied within the Architectural Association’s Department of Development and Tropical Studies from 1967–68, undertaking the General Design course. Before joining the AA, Sharma was affiliated with the Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) in Roorkee, India, a national research body under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. At CBRI he co-authored the Climatological and Solar Data for India: to design buildings for thermal comfort with T. N. Seshadri and Sharafat Ali in 1968, an authoritative reference compiling meteorological and solar radiation data for architectural design. In the late 1970s Sharma expanded his work on human thermal comfort, co‑authoring with Sharafat Ali UNESCO’s A Thermal Stress Index for Warm, Humid Conditions in India (1979), which proposed an index relating environmental variables to comfort in warm‑humid conditions. This was followed by their article Tropical Summer Index study in Building and Environment (1986), which used field experiments to define the Tropical Summer Index (TSI) for hot‑dry and warm‑humid Indian climates. Subsequent reviews of indoor environmental quality and climate‑responsive architecture in India and other tropical regions have repeatedly cited Sharma and Ali’s work as foundational for understanding naturally ventilated comfort conditions and for developing passive cooling strategies. Beyond authored studies, Sharma’s expertise fed directly into national codes: he served on Bureau of Indian Standards committees framing guidance on heat insulation, school buildings and hospital design, where recommendations on building orientation and climatic design draw explicitly on the CBRI research and related Indian Standards on orientation of buildings. His professional contribution thus lay primarily in public‑sector research and standard‑setting rather than private architectural commissions, with his publications and digests guiding architects and planners toward sustainable, passive cooling strategies tailored to India’s diverse climates.
Sources:
- Architectural Association Student Register 1945–1972. AA Archives
- Seshadri, T. N., M. R. Sharma, and Sharafat Ali. Climatological and Solar Data for India: To Design Buildings for Thermal Comfort. 2nd rev. ed. Meerut: Sarita Prakashan, 1968.
- Sharma, Mela Ram, and Sharafat Ali. A Thermal Stress Index for Warm, Humid Conditions in India. Educational Building Report 14. Bangkok: UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Asia and Oceania, 1979.
- Sharma, M. R., and Sharafat Ali. “Tropical Summer Index—A Study of Thermal Comfort of Indian Subjects.” Building and Environment 21, no. 1 (1986): 11–24.
- Somvanshi, Avikal. “Murky Science of Comfort Part 2: Why We Feel Suffocated in a Building Even When It Is Pleasant Outside.” Down To Earth, June 30, 2018. Accessed July 9, 2025. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/science-technology/murky-science-of-comfort-part-2-why-we-feel-suffocated-in-a-building-even-when-it-is-pleasant-outside-60991
