This paper presents results from the first year of monitoring the performance of a laboratory building in the new 14,000m(2) Torrent Research Centre in Ahmedabad, India. The capital and running costs of air conditioning of non-domestic buildings in northern India are very substantial, while building costs (compared with northern Europe) are low. A cooling technique which maximises reliance on the building fabric and minimises reliance on mechanical equipment is therefore likely to be cost effective. Passive Downdraught Evaporative Cooling (PDEC) represents such a technique. At the Torrent Pharmaceuticals Research Centre in Ahmedabad, PDEC is used to service a number of laboratories and offices within the complex. A central open concourse on three levels allows evaporatively cooled air to be introduced to laboratories and offices at each level and exhausted via perimeter stacks. In the first completed laboratory building the PDEC system has now been working for 12 months. Results fi om the first summer indicate that internal temperatures are 10-15 degrees C below the peak external air temperature. good air movement is being achieved, and no complaints of discomfort have been received from the staff. The paper describes and illustrates the key features of the building and reports on monitoring undertaken during April December 1997.