Low-Cost Digital Twins for Rural Built Environment

Rural interiors often rely on solid fuels and habit-based ventilation rather than on measured needs. Under such conditions, carbon dioxide and fine particulates rise to levels that burden health and cognition. This chapter develops a frugal digital-twin methodology for villages, connecting an open-data GIS-to-BIM geometric backbone, or an AI method where data are absent, with a calibrated mesh of low-cost indoor sensors and a feedback layer that converts readings into timed natural-ventilation purges, which are gated against outdoor pollution episodes. The approach begins as a digital shadow and prays toward two-way control when budgets and governance permit. It is anchored in accepted guidance for indoor environmental quality and positions biophilic additions as complements to ventilation rather than substitutes unless integrated into active botanical filters.