 And beyond
reach…
Now, if every Indian is to be provided a roof above her head, roughly how many houses need
to be built? Well, the Planning Commission estimates that India needs about 77 million
houses in urban areas and 63 million in rural areas by 2021.
But the cost of building a modern house is phenomenal. What are the basic components of a
structure? Cement, steel and bricks. Let's take cement, for instance. Production of cement
requires huge investments-that include mining, power generation and rail transport. Also,
cement is an extremely energy-intensive product to make and use, and its raw materials,
like limestone and chalk, are not always easily available. Result: the price of cement,
along with most other building materials, is constantly on the rise.
So even though the government has initiated many housing schemes, they ultimately benefit
the middle class, and always remain out of reach of the poor.
This is not all. Modern homes are also huge energy guzzlers. More than 30 years ago, Lewis
Mumford, an architectural critic, had said that the modern architect had produced 'the
most flagrantly uneconomic and uncomfortable buildings' that can be made inhabitable only
with the aid of the most expensive devices of heating and refrigeration. In fact, today,
the total heating and cooling bills for an average household in
United States amounts to 56 per cent of the total household expenditure.
So the poor remains 'unhoused'
And housing remains a huge problem. Is there a solution? Yes, but the high-rises may not
be the right one. You see, apart from the rich and the middle-class, if the poor also are
to afford a home, two basic things have to be taken care of:
 The building materials must be cheap,
readily available, and easy to use; and
The design must cater to the local
climate, in order to cut down energy costs of heating or cooling-as far as possible.
 So now you know why I said multi-storied aparment blocks
cannot solve the problem! But no reason to despair. The answer can be found in the
traditional homes that can still be found in every nook and cranny of this planet. Each
region has a traditional architecture that has preserved the old logic of building. These
houses are repositories of experience, wisdom and cleverness accumulated over generations.
They are packed with tried and tested scientific methods of building. Hard to believe?
Check them out…
|
