Development Alternatives has brought out an Instruction Manual for Appropriate Building Systems in co-operation with Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council, New Delhi. The publication has received favourable review from professional architects, engineers and planners. It is priced at Rs. 150/- only. We publish extracts from the Manual for wider dissemination.
1. Introduction
Improving the quality of
habitat has been the concern of an increasing number of building
professionals. A lot of work has been done in the last 40 years to introduce
modern building technologies in our small towns and rural areas. Most of
these efforts have been derived from methods and systems of building that have
been developed in industrialised economies which have limited relevance to
house construction in our country. Most houses are
The building of houses in most parts of India is a process that is thus very different from the organised construction industry in cities. It is clearly evident that a new approach and training of a special cadre of people is required to translate the benefits of engineering sciences into better houses for the majority of our people. Industrial system of production critically depends upon large-scale concentrations in centres like cities to reduce their substantial overhead costs. This makes it difficult for them to be successful over wide regions not linked to urban centres without centralised distribution mechanisms. Their products need to be purchased with cash - a limited resources in most villages. it is clearly evident that the profits of production are also channelised through centralised means into a few pockets. Looking at a people’s way of building presents its own limitations. Most artisans have been trained from generation to generation in traditional techniques. Since they have neither had the access to modern tools of production nor formal scientific training and education, their use of industrial technologies are craft based. The resulting buildings are often of low quality and often of low quality and durability and often consume a great deal more on resource cost such as in over reinforcement of beams and slabs. The artisans have lost traditional skills previously possessed by them. As a result, the building trade is poorer all around. Hence a large number of people and organisations have been trying to look for methods of helping propel in improving their habitat through promotion of alternative building materials and technology. The concept of ‘Building Centres’ has been widely propagated regionally in order to address this situation directly through:
At Development Alternatives The ‘Shelter Group’ of Development Alternatives has been building for the past eight years with alternative building methods largely based on earth construction techniques. The systems have mainly used compressed soil blocks as the walling material with different roofs. The experience gained by the Group in its building projects have been disseminated to artisans and building professionals through many training programmes specially tailored to provided hands-on experience. As an extension of the dissemination efforts of the group a reference document for these techniques in the form of an ‘Instruction Manual’ has been prepared by the group. What is an ‘Appropriate‘ Building System
The Use of Local Materials Means
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||