It’s the time to Manufacture a house, not Build [Jan 2012]

Building a house is passé, now it’s time to manufacture them! Realising the staggering housing shortfall across the country, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has launched a revolutionary concrete panel based mass housing concept known as ‘India Concept House (ICH)’ in partnership with Sam Circle Venture and its partners, KieranTimberlake and ProjectWell.
India concept house is conceived as both a dwelling for inhabitation and as a process by which homes are produced through a managed supply chain. It is designed as 23, 46, 70 and 93 sm increments, its modular component system facilitating expansion from one room to four rooms. The price will range from Rs.900 to Rs.1200 per sq. ft.
In a country that has a staggering housing shortfall of nearly 27 million homes and inherent project execution challenges including shortages in skilled manpower, the current execution capacity based on traditional brick and mortar construction is hugely limited. Housing as an industry is still handcrafted and heavily depended on manual labour and on site construction, which lead to large amount of material wastage and labour inefficiency, leaving aside the quality and thermal comfort level.
ICH has been developed with the objective of bringing standardisation, principal of supply chain and assembly line production to construct houses. Taking inspiration from automobile industry, which was also handcrafted till Ford introduced Model T in 1908 to bring assembly line production, Amber Malhotra Managing Principal of Sam Circle Venture said, “Affordable housing in India need a similar approach of component based off site production with supply chain linkages to the material suppliers and backward linkages to create skill manpower. This will help houses to be manufactured rather than built”.
The India Concept House demonstrates not only construction of affordable housing out of pre-fabricated technology but creating an eco-system of manufacturing and assembling solid and quick to build affordable housing to common people.
On this occasion, RV Verma, CMD, National Housing Bank, comments, “My personal belief is that this will see great success in Tier II and Tier III cities of India where there is more flexibility and availability of land. The role of technology in creating innovative products such as India Concept House has the potential to commoditise the housing sector in India today and I see industry bodies and other stakeholders needing to play a big role in driving both acceptability and adoption of the India Concept House in the immediate future.”
Sachin Sandhir, Managing Director, RICS South Asia said, “ICH has been developed by Sam Circle Ventures, Kieran Timberlake and Project Well, and RICS is collaborating by playing a key role in educating key stake holders, and creating a paradigm shift in how we think of houses, and this is an attempt to not only design a house, but to create an entire eco system, by which a new industry category will get created, consisting of manufacturing units, assemblers and after sales support. This will require new skill sets, and conversion of un-skilled construction workers to acquire new skill sets, thereby creating an opportunity to build capacity in the building industry, which is an area RICS is committed to.”
Key features of India Concept HousePanelised building components: Based on a modular component system which relies on precast concrete technology to provide solid, durable, prefinished panels for painting or tiling and if desired, eliminates finishing entirely
Quick to build: May reduce onsite construction time by 90 per cent. Its modular construction system enables a 23 sm home to be built in 4 weeks and a 93 sm may be built in 6 weeks. The components are dimensioned to be easily transportable eliminating the need for material handling equipment
Sustainable and self sufficient: Designed to reduce energy usage by 50 per cent through passive active and strategies. It achieves thermal comfort across seasons. To address water scarcity, ICH provides a means of harvesting and recycling water to ensure potable water 24 hours a day
Efficient to deliver: Delivery process will include a number of providers namely the management company, panel manufacturer, supply chain, the assembler, customer support and information technology service providers
Easy Expandable: Houses constructed using the India Concept House are designed to be expandable as the family grows.  This is keeping in mind cultural aspects prevailing in India that have people start by building small houses that gradually expand as the size of their family and/or income levels grow.
James Timberlake, the design partner for the ICH, defines its potential broadly, “While this was designed within the Indian context, and responds to India’s unique culture, we think it forms the basis for a model that can be applied to a variety of cultures worldwide.”
ICH is now poised to be prototyped and assessed in the Indian context. Construction of a prototype is anticipated in 2012 in order to evaluate manufacturing, delivery and construction, and to measure the house’s thermal comfort, energy and water consumption. ICH would be putting manufacturing units and trained assemblers in various tier 2, tier 3 and tier 4 towns in India with the help of various government agencies and private sector players. A viable operations framework is being established in consultation with knowledge partners, thought leaders and policy makers.
RICS has received encouraging response from the government, housing regulators, industry bodies and industry all of whom are working on various initiatives in this area. It believes that ICH will help create an ecosystem that helps address the critical issue of providing housing at an affordable cost to an ever increasing urban population.
 

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