Kerala: Budget homes win UN acclaim

Kollam: A group of students of TKM College of Engineering students who designed low-cost houses have got an invitation to the United Nations headquarters in New York. They will attend the UN Academic Impact (UNAI) discussions as part of its START (Skills and Technology Achieving Rapid Transformation) series on Tuesday. They have designed a 400-sq ft two-bed house for just Rs 4 lakh under  ‘Edam’, the Kundara constituency development scheme of fisheries minister J. Mercykutty Amma.

It selected the students to implement affordable housing for the homeless. “To develop a low-cost design, we approached Nirmithi Kendra as they are pioneers in the field," its coordinator Asif Ayoob told DC.  "We redesigned their funicular shell roofing technology to support maximum load under given specifications and also keeping the cost low." They sourced clay interlock bricks locally, providing jobs to the local community by making them part of the construction.  They avoided mortar to fix these bricks. Each room has six  90x90cm funicular shells resting on beams and walls. 

The funicular shells require fewer steel reinforcements compared to the conventional roof slabs by optimally utilising steel and cement to provide ample flexibility in design.  The precast shells and beams can be placed in order, and the roofing completed within two working days.  It only took just nine days to build a single bedroom house till the lintel spending nearly Rs 3 lakh and abiding by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The college's civil engineering department provides the technical assistance, guided by Prof Mohamed Asim and Prof Althaf Mohamed. Other team members are Binnu Jacob Eapen, Akshay Sunil, P.A. Harikrishnan and Akbar Basheer.