Showing posts with label Housing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Housing. Show all posts

Feb 18, 2023

Why it's high time to revisit architectural tradition, architectural wisdom and architecture education?

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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When kitchen's purpose, ideal design and it's appropriate space in a house was being concluded century ago or so, then architects actually had no vision of app based food delivery, home based chef, role of kitchen/kitchen products in remote elementary education, working women, gender equality in kitchen, work from home concept, how important kitchen waste reduction and management is and so on; when this matter is being discussed today, we hardly have any realistic idea how robots are going to take over kitchen in near-distant future, how 3D printed food may altar food production/ preferences, how IIOT/ IOT may impact farm-to-plate food supply chain, whether community/ township level bespoke food/ pizza vending machine may even render private kitchen obsolete.

When architects were convinced that there is basic necessity of having lobby, lounge, drawing room and dining room/area as essential elements of a reasonable house, they had no vision that majority of family individuals in future will spend most of their non-working hours/ personal work hours/ recreation hours/ study hours within two to ten feet range from their TV set and/or desktop/ study table/ gaming console; they didn't envisage that "Activity" and "lifestyle" (scrolling phone, tab, working/ entertaining on laptop, yoga mat time - all virtually devoid of space anchorage) will be paramount compared to need of "Formal Space" (drawing room etc.); they had no idea that family members will be doing part of talking/ communication / information exchange virtually (as a routine) even when present under one roof, getting rid of dining table discussion; they missed visualising that in future due to almost autonomous lifestyle of individual family members of a household it will be almost impossible to bring every family member to dining table, that too at same time and also not realising that with plethora of audio-visual choices and modes available, the empowered individuals in a family will lack the time, motivation and patience to gather in front of TV to watch a common channel, defying purpose of drawing room.

And likewise.

Come today- dining room mutating into study room, drawing room reinvented as gym and so on, calls for urgent need of revisiting the inherited architectural values and reinventing ideology of functional space.

Author: Anoop Jha

#architecture #architect #urbanplanning #townplanning #space #interiordesign #decor #studio #design #art #habitat #housing #hfa #housingforall #smartcity #city #bhk #realestate #township #data #future #futurearchitecture #history #lounge #home

Feb 21, 2015

Scaling of opportunities, a bigger challenge than scaling up urban infrastructure!


Tackling immediate soft urban challenges through resource prioritization!

Infrastructure expansion is where the money and interest is and is a never ending process as well, so it will keep scaling up in background anyway and will be taken care of diligently, with or without much intervention. Public sector has more of a catalytic and mentoring role to play in that direction. Skill is what we need to focus on today.

Like they say “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to catch a fish and he will eat for his lifetime”.  Scaled opportunity is what an urban dweller needs irrespective of which Socio-economic strata they belong. More opportunity to masses means more involvement in the urban dynamics, and hence being more engaged in the process of building the very city which provided the new scale and dimensions of opportunities. Scaling of opportunity are less resource intensive and has higher ROR than scaling or urban infrastructure and might be more sustainable an approach!

Further scientific modelling and analysis will be required to validate and assert the idea.  

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Sep 10, 2013

City’s problem isn't congestion; problem is the way we approach to solve the congestion!

Majority of city's problems can be solved by simply restructuring policies, but physical infrastructure is more lucrative an option for many.

You can pump millions of dollars in augmenting and upgrading city infrastructure, of course you should, but city in its functionality will still remain a mess and increasingly convoluted unless you pause and think that what has been wrong with our planning approach, why it is that our planning solutions always seem to lag far behind the pace of growth, is it revenue constraints? No! Is it land constraint? No! It is nothing but common sense deficit. It’s simple, if it doesn’t work go back to the drawing board, put you approach up-side-down or whatever, something different need to be introduced; at least as an experiment.

Our conventional planning approach borrowed from industrial age has remained more or less the same since decades, that is to put it crudely "Planning means addition", more people - let’s make more housing, more congestion - let’s make more flyovers, more heat let’s put more air conditioners and so on.

Buildinganother affordable housing is not a problem but it’s also not the solution. Building another flyover will of course ease the traffic for sometime but it is also not the solution which cities are looking for. The single largest criteria of a livable city can be effortlessness of any city, but effort seems to be the mandate of our city life. 

Have we ever considered why such sheer number of people are heading to metropolis in the first place apart from recreational purposes, it’s not because metropolis provide better employment opportunities, it’s because we simply fail to provide livelihood opportunity in small towns and villages. Can we suggest something to calm down this vary pace of regional population flux, instead of simply focusing on making another housing colony here in every metropolis, can we propose something which will help people earn their livelihood in the place of their choice not only in the place where they often come to struggle and survive.

Have we ever considered before making another flyover that why so many people and car out there on the roads in the first place, is it really necessary in this so called wired era for every single individual to commute to work to accomplish a job, is it that being physically present at a specified location every work weekday is of such monumental importance in a time of century were everyone claim to be virtually connected to everyone and having access to the resources of whole world on their finger tip. Considering this can we suggest something to reduce the very need or frequency of people to come to streets, people who commute to work 5-6 days a week or 24 to 40 hour a week. 

Why people have to waste a substantial portion of their productive lifetime commuting on city roads or tracks, commuting long hours to work mostly doing nothing, may be listening to music or playing video game on their tab, why to commute to work unless they work in a factory like production environment.
You see we are so caught up in the debate of public transport vs. private transit vs. walkability that no one is willing to ask this fundamental question why does every one of you have to commute almost every day for the purpose of work choking almost every street of city, why have we created such system or business environment or society in general. We simply can’t seem to think of any other possibility than expanding infrastructure trying to meet the pressure of self imposed need of commuting for work.

Whether travelling through private or public transport or walking to work, it’s still a waste of precious time, energy and resources. Can you even imaging the lost opportunity cost of millions of people spending several hours commuting to work-home-work almost every day of their productive like. After decades of industrialization is it still so important even today for 200 employees of a random organization to agglomerate everyday at a specific place called office at a specific time to accomplish some work, majority of which can be done from anywhere in the world, majority of which on majority of days does not fundamentally demand physical presence of worker or employee in office. Can’t we instead of simply expanding the city and transport network think of reducing the number and frequency of trip to work? Can’t we think of increasing the share of recreational trip and reducing the work trip instead of aggressively focusing on increasing the share of public transport?

This conventional additive approach of planning is a vicious cycle of inefficiency perceived as virtuous cycle and promoted relentlessly without delving deep into the roots of problem and without pausing and questioning the inertia of planning process. Instead of this additive approach, a supplementary approach of planning is needed for fostering and supporting equitable growth across the region, and at the same time conventional planning wisdom which is dear to many, needto be questioned!


Jul 30, 2013

Conserving inherited heritage - an urgent challenge!

Need of a micro conservation policy. 

We let our inherited ancestral heritage decay, gathering dust and slowly fading away in the oblivion, inheritance sometimes tangible like that beautiful gramophone, that antique classic chair, that vintage album of family photograph or that intricately carved wooden window of ancestral home somewhere in suburb, inheritance at times even intangible like values, culture, stories and learning, family heritage dilapidated usually due to ambiguous responsibility among siblings, lack of time, lack of alacrity and most importantly in absence of micro conservation mechanism, because we feel disoriented and helpless in absence of such mechanism, a guideline, a supportive hand saying "let me help you conserve your family heritage because we know how important it is for you, and equally important for our nation, because these little inherited objects, antiques, collectibles, vintage photographs, values, stories, prose, poetry, proverbs, lessons, and so on make the larger heritage pool of historical cultural and social importance. You can call it “crowd sourcing of heritage” which subsequently contributing to nation's image building, while maintaining a stock of inheritance. 

This micro conservation mechanism should be prepared by government because heritage even individually possessed is something of national value and something to be proud of and something which should be preserved and documented immediately for the future generation. These family heritage need not necessarily be kept in museum just because it’s of national significance, we can rather let them be with those families and individuals who inherited them, but we must make an effort to help them conserve it, governments role can be as a facilitator, trainer, protector, documenter, providing manpower and finance to restore protect and document every piece of family heritage without getting into affairs of taxation and legality, with sole focus of preservation and documentation of objects of historical importance whether for individuals or for nation, documenting design, motifs, techniques, skill set, learning, stories etc. which are going to corrode and disappear in thin air otherwise!

Mar 30, 2012

Why public transport system should reach breakeven much before projected

Dilemma of perceived order and actual chaos

A case of typical buzzing metropolitan city of any developing country

Ever wondered while travelling in a suffocatingly overcrowded metro or local train that whether they might have shown similar huge footfall numbers in their design and financial reports? Don’t think so. Because they can’t!!

No guideline in the world allows such high density of footfall per unit area within any public transport system, because that is insane, that is inhuman. But unfortunately its happening, because huge gap of demand and supply. And we accept it, we don’t mind, we don’t question, we don’t have option, we not only accept it, we often praise it, of course public transport is a wonderful system of mass transit, but no wonder why a huge segment of population still prefer to travel by their own car, spending money and time like anything, just to get a private breathing space inside their personal car.

When it comes to transport numbers and financial projections for mass public transport system in overpopulated cities of developing countries, it’s usually purposefully flawed. Why? There is a catch. Metro and rail coaches are designed to accommodate a fixed maximum carrying capacity based on standards and international norms. Sounds good!! Because these standards consider the acceptable optimum and comfortable footfall/ ridership density as there thumbrule with some inbuilt tolerance for unexpected occasional growth in ridership and of course while doing design and financial projections for the MRT projects, consultants take these standard thumbrules as there basis for calculation with some contingency/ margin and they model there business plan as per this acceptable norms. They can’t show realistic overcrowded scenario in their financial calculations and projections because no financing agency/ bank/ partner will accept the model which is prepared by breaking the rule- like standard acceptable ridership density. Technically and morally they can’t propose a transport system which will be operating at an efficiency of 150-200% of its design capacity even if it is an inevitable case, because its unsafe, because it’s not acceptable on many grounds, at least they can’t disclose it in public domain otherwise there would be too much of hue and cry on the subject.  So when they come up with a financial projection with specified breakeven point, that breakeven point might not be realistic, it might be far beyond the actual realistic date. In actual overcrowded scenario more footfalls should help achieve breakeven point much early than projected.

It’s high time for those metropolitan cities which are struggling to provide an adequate and morally acceptable comfort level to its people, either in its transit system or may be in domain of housing and who repeatedly fail to provide the same due to unmanageable population growth and financial constraints, should recognize their constraints, and devise an operational methodology which is more realistic and suitable to their specific need.



May be they should accept inevitable higher population density and need to revise the ridership density thumbrule/ standards, reflecting real life scenarios of the city accepting their limitations, and should use the same in design and financial calculation. Understanding its limitations and inevitability of growth, may be a high density city needs a tougher and much robust metro and rail coaches with robust inbuilt facilities, robust air-conditioning system, higher air exchange rate, temper-proof interior, with more sophisticated audiovisual information system for fast and safe passenger exchange to avoid chaos due to confusion, may be they need better imbedded security system, may be they need to be educated in the school itself how to travel and behave in an overcrowded public transport system. May be they need to be educated in the planning schools to take into account real life scenarios while learning projections, maybe planners should be taught to challenge the validity and contextuality of thumbrules, established norms, methods and age old theories 
rather than simply imitating and following them in decades of inertia.  We will definitely have more and more sophisticated simulation tools for better understanding of the situation and more realistic projections, but we will still need human perception and judgment for a holistic planning which is beyond those formulas.

Some thoughts on socio-economic projections can be found here in another post titled “How reliable are socio-economic future projections?” http://planningurbanoregional.blogspot.in/2011/11/how-reliable-are-socio-economic-future.html


By- Anoop Jha

Mar 19, 2012

How we assess and respond to architecture

Need of assessment without prejudice and unconditioned response.

Architecture and design is awfully judgmental and philosophical stream, its aesthetic and functional perception varies from person to person and it holds different meanings for users of different socio-economic and educational background.  For the evolution of architecture it is necessary to assess it from a radically different perspective, questioning every established values and prevalent formulas and benchmarks of good architecture.

Just getting overwhelmed by the magnificent interior of a high-end hotel lobby or much hyped restaurant interior or luxuriously decorated living room of an ultra-rich individual is not a real justice to the architecture and interior design in term of its design assessment and criticism. When someone come across to such wonderful places associated with big names, their immediate response of pleasant surprise in the moment they enter the building makes their design assessment biased with a touch of prejudice. Their analytical mind which is responsible for aesthetic and functional judgment, immediately surrenders to the mesmerizing ambiance of interior. Getting mesmerized by something amazing is a natural response of the human mind, but little more is expected from the architects  and designers in terms of their response to immediate environment, surrounding ambiance, assessment in terms of functionality and desired balance between aesthetics and  functionality. In that state of amazement they tend to forget the actual purpose of design, and start judging it on its face value.

Lavishness and expensiveness of architectural treatment can be enough to move an average audience or user hence one should be cautious not to get deviated or mesmerized by the shear ambiance of the environment while assessing the functionality and aesthetics of the said design. One has all the right to question the validity and contextuality of design elements and functionality of design even if it is created by established and much celebrated architects and designers. Often people seem to have been caught in the articulated concepts and animated design language while assessing and experiencing architectural spaces and design elements. Their experiences are colored by the aura of authority of established and much hyped architects and designers. Experiences are more or less fabricated and predefined in most of the cases.

One feels that there should be freedom of assessment. There is a need, not only to challenge and break free of established design values but to perceive the design from a clear vision which is beyond the past experiences, which is neither opaque by any prejudice nor conditioned by any socio-economic or regional background of the observer. An assessment based on complete firsthand experience might be a better and sensible way to judge the design.




By Anoop Jha

Jan 17, 2012

Walkability demands flexibility : new approach to neighborhood planning

By - Anoop Jha


Number of available choices defines quality of urban environment and experience

“planning
Walking and jogging  trail

Image shows actual walking trail around a lagoon in some part of Santa Barbara, with different route options for people to choose from, one shorter complete loop around waterbody and other longer route which also includes dotted segment. Close view  of lagoon is an incentive to walk extra length of dotted route otherwise people can take shorter route if they are in hurry or tiered. There has be different available exit choices for people, to make any pedestrian or walkable plan successful whether its planning of park or commercial complex or mega exhibition pavilion.

[Handpicked Books]





Dec 30, 2011

Oh, those few awkward moments in an elevator!!

By – Anoop Jha

Built architecture also demands user interaction, engagement, privacy.


“User
Need for user engagement 
You must have frequently faced those few awkward moments while running up and down in an elevator in a multistory office or apartment building which makes a hundred meter vertical race of few seconds look like never-ending marathon. There are innumerous possible scenarios which make you feel awkward and uncomfortable in an elevator, like standing next to your boss in an elevator after missing a crucial deadline today, close encounter with some colleague whom you don’t appreciate much because of many reasons, travelling with someone you just had argument with on some issue, thought of someone monitoring your every move through elevator camera making you conscious of your dress, your gesture and your conversation, if that’s not enough, what about a familiar security guard in the elevator who keeps track of your movement inside out of building and gaze you with vigilant eyes every time you ride the elevator, may be a crowded silence of office elevator can scare you a little in rush-hour of the day if you are a claustrophobic fellow or may be a vacant apartment elevator with flickering tube light and grungy noise of faulty machine at late hours of night reminding of the horror movie you saw last Friday  with your friends would possibly scare you to death if you are little weak at heart.







Those old school theories of elevator speech and elevator story preached by every business mentor also doesn’t seem to take away that awkwardness of elevator ride because such conversations seems so fake and plastic, because everyone knows the trick of trade now and hidden intention of those momentary utilitarian ice breaker speeches and it also becomes annoying for those uninterested or unintended fellows around. 

A user environment demands useful interactions, purposeful engagement and privacy of spatial and virtual domain in addition to convenience and safety. Musical intervention, audio visual inputs in architectural or urban environment, interactive surfaces, sculptures and landscape elements are some of the tools to provide such user experience and we need to explore more in this direction. It’s high time that architects, user interface designers, mechanical engineers, sound and light engineers, psychologists,  behavioral experts and other interested  individuals and groups should come and work together to provide a complete architectural experience to user whether inside elevator or across the span of architectural features spaces.




Nov 17, 2011

Perception of space – a function (f) of Space

Regional and Locational shift in Perception of space

“understanding
Space function and origin
Perception of space in terms of physical location of observer plays a crucial part in understanding planning of urban built form and is a vital part of Urban Planning, but the roots of such perception emerges from regional level. It is also related to conditioning, space perceived by residents of mountainous, hilly and undulating terrain are totally different from space perceived by person living in  flat terrain. Similarly space recognized by a person who spent most of his life in sprawling rural setting  can be totally different than a person living in an urban setting, It can be either” a not so pleasant shock” or “a surprise” or “an aspiration” for an individual while changing their location from hills to plain or rural to urban or vice versa. Usually what happens is that people constantly living in mountainous and hilly terrain witness only finite view due to restrained field of view by mountains,  hills and valleys, and when they occasionally come to plain and see that there is no limitation on the field of view, when they realize that they can see upto the horizon, it’s a pleasant shock to them.

Similarly when a resident of sprawling plain terrain goes for a vacation to some hill station or otherwise, they find it as a one of the finest moments of their life, primarily because of limited and ever changing field of view provided by hilly city,  they have a totally different experience of space that is finite which they have never experienced in life living in plains. Similarly a person living in a rural setting with sprawling, sparse and low-rise settlement when encounter with a city with medium to high-rise and dense built form and architecture, its not the rush of city that strikes him most, it’s the “Built Form” that strikes him dumb, he curiously looks out of the window of train and bus and cab, to see the buildings touching the sky, public spaces formed and enclosed by surrounding buildings. Suddenly he finds himself enclosed and restrained in the built form of the city which provides finite field of view with claustrophobic environment which is a paradigm shift in perception from the earlier experienced freedom of unlimited perceived space of rural setting. 

Nov 15, 2011

Contemporary Architecture of India in flux


An observation on architectural character, practice, reason of flux, and control instruments     

There used to be a defined boundary of what is called “Contemporary Architecture” in every era since past few centuries, but the boundary of contemporary architecture at present, in the middle of first quarter of 21st century, has become a multi-domain experience with organic boundaries of different school of thoughts melting into each other. Earlier there used to be some set of rules and inspiration, material and climatic constraint, to govern and guide the aesthetic elements of localised architecture which in turn used to give defined architectural and urban design character to neighborhoods and city, but apparently we are losing that cohesiveness in contemporary urban fabric because there is no virtual or enforced control over the aesthetics of architecture at present In the developing countries like India, which is tissue of urban fabric. That does not imply that we want another Chandigarh, its for sure, we don’t want another Chandigarh by Le Cob., that is an old story, needs and lifestyle of people have changed, so the architecture and planning.

There are guidelines for the construction and execution but no rules or guidelines for architectural aesthetics, and its solely on the mercy and idiosyncrasy of either Clients who have their own idea of what contemporary architecture should be (i.e. they want their house to be either like the house of “Mr. X”, or more lavish and grand than “Mr. Y”, or exactly like the house featured in that architectural magazine “Z”) or it depends on majority of young architects for which its more about pressed necessity of earning bread & butter rather than using and  implementing the hard earned architectural knowledge , most of which are either victim of commercialization, crippled and forced to follow the market trends (which in fact doesn’t have any architectural  trend except copying from other contemporary developments or from history or from google image search results).  

If you inspect deeply you will realize that this apparent chaos of architectural design and aesthetics is actually nobody’s fault , at least not of any individual  because it was bound to happen and its all because of  technological advancement, which makes information and tools abundant. Architects as well as clients are immensely exposed to influences from all across the world due to free and unlimited information, architects  were never so free to  experiment with design and form of buildings due to computer modeling and simulation as well as unlimited possibility that structural design provides at present due to advance technology, equipments, material etc. There is no constraint of material, you have all the construction material at your disposal in any  part of the country, there is no architectural constraint of climate, because architecture has increasingly become active rather than passive,  you have all the equipments to control and maintain the indoor climate. But amidst all this, if the architecture and city planning need design guidelines, development control regulation, urban design guidelines or a separate nodal governing authority to maintain the aesthetic and cohesiveness of city, so be it.

Nov 11, 2011

Ever - Shrinking Living space in Urban Area

By- Anoop Jha


Pigeonhole like housing clusters


Constant influx of population to urban areas leads to shortage of living space in city, and developers and governments are trying to find the ways to accommodate this ever-growing population into already populated city, they collectively come up with some economic housing solution with ever-shrinking living footprint and decreasing level of lifestyle, which almost resemble pigeonholes (dovecote).

Nov 8, 2011

Urban Infrastructure : Investment Vs Operations and Maintenance (O&M)

Investment Vs O&M
Urban Infrastructure Cost


Per Capita Investment Cost by Sector
(Rs at 2009-10 prices)
Source:  Report on Indian  Urban Infrastructure and Services 

Per Capita Operations and Maintenance Cost (annual) by Sector

Source:  Report on Indian  Urban Infrastructure and Services 


Urban Infrastructure Investment Requirement (2012-31)
(Rs crore)
                            
Source:  Report on Indian  Urban Infrastructure and Services 

Operations and Maintenance Expenditure by Sector (2012-31)

Source:  Report on Indian  Urban Infrastructure and Services 

Pattern of per Capita investment in different urban infrastructure sectors and O&M cost are somewhat different from each other, while Urban Roads demands more capital investment , Water Supply, Sewage, SWM, Urban Road & Transport require more O&M investment. 

"Water utilities in India are typically able to recover only 30-35 per cent of the operations and maintenance (O&M) cost.Even with current levels of highly inadequate service, solid waste management accounts for 25-50 per cent of a ULB’s expenditure (World Bank 2006), but cities recover less than 50 per cent of the O&M cost, according to a study by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. ULBs will be required to invest 54 per cent on capital investment and close to 25 per cent on the O&M of physical assets by 2021-22. In practice, user charges cover less than 50 per cent of the O&M cost of basic infrastructure services in India, on an average"

Source:  Report on Indian  Urban Infrastructure and Services 

Oct 18, 2011

Future Cities: Which City form would prove to be most sustainable?

Acknowledging the need of Flexible Norms and Innovation Support for short-to-medium term housing needs of Urban Poor and Underprivileged segment

By

Cities and towns of India are living in a perpetual dilemma of “need to provide decent housing to urban poor as per standard norms” Vs “apparent inability to provide even a minimum standard living in growing squatter settlements or slums”. This phenomenon seems inevitable and city authorities seem to be helpless in dealing with this issue, blaming to financial resource constraints, unless they understand the need to review the standard housing norm and make it more flexible to find out whether there is any intermediate solution to fill the gap of this vast disparity even between poor (Lower / lowest Income Group) and poor (Slum dweller, beggars etc.). 


[Handpicked Books]


There is an urgent need to discuss definition of what we call “Standard” in terms of housing or dwelling needs, and the significance and validity of this “standard norms” if we have always failed to provide even a minimum need of safe and respectable shelter to a major segment of urban poor living in slum. We are caught in the illusion of utopia that we will fulfill the housing needs of all as per standards fixed by governments and planners, and fail to see and admit that the fact that under such acute resource constraint, and ever-growing influx of population from rural to urban areas, poor people are finding their own ways to fulfill their housing needs, constructing houses out of junk materials- tin, plastic sheets, cardboards, thermocol, any object or material they find rejected by the city, living in an unsafe and unhygienic conditions. Do planners feel responsible to them, at all? There are buzz words “Slum Networking” “integrated slum” etc., but those are for streamlining existing slums and squatter settlements, what about the slum being built today, what about tomorrow?

City administration will have to increasingly play a role of facilitator and inventor rather than just provider to fulfill short to medium term housing needs, they have the resources and skill sets, thsy have the talented architect and planners and financial brains, to provide a better shelter; they can help and facilitate those poorest of poor people to build their own home with those same materials which is considered junk, providing much decent homes which are structurally sound, planned with proper infrastructure. Some R&D is urgently needed on the similar line of thought.


Following is the abstract from pib.nic.in - (along with comments)

"There are various reasons for creation of slums of which the most important are as follows
(i)    Increased urbanization leading to pressure on the available land and infrastructure, especially for the poor.
(ii) Natural increase in the population of urban poor and migration from rural areas and small towns to larger 
     cities. 
(iii) Inappropriate system of urban planning which does not provide adequate space for the urban poor in the       City Master Plans. (This is what planners and policy makers need to acknowledge. City Master planning has to be an inclusive process, and adequate provisions have to be made for urban poor for a sustainable city plan)
(iv) Sky-rocketing land prices due to increasing demand for land and constraints on supply of land.
(v) Absence of programmes of affordable housing for the urban poor in most States. (The definition of affordable housing itself has to be changed..innovative construction techniques, new materials, check on wastage of material during construction, mass production, low cost housing techniques are some of the key ingredients which might change the definition and cost of affordable housing)
(vi)  Lack of availability of credit for low income housing. (Finance has to be generated partially from Government & Aid and rest from the financial resources mobilised from the community itself, no matter how poor is the individual or a family, collectively a poor community can mobilise a considerable amount of resources in terms of finance and labor)
(vii)  Increasing cost of construction."  (This is where innovation comes into picture, housing with innovative use and reuse of materials, pool of bright talented architects and planners should come forward with innovative ideas for the same, in the guidance of Govt.)


Anoop Jha is an Architect Planner with specialization in Urban and Regional Planning