STUDY AND DESIGN OF LOW COST MASONRY HOUSING SYSTEMS

Abstract

Housing is one of the most important need of the mankind. There is a large gap between the demand and availability of houses and the backlog is steadily increasing. Hence it is necessary to develop a low cost housing system by a careful study of existing standards of space, amenities, planning, structural design, specification and suitably pruning them keeping the demographic and economic condi-tions of country in view. in the present dissertation, an intensive study of litera-ture has been carried out in this field to develop a low cost housing system. Various housing systems developed by different agencies involved in this activity have been studied. Comparative study of the various standards and specifications adopted by various agencies has also been made. A housing system has been proposed on the basis of design criteria established with the help of available: information. proposed housing scheme is such that construction work of the house can be completed in phases depending upon the eco" nomic condition of the owner and the house may be put to use after each phase. in the proposed design minimum use of scarce and costly materials such as cement, steel, etc. has been made. circulation and walls areas are reduced to the minimum and maximum facilities has been provided in Limited area. Detailed estimation of dewelling unit has been done and the cost of the unit has been compared with that of other proposed housing systems. A considerable economy has been achieved for the proposed system in com- parison to other systems.