Skip to main content

Mass Production for Mass Housing

For everyone, their home is their palace, and they are the kings and queens of their own little palaces. But if we start making palaces for everyone, we will only be building castles in the air. The urgent need of the hour is to build more houses, with fewer resources, in the quickest time, for the many seeking a pucca house.

We will need to create a paradigm shift in the way we design, engineer and construct social housing in India. If we continue to construct our houses and apartment buildings like we have being doing since the past three decades, it will be impossible to reach our intended target anytime in the foreseeable future.

There can be much learned product design and manufacture, including car manufacture. Some of the key aspects that can be directly transferred to house construction are:
  • Modularity: Modularity is a design approach that sub-divides a system into smaller components that can be replicated, scaled, and used in groups or independently. Modularity helps in reducing costs and has been extensively in car manufacture, computer manufacture, etc. Even in the furniture industry, the concept of modularity has been widely accepted as modular office furniture and modular kitchens.
  • Standardization: Modularity can be truly successful only through standardization. Standardization implements uniform technical standards and norms across the industry. This assures, uniformity, quality and ease of repetition.
  • Mass production: Mass production is the process of manufacturing large quantities of standardized products. This frequently utilizes assembly line technology. Mass production is the process of creating large numbers of similar products efficiently. With pre-cast/ pre-fab technology mass production in the construction industry has become a reality.

The concept of “Design for Manufacture Assembly (DFMA)” is gaining popularity in the design and construction industry internationally. The idea combines the two design approaches – “Design for Manufacture” and “Design for Assembly”. The idea is to treat the building as a “kit-of-parts” to be manufactured and assembled on site. It requires a paradigm shift in the way architects and engineers design buildings.

Though pre-cast technology exists, its applicability is immensely limited. Only when mass production is combined with modularity and standardization can pre-cast/ pre-fab have an industry-wide applicability and use, and be truly effective. Mass production has been highly successful in the car manufacturing industry and computer industry because of modularity and standardization.

Another argument against mass production of houses is the lack of uniqueness in buildings and monotony of urban landscape. But, don’t we all own cars that are mass produced and standardized to a great extent? Do we ever complain? Of course, different car manufacturers and different models look different from each other, but we have thousands of each brand and each model on the roads. There is modularity, standardization and mass production behind it.

I will talk about this a bit more in my next blog.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Architecture for the Poor - Hassan Fathy

Hassan Fathy was a remarkable man: artist, antiquarian and social reformer to the world's poor. He was slightly built and enveloped by an air of virtuousness, projecting the intellectual vigour, tranquillity and inner calm reserved for the elect. These qualities, accompanied by a twinkle in his eye and a willingness to listen, made him a favourite of students, who responded to him with warmth and humour, and vied for his attention. Fathy's architectural and social ideas were based at first upon his colonial education, and only later moulded by a deep knowledge of his country's long history and in particular its architecture, which had often been controlled by mathematics and mystical geometries. Six general principles guided him throughout his career: the primacy of human values in architecture; the importance of a universal approach; the use of appropriate technology; the need for socially oriented, co-operative construction techniques; the essential role of tradition; and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Delhi BRT Debate

This is a very interesting debate about the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) System in Delhi. The BRT was launched in Delhi in 2008, and has been surrounded with controversies and hurdles right from the beginning - from accidents to inefficient use of the limited road space. In fact, BRT has been implemented in various cities around the world, and has many variations in the way it is implemented, with varying degrees of success (and failure). There is no single BRT formula that can be applied to all cities. And especially, looking at the unique traffic conditions of India, an equally unique BRT System will have to be thought out, along with an effective traffic management system. One thing definitely comes to light is that in a fast developing India, though there is a need to have a strong and effective public transport system, the needs of the private vehicles cannot be ignored totally. Also, I strongly believe that the issue of traffic and transportation should not (and cannot) be addr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Layermag

This is one of the few web-sites dedicated to South Asian architecture and architects. Though in it's nascent stages of development, I think it holds the potential to be the spearhead of an oncoming change. Web-sites and resources like these are quite necessary and useful to make people aware about contemporary and future movements in the South Asian region. "LAYER finds its roots in diversity. It was born out of a common desire to launch a platform for interaction, exposure and participation of South Asian designers, at all stages to experience and share their ideologies, which will help evolve the present status quo. LAYER indulges in all aspects of design and art. The nature of exhibitions, curational strategies and publications, demands new interrogation and reconsideration. This is fueled by the fact that in recent years, worlds of art, architecture and design have outgrown their modes of representation and production, and have started to cannibalize neighboring discip...
Post a Comment
Read more