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Cost
Effective Houses
MCRC has worked out many
simple structures for roof and wall making for a shelter. The material
cost is economical and adopted by many poor people. The ferro-cement
structures (concave with few meter lengths) mud vessels and other
similar materials have been used to make roofs. Machine made bricks
were also made at project sites and training programmes conducted to
propagate the technology. Likewise low-cost toilets and smokeless
chulas were designed at the Centre. Mud block technology is presently
being standardized at MCRC.
Various types of low cost
housing techniques
Various architectural
innovations have been tested and incorporated in the designs. All the
ideas generated and tested in the laboratory have been taken to the
field and utilized in large scales. Hurdi tile roofing, Gunna Hollow
tile roofing, Ferrocement tile roofing and the Filler slab roofing
were the major innovations in the roofing architecture developed and
successfully utilized in housing projects in Chennai, Tambaram,
Dindigul, Gandhigram, Pollachi and a number of villages in
Sriperumpudur Taluk. All the buildings constructed at MCRC as model
structures using various low cost housing designs are still in regular
use.
Innovations in construction
methodology and use of materials including fillers have also been
incorporated in various housing projects. The “Rat Trap Bonded” wall
could save about 50% of the construction cost of walls without
affecting the strength and load bearing capacity. In this type the
hollow space maintained in the walls acts as a sound and heat
insulator. This fact together with the continuous funnel-like hollow
spaces in the roof provide an air conditioning effect to the rooms.
Special designs and innovations in construction technologies based on
MCRC studies during the past two decades and the newly conceived and
developed steam curing of special bricks and mud blocks form the back
bone of the low cost housing programme for the future. The low cost
housing technology will also cover innovations in fire resistance and
thermal insulations for the new look houses.
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