Homes that count every inch

BANGALORE: Heard of houses that have no doors and no corridors? Or of houses costing Rs 8 lakh that have bathrooms fitted with sensors and bum-washers?
At a time when real estate costs have hit prohibitive levels, Japanese-style condominiums that use every little space to the optimum and conserve energy to the maximum are in the works in India, an effort to deliver homes at a cost that's affordable to ordinary folk. "The thought of building such homes came about four years ago during a client briefing with my junior staff members. One of my staff wanted to know whether we would only be working for clients, or also build homes for ourselves, homes that common people could afford," says Amit Bagaria, chairman of Asipac.
Bangalore-based Asipac, a provider of concepts, planning and marketing solutions to the real estate market, along with over 20 builders (domestic and international) are planning India's biggest private sector housing venture—the Rs 62,000-crore Satyagriha Project, which proposes to build 342,000 homes in the next six years across India.
These homes will come up across 125 projects, to be built by developers like Bangalore-based Mantri, Salarpuria Group and Golden Gate Properties, Hyderabad-based Koncept Ambience, Jaipur-based Unique Builders Mannat, Chennai-based Marg Constructions and Israeli-consortium PBEL. M A Alagappan of Murugappa Group will invest in his personal capacity. The first project, at Jaipur, is planned to be launched in November, and the second, at Visakhapatnam, in January 2008.
Conceptualised along the Japanese idea of ‘space saving', the project proposes to deliver 1BHK (504 sq ft), 2BHK (900 sq ft) and 3BHK (1,206 sq ft) homes in the price bracket of Rs 7.75 lakh to Rs 23 lakh, substantially lower than most current offerings.
"While the real estate sector in India talks about square feet, in Japan they talk of square centimetre. So much so that Japanese houses don't even sport corridors," says Bagaria. Doors are wardrobes on wheels, making use of spaces that are otherwise of little use.
The houses are fitted with sensors to conserve electricity and water. Bathrooms have shower cubicles split into a wet and dry area. These have weight sensors—when a person steps into the wet area the water starts, and turns off the moment he steps into the dry area. The toilet bowls are fitted with bum-washers, which too conserves water. The Satyagriha consortium plans to customise these technologies to Indian requirements.
The other big cost advantage comes from standardising everything for the project, and having common design, specifications and centralised procurement. Individual projects would not require separate sets of architects, engineers and other back end staff. The procurement is expected to be of the order of Rs 28,000 crore, and doing this centrally could deliver enormous savings.
Sushil Mantri, MD of Mantri Developers, who plans to build 11 such projects, says, "Today's middle class consumers, who are the target audience for this project, are looking for functional homes and also want some amount of luxury."

IndiaTimes