Recently, a Chinese company grabbed headlines for using 3D printers to build houses. As surprising as it may sound, the company used a giant 3D printer and rapidly constructed 10 houses in a span of 24 hours. Mostly, recycled materials were used costing the homes less than US $5000. The printer is about 22 ft tall and 33 ft wide. It creates building blocks by layering cement mix in structural patterns. These blocks can be rapidly assembled on site with minimum labour.
So China is utilizing modern technology to print 3D homes, what are we doing? Though printing 3D homes in India seems like a far-fetched dream, we can envision making use of modern technologies to provide better housing construction. Emerging technologies, materials and products can play a vital part in fulfilling initiatives like ‘Smart City’ and ‘Housing for all’.
For successful completion of these projects, we need to undertake a few policies which are the need of the hour.
Gathering the information and talent in one place
Providing urban housing has been a hot topic of discussion for years. Many experts have shared their views on various platforms whereas developers have been adopting new practices in their projects. But this information isn’t accessible to all. Hence we need to create a national database portal that will connect all the people, products and policies on a single platform. This will help to progress towards innovation rapidly.
Framework for emerging technologies
In residential construction, whenever a new technology is introduced, the first thing that is assessed is the cost it will incur. It is often rejected on those grounds. Hence, we require a framework which will evaluate the technologies for its attributes and the benefits it offers. For instance, attributes such as end-user acceptability, market availability and maintenance required needs to be taken into consideration.
A hub for innovative technologies
In many countries, there is an innovation park that allows to showcase various integrated housing technology solutions. India too needs to emerge with one such national hub where demonstrations of innovative and emerging housing solutions can be provided. This will help the government and the construction industry to work collaboratively to achieve sustainable habitat.
Focus on efficient delivery
What is the biggest motive behind adopting all these technologies for build houses? A timely delivery. Also, the discussions are pertaining about land, finances and other issues. We also need to give equal importance to delivering the end product. Producing 20 million homes by 2022 is a difficult target to achieve and hence we need to follow lean principles for timely delivery while maintaining the quality of the construction.
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