Construction of houses in space-starved areas

by Sherokee Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:36 am

In the early fifties,
one-acre plots were the standard planning practice. Later with
the rapid growth of the cities with industrial and other inputs, the
pressure on the urban land increased and importance of money and its
decreasing value due to inflation caused even the very high-income
groups to limit their investment in housing. One-acre of plot
was reduced further to one-eighth-acre plot as the minimum size for
the residential plot.

In bigger cities, the
one-eighth acre plots also became expensive. Thereafter, till
today, the pressure on land has been continuously on the increase.
Even the higher income groups have started sharing plots and
apartment buildings for the past few years. Very few people
particularly in big cities can afford to have an independent plot for
an independent house of their own.

In Cochin Apartments now cost
much due to the phenomenal appreciation in land values. Perhaps
at no other city in Kerala can you see such a high cost for landed
properties and apartments. The cost of one apartment unit in
the busy Marine Drive area has now crossed one crore. It is
rather strange that even at such exorbitant cost, people are willing
to put their hard earned money to buy such an apartment mainly due to
the possibility of the investment maturing within a short period of
time.

The architects and
builders in Cochin are a class apart in incorporating world-class
methodologies and approaches in building construction. In this
space-starved city, houses are being built on truncated properties by
incorporating innovative designs. You can see scores of houses
that are located on landed areas of less than one cent of land.
Even in such small areas building upwards could create more space.
Not only that, the leading architects are now designing houses
according to the topography of the land.