COOL HOUSE - House on Stilts ***** SEISMIC SHOCKS is what Indians fear the most, and that is understandable after what we witnessed in Bhuj on the fateful Republic Day in 2000 or in Latur and Usmanabad a few years earlier. The ghastly pictures of houses and buildings falling over, people running for cover, phantom limbs twitching underneath the concrete and the huge mess that it left behind which took months to clear up, should make one introspect. Is concrete really worth it?
"No," declares Parikhshet Nayyar, who claims to have come up with a novel pre-fabricated housing solution called Catapult Instafab, "People need to think it all over again. The West has already embraced newer ways to construct their houses and they have forsaken the use of concrete altogether." So what is it that he offers as a change?
"No bricks. No mortar. No sand. A house on stilts with walls, floor and ceiling made of steel frame, wire mesh, plywood, glass wool and thermocol, etc., in an arrangement that is `as strong as concrete' fitted together by nuts and bolts. It is resistant to earthquakes and is not permanent, though the material it is made of is. It can be dismantled anytime and refitted without putting in a lot of effort," maintains Parikhshet. "It is as temporary or permanent as your plans to stay at one place are."
And that's not all, it seems. "Pre-fabricated solutions have features that put concrete on the defensive, like insulation power. It keeps the house warm in winter, while in summer the heat of the plains doesn't intrude through the thermocol and glass wool, thus cutting back on your energy expenses in a huge way," feels Parikhshet. Along with these features the internal and external aesthetics can be custom designed to suit customer preferences.
"The best part of it, however, is that with DDA directives against any new construction or extension on the previous structures, the pre-fabricated solution with its temporary nature, and thus exempt from the regulation, becomes a cool option," says Parikhshet, tongue-firmly-in-cheek.
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