Potential of Prefabrication for Affordable Housing in Urban India

The rural-to-urban migration in India has been pretty rapid over the past few decades. Providing affordable housing with sustainable infrastructure will always remain a challenging task for engineers and architects. Prefabrication entails walls, foundation stones, and other units of construction, which are manufactured in bulk, transported to the location of the building, and simply ‘fixed’ on site which can be used to build modular and affordable housing in India. Contrary to common belief, prefabrication is not a new construction process but one which has been used extensively and widely for many years. Furthermore, as this study demonstrates, this process is not exclusively based on high technology approaches but is, in fact, appropriate and advantageous in building affordable housing. This study seeks to determine the feasibility of prefabricated techniques in the context of affordable housing in urban areas. The study compares a double storey prefabricated affordable housing model with a conventional housing model made out of brick and concrete on the grounds of economic and sustainability considerations. The results of cost analysis revealed significant cost reductions by practising prefabrication in construction. It is found that prefabrication in construction is an economic and sustainable practice that could cater the needs of providing affordable housing in the current scenario of urbanization in India.