Housing/Shelter

A shelter is a basic architectural structure or building that provides protection from the local environment. Having a place of shelter, of safety and of retreat, i.e. a home, is commonly considered a fundamental physiological human need, the foundation from which to develop higher human motivations. A house is a building that functions as a home. They can range from simple dwellings such as rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes and the improvised shacks in shanty towns to complex, fixed structures of wood, masonry, concrete or other materials containing plumbing, ventilation, and electrical systems (Schoenauer et al., 2000). The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Houses use a range of different roofing systems to keep precipitation such as rain from getting into the dwelling space. Houses may have doors or locks to secure the dwelling space and protect its inhabitants and contents from burglars or other trespassers. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain one or more bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. A house may have a separate dining room, or the eating area may be integrated into another room. Some houses only have a dwelling space for one family or similar-sized group; larger houses called townhouses or row houses may contain numerous family dwellings in the same structure.
Shelter is one of the basic human needs along with food, water, and companionship. It is a structure that protects us from the elements and gives you a place to live. A shelter can protect us from the sun, insects, wind, rain, snow, hot or cold temperatures and enemy observation. It can give us a feeling of well-being. It can help us maintain our will to survive. In some areas, our need for shelter may take precedence over our need for food and possibly even our need for water. For example, prolonged exposure to cold can cause excessive fatigue and weakness (exhaustion).

Present housing condition: Statistics

Paravur Taluk consists of small residential houses and about 90 percentage of household in Paravur Taluk lives in pucca structured dwellings. The materials used in roofs, walls and floors are important quality characteristics of a dwelling. About 90% of houses are made up of hard permanent floor materials like cement, mosaic, tile, brick, lime, and stone. The majority (60%) of the housing units in Paravur are roofed by cement, RBC or RCC. Tiles and slates (40%) are the next most commonly used roofing materials. For basement construction and foundation rock, RCC, laterite and concrete blocks are commonly used. In wall structure the commonly used materials are solid blocks, interlock blocks, concrete blocks and laterite. Door and window frames are wood, concrete and fibre. Most of the houses are concrete roofed. RCC roof is existing accepted roof in these areas. Even though people construct roof using RCC, majority of the individuals prefer to cover the RCC roof with truss (GI/Aluminium sheets). Though roofs are constructed using wood and tiles, the number is very less. A mix of cement and sand is usually used for plastering. A new trend of tiling using wall tile and wood panelling has come in to practice now.

Details of homeless and landless families in north paravur

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According to life mission data, there are a lot of homeless and landless people residing at Paravur Taluk. Some of them have their own land but they don’t have houses. Ezhikkara and Chittatukara Panchayats have the highest number of homeless families but in these Panchayat itself, there are a lot of families who do not have their own land. And also Panchayat like Kottuvally, Kadungallur, Karumaloor, etc., have a lot of families who do not have their own land. Financial hardship and lack of required documents is the reason for not being able to build houses despite having land of their own.

Chendamangalam, Puthenvelikara, Vadakkekara, Chittatukara, etc. are the places that are adjacent to the Chalakkudi and Periyar River and endured major damage during the Kerala flood. During the flood, 90% of the houses were inundated and damaged in places like Alangad, Puthenvelikara, Chendamangalam, Vadakkekara, Chittattukara, etc. With the help of the government and other NGOs, most of the houses have been rebuilt. The flood had a significant effect on the rest of the regions such as Eloor, Varapuzha, Kadungallur, Ezhikkara, etc in Paravur Taluk.
Vadakkekara Panchayat has the most number (4958) of flood-affected houses in Paravur Taluk. 153 houses were fully damaged and 588 houses were partially damaged. The highest number of houses was completely damaged in Puthenvelikara and Chendamangalam Panchayat. A total number of 354 houses were damaged in Chendamangalam Panchayat and 345 houses were in puthenvelikara Panchayat. The number of partially damaged houses was high in Chendamangalam Panchayat, Chittattukara Panchayat, Puthenvelikara Panchayat, and Vadakkekara Panchayat. While observing and analysing the above list, panchayats like Vadakkekara, Puthenvelikara, Chittatukara and Chendamangalam need a special care and support for their survival.

With the help of the Government and other NGOs, most of the houses have been repaired and still some of the houses are to be repaired. The highest number of houses were repaired in Alangad Panchayat (609 houses) and the rest of the 33 houses are to be repaired. Ezhikkara Panchayat has the highest number of houses yet to be completed and the lowest number of houses to be repaired in Kadungallor Panchayat. A lot of houses have been repaired in the panchayats like Chendamangalam, Chittattukara, Vadakkekara, Puthenvelikara, and Varapuzha and also more houses are yet to be repaired in these panchayats.

Challenges in housing sector

In case of Paravur Taluk, the area is thickly populated and most of the residential houses are non – engineered. Generally, specific design measures for flood hazard are not explicitly considered in the structural design of typical buildings in this area. This affects the structural integrity of houses in Paravur Taluk. Inadequate depth of foundation and floor located below flood level and inadequate connection between walls or lack of a framed structure to increase the stiffness are observed in houses. Most of the gable wall and perimeter walls of residential houses are unsupported. There are diagonal cracking at corners of openings due to the absence of sill and lintel beams. There is the usage of poor quality building material lacking required strength and performance. The roof framing structures of some houses are not properly connected. Inadequate anchoring of door and window frames to structure and inadequate connection of gable to structure and roofing to gable are also seen in some cases.
Even though flood hazards may not have devastating effects on most of the building structures built using water resistant materials such as concrete, steel or seasoned timber, and with basic flood management systems, some areas in Chendamangalam, Vadakkekara, Chittattukara, Ezhikkara and Kottuvally Panchayat are under CRZ III. The coastal zone is a transition area between marine and territorial zones. It includes shore ecosystems, wetland ecosystems, mangrove ecosystems, mudflat ecosystems, sea grass ecosystems, salt marsh ecosystems, and seaweed ecosystems. In all CRZ Rules, the regulation zone has been defined as the area up to 500 m from the high-tide line. Therefore, no construction shall be permitted within this zone except for repairs of the authorized structures not exceeding existing FSI. The construction activities in the notified CRZ areas can be permitted only in consultation with and concurrence of the Coastal Zone Management Authority.

Resources available in north paravur

North Paravur is abundant in the availability of natural building materials such as mud and clay. It usually forms after rainfall or near water sources. In the construction industry, mud is a semi-fluid material that can be used to coat, seal, or adhere materials. Depending on the composition of the mud, it can be referred by many different names, including slurry, mortar, plaster, stucco and concrete. Mud, cob, adobe, clay and many other names are historically used synonymously to mean a mixture of subsoil and water possibly with the addition of stones, gravel, straw, lime and bitumen. This material was used in a variety of ways to build walls, floors and even roofs. But in the present scenario people are not using these locally available materials for constructions. It is also a disadvantage that many other natural materials are absent in the region.

Emerging trends in housing

These days, people are more environmentally conscious and look for less harmful alternatives to inhabit the earth, damaging it as little as possible, and among those alternatives are some of the new trends in architecture: passive construction systems, functional architecture in small scale and traditional systems such as adobe or masonry, among others. However, technological progress also continues to grow, so it is important to be conscious of the handling of steel, glass and polycarbonate and the reuse of steel tanks for functional homes.
One of the trends that have caused most furor and that will grow much more next year, is the design and construction of tiny homes, but with all the functions and amenities of a regular house.
This trend is based on saving space and resources, both economic, natural and industrial, impacting nature as little as possible, but also avoiding land tenure and ownership payments, giving the owner the freedom to locate him in different places and to leave a minimal footprint in the environment. The other trends are: