Research Proposal

Department of Design, IIT Delhi

Submitted by
Ankit Kumar
(PG-212201-30835)

Title:
Design of sustainable housing unit for development of rural housing
frugal innovation through reverse engineering in India

Background
House is one of the basic needs of human being along with food and clothes to survive. A house
with adequate amenities is one of the most important component for overall growth where
overall growth means one can enjoy both mental and physical peace and can live with sense of
privacy, security and comfort. Considering its importance and its contribution in human
development, various legal and social institutes establish housing as part of fundamental rights.
In India, housing shortage in both rural as well as urban area has been one of the biggest
problems constantly since independence. Out of overall housing shortage, rural areas are
affected most. Most of the rural areas in India lack basic facilities such as separate, hygienic
dining and kitchen, sanitation, clean water etc. There is very little emphasis on providing basic
infrastructure facilities such as water supply, roads; electricity consequently personal
development as well national growth is affected. As per Kumar, Deka, & Sinha, 2016 rural
areas in India are suffering most because of constant negligence from policy making and their
implementation. The rural housing shortage is almost twice to that of urban areas, with total
housing shortage more than 43 million in rural areas only. Around 90 percent of this shortage
has been observed for BPL families.(Kumar et al., 2016), which clearly suggest that housing
prices or cost of constructing a house is much higher than income especially for the weaker
sections of society. Housing scenario in rural India as described by census 2011 according to
which around 4.4 crore houses have kutcha roofing, 2.71 crore houses has thatch, plastic as
roofing. (Kadam, n.d.).
Among those who are having a decent condition house, most of the houses face issues like lack
of ventilation, protection from wind, cold and lack of sunlight etc. Furthermore, there is no
separate arrangements to keep animals, which creates hygiene problems consequently more
chances of hygiene related diseases. Among all the issues affordability is one of the biggest
issue for which govt. is providing financial assistance to construct house and support weaker
sections through various schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana being one of the most
effective among them with a farfetched target to develop 30 million until 2022. To overcome
housing requirements in rural areas merely giving financial assistance is not sufficient. If we
compare rural and urban houses we find that most of rural houses have not been constructed as
per with the design standards, norms and guidelines practiced by experts/Architect/consultants
because rural people cannot afford them consequently rural houses even pakka houses are not
that efficient and dose not fulfil the basic requirements of a ‘house’. Therefore, merely giving
financial support does not solve the problem due to lack of skill, knowledge and awareness.
The conventional approaches to develop a house in both rural as well as urban areas is a very
costly transaction and not everyone especially lower middle class and economically weaker
section is able to afford a good dwelling unit. Although commendable works have been done
already in field of architecture such as innovative pipe house, portable houses, adaptation of
native materials and techniques. The works of two major firms are most relevant in Indian
context one COSTFORD, Kerala and Auroville foundation, Puducherry. Their research
focuses on adaptation of native construction techniques, recycling of materials, using of
traditional arches and innovative roofing systems to reduce the overall cost and environmental
impact of the building. However, very little attention has been given to rural needs, activities
and their behaviour while developing design standards in architecture generally. The needs and
requirements, activities and living styles and practices in villages is very different from those
of urban areas. We need to reconsider our practices for almost 70% percent of the population.

Frugal innovation
We need to look beyond the conventional approaches and must think of out of the box ideas to
tackle the housing issues. Adapting frugal and innovative approaches, which work based on
reverse engineering, could be more effective. By reverse engineering, it is meant that we know
the product and then try to reengineer it to make it affordable, efficient, useful and easily
accessible. Usually innovative ideas are more likely occur in developed economies but in
reverse to that frugal innovation is much more apparent in emerging countries, which are bound
by resource constraints. If we try searching keywords “Frugal innovation” or “Frugal
technology” or “reverse innovation” or “reverse technology” or “Frugality” in Scopus
database, we get 1096 results, which suggest that the frugal innovation is underexplored but
enough research work is available on frugal innovation.
According to (Bhatti & Ventresca, 2013) George defines frugal innovation as “"innovative,
low-cost and high-quality products and business models originating in developing countries
and exportable to other developing countries or even the developed world”. Ernst and young
defines it as economical use of resources to make it affordable for lower income groups. The
frugal innovation may solve problem, which are arising due to resource constraint situation. To
establish frugal innovation theoretically Zeschky, Widenmayer, & Gassmann, 2011 describes
that the frugal innovation deals with three types of constraints i.e. resource constraints,
technology constraints and institutional voids. These three types of constraints are main
challenges in front of emerging economies. To understand the approach of reverse engineering,
TATA NANO by Tata group engineers is most suitable example. Tata engineers observed that
a family of four could be seen travelling on a two-wheeler where father is driving and elder
child is standing in front of seat while the other one is in mother’s lap. The situation is much
more risky. To solve this problem, TATA group used innovative approach to develop the
cheapest car for lower middle classes. The value of this innovation might be more to the lower
income groups because this innovation gave them sense ownership of a car and provides safer
mode to commute. Prior to TATA Nano, to own a car was only a dream for them.
This study intends to target rural housing problem in India with frugal and innovative
approaches along with conventional approaches. We need to look a louse as a product, which
fulfil certain requirements of its dwellers. The main questions, which will be addressed in the
study, are as follows-
1. How can we develop affordable and efficient housing unit for rural population
considering resource constraints, technical constraints and Institutional
constraints?

2. How can we integrate various indigenous techniques, indigenous material with

innovative approaches and materials in order to optimise the overall cost and
performance?
The focus of the study is to reduce the overall cost of a small habitable and efficient housing
unit, which is dedicatedly designed for rural setups and has minimum social and environmental
impacts. The intent is to develop a small and affordable prototype-housing unit as a product
using innovative materials and construction techniques to demonstrate and to popularise the
need to adapt the innovative approaches to overcome rural housing problems in India. The
study also intends to explore and formulise design regulations and recommendations for rural
areas to improve hygiene, health and comfort along with basic facilities in affordable prices.
The findings of the study could be useful for various rural housing schemes run by government
to fulfil the commitments and will help people to construct cheaper houses. The findings could
be aligned with the schemes and policies. Along with financial assistance, Govt. may also offer
the construction drawings developed in the study.

Aim
To develop affordable and efficient house designs, which fulfils the necessities for rural people and
responsive to climate of the place in order to increase the quality of life in rural India.

Objective
 To develop cost reduction strategies using design optimisation based on human
behaviour, activities, and requirements of rural people.
 To study and explore various cost effective indigenous design practices suggested by
architects to understand the possibility to innovate and adapt for rural setup.
 To study and explore various cost effective materials developed by various institutes
like BMTPC, CSIR, COSTFORD and many other institutions working on cost effective
construction materials.
 To find out various construction management practices where to optimise resources,
materials, construction methods in order to reduce overall cost of the project.
 To explore and document various frugal and innovative strategies to formulate general
suggestions for construction of houses in rural areas to ensure affordable housing.
 To develop design prototypes of housing units dedicated to rural population
 To analyse performances for prototypes units for various indicators like durability,
strength, functionality, thermal comfort, daylight, energy, wind etc.
Proposed Research methodology
The study broadly aims to explore affordable housing for middle and lower income groups in
rural areas therefore, it becomes imperative to assess willingness to pay, demand and supply
for a small habitable unit. The methodology could be divided into four major steps.

Step – 1: A systematic literature review to identify various innovative

construction approaches and materials developed by various architectural firms,
building material firms, research institutions to identify innovative and frugal
design strategies, building materials and construction methods in practice.

Step-2: Surveys to understand paying capacity, basic requirements, needs and

activities, which need careful attention of rural people to define budget and
primary scope of the project

Step-3: Development of design prototypes with inputs with clear understanding

of human behaviour and spatial requirements followed by cost optimisation
techniques.

Step-4: Analysis and testing for durability, thermal comfort, daylighting etc.

Step -1 is systematic literature review from various database, magazines, portfolios and design
approaches from historical to modern era to identify and understand innovative approaches and
cost effective strategies. Second step is to understand basic requirements, needs, behaviour and
daily practices of rural population. The surveys will also help in assessment of paying capacity,
which will be helpful to fix the maximum cost limit of the project and funds shortages,
approaches to fix the funding gap to make it affordable. The outcome of the survey also will
help in fixing the scope of the project. After analysing the various frugal and cost effective
approaches, scope definition and budget fixing, next step is to start applying the above
strategies and materials and cost optimisation techniques to develop design prototype for each
climate zone in India. Once the model is developed, the performance can be analysed by
various tests and digital simulations to justify results.

Tentative research timeline

The following ghant chart presents the tentative timeline for the PhD program.

01/08/2021 17/02/2022 05/09/2022 24/03/2023 10/10/2023 27/04/2024 13/11/2024 01/06/2025

Admission and registration works

Course work
Comprehancive examination
Literature review
Synopsis seminar
Designing, development and testing
Submission and defense of research works
Report and final submission of thesis

Fig. Ghant chart showing tentative timeline of the research program (Bhatti, 2012)
References
1. Bhatti, Y. A. (2012). What is Frugal, What is Innovation? Towards a Theory of Frugal
Innovation. SSRN Electronic Journal, 1–45. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2005910
2. Bhatti, Y. A., & Ventresca, M. (2013). How Can ‘Frugal Innovation’ Be
Conceptualized? SSRN Electronic Journal, 1–26.
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2203552
3. Kadam, S. T. R. N. (n.d.). Problems and Solutions of Rural Housing in India : an
Over View. 167–172.
4. Kumar, A., Deka, A., & Sinha, R. (2016). Rural Housing in India: Status and Policy
Challenges. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16047.43687
5. Zeschky, M., Widenmayer, B., & Gassmann, O. (2011). Frugal Innovation in Emerging
Markets. Research-Technology Management, 54(4), 38–45.
https://doi.org/10.5437/08956308x5404007