Roundtable to discuss adoption of alternative construction technologies for enhancement of thermal comfort in the mass housing sector

The habitat team conducted a roundtable to discuss adoption of alternative construction technologies for enhancement of thermal comfort in the mass housing sector on 8th April 2021 from 1500 to 1630 hours.

The speakers of the roundtable represented technology manufacturers, real estate developers, architects and industry experts of mass housing bringing in different perspectives from the field. The discussion moderated by Ms. Prathama Dolas and Mr. Sugeet Grover asked a set of questions to gain the viewpoints of the speakers to understand challenges and opportunities from their field.

Key takeaways from the roundtable:

• The knowledge of the buyer is extremely limited on being able to relate the material choices with advantages in thermal comfort and energy efficiency, this in turn leads to the developer not able to justify the extra cost associated with choosing a better performing alternative construction material.
• Education of all stakeholders involved including developers, architects and buyers is needed.
• From the developers viewpoint, the extra cost associated is only viable in a high end scenario but not in an EWS or mid-range category as under the current market situation.
• The ratification of Eco Niwas Samhita by states (Currently it is voluntary) would be an important step to improve alternative material penetration for thermal comfort, in this scenario, the builder will be able to justify the extra cost.
• There is a need for an easily accessible repository of materials, technology and knowledge database that can be accessed by the developer to be able to bring in thermal comfort into housing.
• Poor workmanship and lack of skills required during execution of building projects with respect to usage of certain alternative technologies was hampering the effectiveness of the technologies.
• Technology manufacturers claim that currently the market demand for alternate technologies is low and hence few manufacturers have entered the space, once the demand goes up, more competition can be expected leading to reduction in prices of alternative technologies.