They are going to be eco-friendly houses by slapping together recycled material, plastics, broken concrete pieces, requiring minimum bricks and mortar.
They are also going to be pocket-friendly houses, to help the poorest of the poor gaze satisfactorily at an affordable roof over their heads.
The story begins with a blog post in Harvard Business Review in 2010 by Tamil Nadu-born Vijay Govindarajan, Internat-ional Business professor of Dartmouth College, US, where he discussed the idea of affordable houses with his friend Christian Sarkar.
Prof. Govindarajan and his group of friends mooted the idea of ‘$300’ (`17,500) eco-friendly houses which could be constructed anywhere in the world.
In a video post explaining the “three hundred dollar (THD) house” story, Prof. Govindarajan mentioned that he had seen the poor living conditions of slum-dwellers in Chennai during his college days and the thought to improve their housing facility had been nagging him for a long time.
Responses poured in for the post and a contest to develop a model for a $300 house was announced.
The three hundred dollar house team also visited some of the villages in Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to know people’s feedback. The team chose 16 out of the 300 models and the winners are engaged in the construction of prototype houses.
The Chennai connection is that the prototype would be displayed in the city at the 10-day “Indo-German Urban Mela” which starts August 24. Goethe institute director Karl Pechatscheck and senior project manager (communications) Ketaki Golatkar told this newspaper that the THD prototype would be an eye-catcher at the mela.
“The pavilion for three hundred dollar house will be set up by Deutsche Bank. The showcasing of THD will send a message to hundreds of young minds about sustainable and affordable housing,” they said.