A super cyclone with wind speeds up to 300 km/hr hit coastal Orissa in India (refer map) on the 29th of October causing immense damage to an area of almost 60000 sq. kms. It is estimated that almost 1.7 million houses have been damaged with up to 25,000 completely destroyed (refer summary of damage). See pictures of destroyed school building in Ganganarayanpur village near Kakatpur (Cyclone damaged School). This document provides information on an innovative low cost housing concept that may be suitable for long term rehabilitation of the cyclone damaged housing sector. Rocla industries in Australia has the base technology that will make it possible to manufacture low cost pre-fabricated housing units speedily that will provide small, durable, cyclone and earthquake proof housing for the poorest sections of the urban and rural community.

For example one could develope a couple of simple concepts for a low cost housing solution for cyclone affected Orissa. These is based on the AKWA^TM sheet technology available with Rocla Industries Ltd., in Australia. Details of this technology are described in the attached technology review. The sheet is only 10 mm thick based on ferro-cement sheet technology with high tensile stranded continuous reinforcement and discrete short steel fiber reinforcement in high quality cement mortar. The sheet is ductile enough to be rolled after curing and hardening. The rolling is via invisible controlled micro-cracking of the sheet, which doesn't affect the ultimate strength or the water permeability of the sheet.

The AKWA^TM tank is a 22,000 litre vessel for storage of water made from these sheets (refer to Fig. 1). The tank is 3.6 meters in diameter and 2.4 meters in height. It is lightweight (about 1.5 tonnes), durable (guaranteed for at least 10 years, but has been shown to be close to 50 years) and water-tight.

The first concept of the low cost house is a simple one based on the tank. It is illustrated in Fig. 2. As shown the house consists of a circular wall rolled out of the AKWA^TM sheets. The 10 mm walls are built up by providing mud plaster on the inside face for insulation and robustness. The roof is built with precast thin walled concrete dome with thatch on the top for insulation. The manufacturing concept consists of sheet and components production in a centralised plant in Bhubaneswar with portable mandrel for rolling the sheets at site and assembling the houses.

Besides cost considerations the success of this concept is going to very much depend on its social acceptability. Evaluation of the concept from experienced development and technical personnel (architects and engineers) in this area will be very helpful.

See here for recent discussions on the housing concepts..