In today’s world of tension at work and on the road, the comfort of home is all the more important. There is not a family which would not have discussed the dream house that they should build one day. But one’s dream needs to be communicated to the architect who is designing the house. It would help to relate better with the professional who is trying to help you, if a few essential facts are understood.

The comfort of a home depends on how far the spatial, psychological and specific personal requirements of its occupants have been catered to. It is best to list all your needs and leave the rest to the architect, who will be able to design the right volumes, and choose the ideal materials that enhance the space.

Warm welcome
For a house, it is important to have a friendly and inviting entrance or a foyer that hugs and welcomes you, but yet, does not cramp you for space. An overwhelming entrance may be suitable for hotels and public buildings, but not a house. A space that grows as you move in, provides an element of surprise, and at the same time, imparts a dynamism to the space. Skylights in the right places, let in light, but not heat. Bring nature into your house, by letting a ‘U’ shape enclose an external green space, visible from various areas. A waterfall, an atrium and a fish tank add to the energy of indoor areas.

Coming to the structure, often, clients, in their concern for safety, insist on framed structures for small dwellings. This increases the cost and attracts more heat, with unnecessary amounts of steel. Independent footings are also not as safe as a continuous un-reinforced wall foundation, with a grade beam at the top, where, a partial settlement is handled by the beam.

Right foundation
Floating columns, between the grade beams and the lintels, provide a bracing effect to the structure. For the foundation, the conventional sized stone masonry, apart from being very dense, also lets in moisture from below. A better alternative is the non-porous plain cement concrete pedestal foundation, which will also block the route for termites from their underground colonies. A 250 micron polythene sheet laid below the flooring, provides a tight barrier against attacks and also protects the flooring from underground moisture.

Often, slabs are cured only from the day after the casting, and then flooded for days. But, most cements available today are fast setting and the heat of hydration has to be dissipated as early as 4 hours after the concrete is cast, and can be safely discontinued after about 2 weeks. Work on the walls can start in a couple of days after the slab is cast, after making a bund to hold the water, inside the wall lines. It is in fact, more important to wet the columns continuously, as the vertical surfaces hardly retain water, and tend to dry up fast in windy conditions.

Chipping walls at the bottom, for skirtings, thinning the wall at the point of maximum load and causing cracks, should be avoided. It is better to provide an extension of the grade beam up to the skirting level with a lesser width than the wall, so that the skirting can be finished flush with them.

Following wind patterns
There is a lot of resistance to open kitchens, if only for fear of cooking smells entering the house, which is unlikely if the kitchen is placed in the SE-NW axis of the house, the exhaust opening downwind, whether the wind direction is from the SW or the NE, the predominant wind patterns in the peninsula, directing out all the fumes. If the exhaust is working against the wind, it will never be effective, and smells will reach the rest of the house anyway. It is a myth that an aesthetically more pleasing open kitchen will allow cooking smells to spread. Also use rugged, heavy duty industrial exhaust hidden behind a false cupboard with the bottom open, with hinged louvres and a grill on the outside.

Not mere windows
Never save on windows. The saving could be effected elsewhere, in finishings, which can be enhanced later. Try out the new generation UPVC windows instead of wood. Increase the incidence of natural sunlight on the southern side, so that the winter sun warms the building. Limit the openings to the west. Use double glazed windows, and light reflecting coatings on the glass, especially the north-west, in south India. A central ventilator placed in the highest point of the house, becomes an outlet for hot air, facilitating a flow of heavier fresh air inward through the windows, even on windless days. Other options are also available for inhibiting heat transfer into the building as well as passive ventilation, and trombe walls.

For water supply pipes, try to use CPVC thermal plastics instead of galvanised iron pipes; they are good insulators of heat, are smooth and not conducive to corrosion. Using concealed flushing cisterns for commodes, will save space and give an uncluttered look to the bathroom. Use only solar water heaters that provide hot water round the year if aligned correctly. Locate the wet area of the bathroom, the shower, at the end farthest from the window, so that the fresh air dries the rest of the bathroom and provides unhindered light in the bath. A large and curtained window renders an exhaust fan, redundant. Use a bathtub as a shower tray, as the edges provide enough overlap for the shower curtains, which are less cumbersome and cheaper than the cubicles.

Collect every drop of water that nature showers on you, because it is the purest source of water. Accept the innovative designs to make your home environment friendly. Rest assured that style follows function. It is possible to have a tank in the form of a ring, all around the top of the building, to store rain water from the roof, through a filter, avoiding the need to pump the water from a dark and dingy underground sump, sometimes too close to the soil pipes and manholes. With well distributed rainfall, your water and electricity bills can go down considerably. This makes even more sense today, when the setback requirements are being relaxed, limiting the open spaces in the plot for rain water collection. What is even better is that the humble water tank can become a design feature and a fashion statement too!