Economic Consideration in Home Design

Economic Consideration in Home Design: Traditionally, buildings are financed from the resources of the owner and usually the form, size and quality of the building are governed by the owners’ resources and considerations like prestige and social status within the community. These facts obviously confirm the view of some people that poor people occupy the worst type of houses. The false economic consideration in terms of total cost is why some people avoid a gang professional consultant to save fee charged. It shows how ignorant such people are in terms of the duties of architects and engineers.

The slow pace of house building in the country previously had its root in our subsistence economy. There was not enough money for anyone who wished to acquire a home. Those who were better off, often erected the building in stages as money became available; the cocoa farmers, for example, used to build only during the harvesting season.

Nowadays the situation has changed. The economy has improved tremendously and more people are willing and capable of spending their savings on good homes. Since only very few people can pay in cash there is a need to raise the necessary home loan. Apart from the Nigerian Building Society, most of the state governments have established housing corporations. These bodies are charged with the task of providing good homes for those who can afford their terms. The most important of these is the rate of interest which is among the highest in the world. Other sources of capital for home construction include insurance funds and bank loans.

Although the government departments and their agencies provide homes for their senior staff, it is impossible to rely on the government alone to provide all the homes required by the people of Nigeria and as such other sources of home finance must be found. More building societies as well as other savings and loan institutions must be established for this purpose. The case for a National Home Mortgage Bank was put recently by the president of the Nigerian Housing Corporation Association, when he observed that home seekers are saddled with rate of interest in Nigeria varies between 7 and 11 per cent. (Mr. Nwohli Adibuah, President of Nigerian Housing Association, presented a paper on Finance for Housing, to the 3rd Annual Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners held at Benin on 21st September, 1972).

These institutions are more likely to support well designed homes for which an architect had been consulted. The capability of available contractors and systems of tendering in the construction industry are some of the factors, apart from the level of interest rate that may govern the cost of home construction.

Functional Requirements

In designing any building there are number of requirements that must be met quite apart from the needs of the occupants. These requirements are summarized below:

The first requirement of any building is strength and stability in order that the occupants may have a dwelling of adequate safety Creaking floors and staircases, leaning walls and sagging ceilings are signs of instability Materials of construction must be capable of withstanding stresses and the structure itself must provide adequate resistance to deformation, overturning and cracking. In particular, deformation of slabs and beams can be offensive to the eye.

The second requirement is that a structure must be dimensionally stable. This means the avoidance deformation due to loading, temperature changes, expansion and contraction, thermal effect which causes cracks due to changes in occasional temperature and finally soil movements which cause uneven settlement.

The third requirement relates to protection against hazardous weather conditions. This can be achieved by using either impermeable materials or cavity construction on exterior parts of buildings. Occasionally it is almost impossible to have any of the two above so that a selected permeable material may be specified. The latter category like practically all concrete products, absorbs moisture slowly but dries out quickly, thus avoiding any permanent damage.

The fourth requirement is durability By this 1 mean that the materials used must be capable of fulfilling the relevant functions without appreciable maintenance. The watchword is “how long will it last?”As for traditional materials, little maintenance is required. In contrast, the new materials of today, hacked by high pressure advertisements, are costly to repair and maintain — for example, the jointing between panels in curtain walling systems.

The fifth requirement concerns thermal insulation. We may need to keep temperature within buildings to a comfortable (economic) level irrespective of varying outdoor temperature. Today.; air conditioning systems are gradually becoming the vogue and therefore, climate as well as the sitting of a building are becoming important considerations in limiting the amount of cooling loads.

The sixth requirement relates to sound insulation. The needs of households differ – the need for a quiet environment conflicts with noisy ones. The increase in the density of population and denser as well as busier cities have brought about noise at a higher level, not to mention the intermingling of residential, commercial and industrial areas. The problem of noise is psychological, sociological and has economic overtones. For sound insulation to be successful it must be planned – for example through compartmentation, completeness, heavy construction and the application of absorbent materials. Tree planting too may offer suitable solutions.

The seventh requirement is the provision of adequate ventilation through “cross ventilation design”. This is necessary; even when considering total air conditioning systems, until the power supply is improved and incidents of mechanical failure are reduced. Related to ventilation is the supply of adequate natural lighting, although recent developments in the field of artificial lighting have allowed greater flexibility in this regard, the need for a psychological contact with the outside environment is still an important consideration.

Finally, the building must be designed to fulfill economic requirements which taken individually may stop the prospective owner from fulfilling those other seven requirements; it is an exercise of striking a balance between conflicting demands.