Indian-American to Develop Pefabricated Residential Projects

Washington: An U.S-based design consortium, headed by an Indian-American architect, is in talks with three major Indian developers to design and build "prefabricated" residential projects to reduce cost and time of construction.

"Today's estimate is India needs 12 million low cost housing now. These are basic minimum shelters of 400 sq.Ft. and less. There is a demand for this in the form of high-rises in the cities to support the services need in the cities," Head of Los Angeles Design Consortium Harshad R Patel said.

He argues that pre-fabricated residential projects, which would significantly reduce the cost of housing, could be effective solution to the massive shortage of housing. Noting that this is needed in Tier 2 and tier 3 cities in the form of horizontal growth for millions of people, Patel said he is in discussions with three major developers in India to design and build these projects as "prefabricated" residential projects to reduce cost and time of construction. "One of our clients in India wants to do low cost prefabricated housing in 100 cities of India and we are in talks with Mexican and Chinese prefab companies who can handle this and of course there is a built in profit for the developers which comes from mass production," Patel said, without identifying the companies he is in talks with. "The architectural practice and construction industry is different in India than in USA. The construction methods are different. But for the high end projects I see India is catching up with the international standards," Patel said when asked about his experience in India.

"There is a tremendous amount of scope and opportunity to create world class architecture in India," he said.

"Soon I would like to design a monumental civic, institutional, transportation or government project like Chandigarh or Gandhi Nagar which will stand the time for decades to come," he said when asked about his dream project in India. Patel said urban growth in India needs to be well planned and controlled.

"The migration from rural to urban areas is going to continue without a doubt. This has happened for centuries in any part of the world which is unstoppable. And as the population is growing faster than expected it will be too late to plan or control eventually," he said.

Design Consortium, under Patel has won many architectural design competitions. In the first year of practice, the firm was ranked in the top 25 architecture firms of Los Angeles County in terms of design, achievements and earnings.

He has served as four-term Chairman of the Los Angeles business council urban beautification programme and a juror for architecture and landscape design awards. He worked closely with the U.S Secret Service to accommodate 60,000 people in 70 acres of open space for a special event, 'A Salute to President George Bush' in California.