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DHS – Design Home Solution
mHS has conceptualized and designed the Design Home Solution (DHS) as a critical and mandatory service for Financial Institutions aiming to provide housing loans to the low income populations.
View DHS Pilot Project page
Concept
Providing customers of home-improvement loans access to technical design assistance, including architectural and engineering solutions. Design assistance aim to influence self-local building practices, bring awareness on safety in construction and contribute to better quality of living for the families.
Areas of influence
• Structural Safety, building process
• Better light & ventilation
• Improved design and layout
• Cost Estimates
• Affordable design fee
Challenges
Unsafe building practices, informal nature of settlements and lack of enforcement have become a norm in these localities, where it’s more convenient to imitate the neighbor than question the experienced mason. As settlements expand vertically, there is a great danger in following practices. Poor structural safety leading to potential accidents, greater incidence of diseases due to poor ventilation and lighting, bad layouts, reduced privacy for women and girls, encroachments.
A second challenge given the escalating cost of construction today is to design an affordable financial product that can be assessed by those households living in poorest conditions.
The final challenge is to integrate the individual housing improvement effort with a mechanism for greater community involvement.
