India’s northeastern area is vulnerable to several natural disasters. Traditional Assam houses are constructed using certain materials and methods to ensure their resilience to catastrophes. It’s interesting how the distinctive raw materials utilized to construct these dwellings make them stand out.
Building an Assam-style home requires a lot of lightweight materials, including bamboo, wood, and ikra. Ikra is a reed that may be found locally and is renowned for its strength and low weight. Ikra, bamboo, wood, and other lightweight materials are strong enough to survive regionally common natural disasters like earthquakes. this blog is about Assam House Type Designs – Beautiful & Resilient.
Under the Assam Home Loan Subsidy Scheme, residents can apply for simple home loans to construct their homes. The Assam house type is still one of the area’s most famous traditional styles today. Unfortunately, the proliferation of multi-story buildings and steel-framed urban structures results from modernity and technological advancement. The traditional Assamese house style is steadily disappearing.
Why Assam house type design is important
Homes of the traditional Assamese design were built with several criteria, including sociocultural, physical, and economic considerations. On the other side, modern homes and construction place a greater emphasis on style and perspective. People were more concerned with adopting a comprehensive and helpful approach to house construction in the past. People back then were more concerned with creating a cosy and serene microclimate inside the walls of their homes than they were with fashion and fads.
These traditional, age-old Assamese house designs reveal a lot about the culture, values, fashion, and acceptance of the people. The tremendous amount of work and success that went into developing these homes demonstrates the authenticity and trustworthiness of the Assam house-type design. These houses maintained their traditional architecture without the aid of contemporary technologies. Concrete buildings suffered significant damage in the recent earthquake that struck Assam on September 18, 2011.
However, no injuries were reported due to lightweight ikra walls collapsing. Traditional Assamese house designs are made using lightweight raw materials renowned for their flexibility, stiffness, and durability. Under pressure, they are less prone to crack or harm any surfaces.
Traditional Assam Type House Designs
We examine the four Assam house types most frequently used in Assam. The primary raw material that is used to construct these homes defines them.
Ikra – Typical Assam Type House Design
Ikra is a weed with thin leaves. It is combined with other walls and roof materials to create a lightweight structure. The Assamese-style home most frequently constructed in the area is of this sort. Ikra-built homes resembling those in Assam can be seen all over northeastern India, not just in Assam. Most of these Assam dwellings of this type are built for domestic usage.
You need more raw materials, such as bamboo, thatch, and wooden planks, to build an Ikra Assam house design. Ikra homes are constructed using a correct structure of bamboo or wood columns. When an earthquake strikes, this style of Assamese-style home design satisfies the safety standards.
Simple one-story brick or stone buildings with walls up to 1 meter above the plinth are called ikra homes. These walls support the bamboo weaved into wooden frames and plastered with cement or mud. Ikra homes have parallel walls that are laterally connected by the roof. Ikra dwellings often have GI sheets for their roofs, supported by bamboo or wooden trusses. There were no records of Ikra homes being damaged during previous earthquakes.
Bamboo – Traditional Assam Type House
Bamboo Guwahati and the rest of northeast India are home to many Assamese house designs. A bamboo home system uses bamboo as the primary construction material. The plinth and bamboo are closely attached to a brick modelling wall. Bamboo strips are used to construct the walls, then uniformly coated with mud. Bamboo houses employ native grass for their roof, which can last up to 10 years before it needs to be replaced, unlike other Assam house designs like ikra houses, which use GI sheet. The house stands on stilts to protect it from minor floods and withstand the severe rains typical of Assam.
Mud – Rural Assam House Design
Mud is created by combining water proportionately with clay and soil. Mudhouse is an Assamese house style created with typical plan measurements in mind. A mud house’s length is often between 5 and 10 meters, while its breadth is typically between 3 and 5 meters. Typically, mud homes have one or two stories. The span of the flooring or roofing system is no greater than five meters. Mud houses, also known as kutcha houses, are typical in other parts of India, especially in rural areas, just like other types of Assam-type houses and Assam house designs.
Chang – Common Assam Type House Design
A Chang house is a stilted version of an Assamese-style home. In Assam, it’s common to witness tribal people living in Chang homes on hillsides, in dense woods, and along riverbanks. The Mishing community in Assam used to reside in stilt homes. Since these homes are elevated on stilts, access to the main entrance requires climbing five to seven stairs. Chang houses have several religious and social values associated with them and are practical to design in terms of protection against minor floods and significant downpours. The central hall with a kitchen in Chang houses and other stilted Assam-style homes is ideal for large families.
Advantages of light-weight material in Assam Type house design
When creating the Assam house design, data was gathered utilizing the RVS technique, which revealed the following things to be noted:
Construction costs are inexpensive when creating conventional homes. This is so because the building materials needed to construct these homes are widely available in the area. There is little need for substantial reinforcement or deep foundations when building Assamese dwelling types.
Ikra is a specific kind of regional reed, as was previously stated. The living conditions within these traditional houses are favourable due to using ikra, mud, and bamboo. The interior is still cooler in the summer, and in the winter, it is relatively warm and inviting.
The raw materials provide flexible connections and great performance during earthquakes because of their lightweight. The materials provide the houses with rigidity, making them less prone to damage.
Comparing the cost of building conventional homes against the cost of building steel and concrete ones. This is so you may create an Assamese house-style design without much ability.
Particularly during monsoon season, when the bulk of the northeast states experiences intense downpours, Chang houses demonstrate adequate durability when light floods occur.
Summing up Assam Type House Design
Skyscrapers made of appropriate concrete, such as towering skyscrapers, multistory homes, and bungalows, are being constructed in the northeast as urbanization increases. The fact that ancient Assamese housing types were created to survive natural disasters like earthquakes nonetheless endures. The state of Assam has a high risk of earthquakes. People would benefit from both worlds if the advantages and benefits of Assamese-style house architecture could be combined with contemporary construction techniques. This will make the environment safer by reducing accidents and damage brought on by landslides, floods, and earthquakes.
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