PICTURE OF HOUSE IN OUR WEBSITE
I am Krishna Mohan working as Marine Engineer. I liked the banner picture of a house in the page 'Features of Kerala Architecture' in the Kerala architecture site. i would like to know some details of that house including
1.Total sq.feet
2.No.of bedrooms and bathrooms
3.estimated budget
and also what all the other facilities does the house has?
I am attaching the image of the respective house for your reference..
Looking forward for your earliest reply.
Krishna Mohan
My reply.
There is no point in simply liking a picture of a house in a website and thinking of having an exact looking house for you.Your plot dimensions,directions,position of roads will be different.Your needs for the house will be different.Your budget for the house will be different and no architect would like to simply copy his work again and again
Me or any other architect can give you an appropriate design for your house which meets your requirement,budget,location,site conditions and the house thus designed may look even better than the picture of house which fascinated you.
GRANITE LAYING
I am Biju from Mavelikara, my house construction is going on , I have little doubt about granites.Granite named “Shimoga Red” it’s surface is glass clear and black shades on red , edges of slabs are white, could I get the same surface color when shaping the edges , if not what is the remedy please advice
Biju
My reply
Basically granite will have a monolithic nature .So I am not sure whether this particular type of granite alone will be white on edges.Granite is now a costly flooring material and slippery nature of it do not augur well for safe and healthy living in the house.
Now you can get beautiful non slippery tiles from NITCO and Johnson which can be used to give lesser costly more comfortable flooring with good designs.Your Architect can suggest you better laying pattern
ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY HOUSE
Dear Mr. Thomas,
I got a chance to read your blogs and thought I should ask your opinions in construction of an environmentally friendly home in Kerala.
This will be on a 30 cent plot with tar road frontage on one side, on the side of NH 220, Kottayam. I am looking for a 2 story Villa with modern amenities with 4 or 5 bedrooms and long verandahs on ground floor, a courtyard in the middle and architecturally styled railing for first floor balconies. Could be approx 2000-2500 sft.
While I am not interested in a standard concrete block, I want my home to be beautifully designed and aesthetically appealing with a touch of traditional 'Illam's and 'Mana's. Importantly, this should be designed according to Vasthu recommendations. More happy, if it has natural ventilation elements and natural cooling elements.
lease can you let me know if these are possible in Kerala.? Also, what could be the cost of such a building based on your experience.?
Anoop Vijay
Senior Sustainability Engineer
Dubai, UAE
My reply
Every Architect would love to design something different,environment friendly and I personally prefer to have all traditional good features of Kerala architecture adapted with modern technology.
We can design your house suited to your environment,your needs and wishes for the house.Cost is something which can be calculated only after we have the design ready and definitely not before the design.Without design of the house how any one can simply predict cost?Building construction involves lot of material with ever increasing price tags and labour in Kerala is fast becoming rare to get and costly.
DIMENSIONS THAT CANNOT BE CHANGED
I am S P Manoharan who is working in Indonesia. I want to construct a house in my native place Alleppey. I got the house plan made by my engineer and it is attached herewith. With the normal stair case I can not have attached bath room in the first floor master bed room. The dimensions of room can not be changed as they are all agreed by my Vasthu Namboothiri.
The bottom bath room dimension can be altered. Can you please send me an offer with a wooden (Teak) spiral case so that my dining room area is not much affected. Please send me the drawing incorporated with the staircase to first floor.
S P Manoharan
My reply
Originally specific perimeter for each room and house was insisted upon by earlier craftsmen of house(Asaris) using Kol,Angulam,Viral which was the measurement system of those days simply to ensure that wooden rafters made as per the relevant calculations in that system of measurement can be used for roof for the house.
Now nobody is having roof of house with wooden rafters and house roof is done with concrete and there is no point in having such perimeter calculations for rooms and houses now.Vasthu books do not talk about these perimeter calculations.
A stair case require specific length and height to be decided as per Engineering calculations.Nobody can simply put a stair case in a room where sufficient space and dimensions are available.Hence it is better to re design plan of the house by a qualified experienced Architect
Dear Thomas,
ReplyDeleteI cant agree fully with you . You are always refering to only one book which you project. All the calculations in vasthu are based on "ayadi calculations " that does not depend on the roof or wooden rafters. There are different books in Indian architecture like "manasaram " mayamatam" and manunshyalaya chandrika. This are the original books which yiou have to refer. A vastupurshamandala(grid) is created and the plan is designed according to that. So the involvement of wooden rafters are not coming to pic. In any construction to my knowledge roof is designed last . So the measurements of the base are made . For example normally architects give a bed room size "360x390 cms ". The vastu merasurement for this is 390X366" . This based on sacred geometry . Even wooden rafters can be made for a measurement of 360X390 cms as well as 366X390cms. What is wrong with kol measurements ? it is a system of measurement which existed here before the arrival of meter and cms.
A nalukettu is not a simple house with courtyard. it is an agglomeration of four houses. So strict measurement system has to be followed for nalukettu . Even for the courtyard there are measurements. Architecure and cicvil engineering might have improved . But like Ayurveda local aarchitecure has also its significance.
Regards
Dear Thomas,
ReplyDeleteYou can read about vasthupurusha mandaala from the following links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastu_Shastra
http://architectureideas.info/2008/10/vastu-purusha-mandala/
In addition in kerala itself there are people who have doctorates in vastu. They are Dr. Ouseph (former vice chancellor of kalady university) , Dr. Asha latha thampuran(both of them have written books on vastu) ,and an excellent work is by Dr. Balagopal prabhu (An engineering commentary on "manushalaya chandrika" ( former principal of REC calicut).As you stated local asharis have limited knowledge . |They simply follow the procedures. But the reasons behind the same are not known to them.
Another book by Dr. Ganapathy sthapathy (he died recently) "Building Architecture of sthpathya veda " will give you why this measurements have importance. "Vastu Archi
Design Theory & Application for Everyday " By Micchel Borden will aso strengthen your arsnel.
An excellent seminar can be seen on his site. The link is given below.
http://www.vastu-design.com/lesson1.php
This materials are useful to any one who is interested in vasthu and want to understnad more about it.
All this shows that measurement system has significance in vastu.
Regards
Pradeep