B.Arch CurriculumFree, forever
A tribute to Amogh N P
Housing
India's housing problem is not a shortage of buildings — it is a shortage of affordable, adequate, secure-tenure shelter for the poor. This course teaches housing as John Turner taught it: as a verb, not a noun — what housing DOES for people (its location, security, fit and the control they have over it) matters more than what it physically is. Five units build the full picture: how to read housing typology and calculate future need; the agencies and policies that deliver it (HUDCO, the housing boards, and PMAY); the socio-economic core of affordability, income categories and slum rehabilitation; the standards that protect — or exclude — the poor; and the design process from layout to allocation, with the great Indian case studies of Aranya and Belapur.
Course byAmogh N P· Architect & interior designer
Five units, from counting need to designing the dwelling.
5 units · 5 liveTranscribed from the official B.Arch syllabus. All 5 units are live as full interactive lessons, each with original diagrams, a self-assessment quiz and a studio task.
Unit 1 — Introduction to Housing
LiveHousing typology (detached, semi-detached, row, walk-up, high-rise, cluster; tenure and formality); housing demand vs supply and the gap between need and effective demand; the calculation of future housing need (new household formation, existing backlog, replacement of obsolete and kutcha stock, upgradation of congestion and the homeless); and housing resources and options from turnkey units to site-and-services.
Unit 2 — Housing Agencies & Policies
LiveThe Indian housing institutions — HUDCO (1970), the State Housing Boards (TNHB, MHADA), housing co-operatives, the National Housing Bank (1988) and housing finance; the policy timeline from the National Housing Policy 1988 through the NUHHP 2007 to PMAY (Urban, 2015) and its four verticals, and the 2024 PMAY-U 2.0 revision; with a glance at Singapore's HDB and UK council housing.
Unit 3 — Socio-Economic Aspects
LiveSocial factors in housing design (family structure, community, privacy gradients, gender, culture); affordability and its norms (the price-to-income multiple and the EMI/income ceiling); the PMAY income categories EWS, LIG, MIG-I, MIG-II and their carpet-area limits; economic factors and housing concepts; and slum rehabilitation and resettlement — in-situ versus relocation and the Mumbai SRA cross-subsidy model.
Unit 4 — Housing Standards
LiveThe types of housing standards (space, density, infrastructure, performance); the methodology of formulating standards (normative versus performance-based); the relevance — and the danger — of standards (high minimum standards can price the poor out of legality, the Turner/Mumtaz critique); and the Indian reference norms, NBC 2016 Part 3 minimum room sizes and the URDPFI density and social-infrastructure guidelines.
Unit 5 — Housing Design Process
LiveThe stages of a housing project (need assessment, site selection, programming, layout, dwelling design, infrastructure, construction, allocation and management); layout design including utilities and common facilities and the road hierarchy; housing as a response to environment, technology and community; site-and-services and incremental housing (Aranya, Indore); and case studies of public, private and co-operative housing with their advantages and disadvantages.
Course outcomes
What you will be able to doUnderstand the schemes and policies in housing in India and the institutions that deliver them.
Understand the socio-economic aspects of people and the need for housing.
Gain knowledge of housing standards and how they are formulated.
Apply knowledge of the housing design process to a housing layout and dwelling.
Distinguish government, private and co-operative housing and their advantages.
Arrive at design ideas for a large-scale housing project.
The author
Amogh N P
Architect, interior designer, and creative polymath. Studio Matrx began in his notebooks — his vision of design made honest, useful, and open to everyone. Its Academy is written and taught in his memory, and free, forever.
More about Amogh →Housing is a verb, not a noun.
Typology and need, agencies and policy, affordability and slums, standards and the design process. Read the five units, study the diagrams, then test yourself.
The curriculum is free, forever