Hatheri: Awas Yojana House

As a part of the “Greening the Indira Awas Yojana (now the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana) Project”; a joint initiative of the Government of Maharashtra and UNDP, Design Jatra designed and implemented five prototype houses in the village of Hateri of Jawhar Taluka of Palghar district. The houses represented the design philosophy of the team, generated through the findings of an intensive year-long documentation program carried out through the state of Maharashtra. 

At the core of the design principles was the process of participation. The houses were set to be examples of participatory design leading to environmentally sensitive structures. Each house was designed differently to suit the needs of individual families. However, the design process was standardized and was expected to be the prototype process that the state would follow for the implementation and design of  PMAY houses. 

Emphasis was given to the reuse of old materials, the use of natural materials like mud and timber, climate sensitivity, and disaster resilience. The houses that the process generated have withstood multiple earthquakes that the region now faces and two major storms. Design Jatra hopes that such participatory processes of design and execution become more mainstream and give rise to user-friendly and environmentally sensitive structures under mass schemes like PMAY.