Metal house: an upcoming home trend

Living Steel is a program sponsored by the International Iron and Steel Institute. This is a project aimed at promoting new innovations in metal housing design whose members are big names in the industry, such as: Arcelor, BlueScope Steel, Baosteel, CELSA Group, Erdemir , IMIDRO, Mittal Steel, Posco, Ruuki and Tata Steel.

In 2005, Living Steel organized a metal design competition called "Environmentally Friendly Metal Design Competition" and one of the winners was Piercy Conner with a housing project in Kolkata.

The Kolkata metal housing project consists of many blocks of five floors each with eight apartments with an area of ​​112m2 each. As the climate in Kolkata is hot and humid in summer and cool in winter, the goal is to design a natural ventilation home with a summer air conditioner. Apartments targeting customers are high-income families, not crowded.

Panorama of the building (Photo: uia-architectes.org)

The main concept when designing is to create an apartment with a light and airy structure to "penetrate" air from outside to create a pleasant transition between the outside and the inside. In order to do so, the designer created an empty architectural cover like iron blinds or curtains, which could open up the air to enter the house, but inside had a closed space made of glass for air-conditioning (rooms with hot and stuffy rushes of summer).

These panels are inspired by the traditional architecture of the Islamic region of Indian culture, both light and airy, natural light is not closed to the surrounding community. Doors are also made to open in ten different angles in accordance with the sun's year-round lighting in this area.

Warm in the night (Photo: uia-architectes.org)

In terms of structure, the building has a steel frame with a fake concrete floor pouring on a steel floor. Housing frames are pre-made and assembled in place, other parts of the house are loose " kit " parts of kit that will be attached as required after the frame is finished. All are very convenient for calculating investment costs (accurate and not much).

Regarding environmental protection technologies, the building uses a home heating and cooling design thanks to a closed system that takes heat from the ground. Solar energy is also thoroughly used for buildings.

Judging by this design, the judges of the contest praised: 'The design is very impressive because of simplicity and serenity. In particular, we appreciate the idea of ​​ventilation and space-saving design. '

Perspective of an apartment in Kolkata residence (Photo: uia-architectes.org)

South East