The Architectural Engineering Division Gold Medal
A case has been presented for the adoption of vault forms for large-scale construction of low-cost dwelling units using appropriate building components. A complete building system has been designed for a typical dwelling unit of area 25 m2, using coconut shell sandwich panels for the building envelope and coconut shell cellular blocks for the construction of cross walls. A vault-shaped steel framework system has been developed and fabricated to facilitate speedy and repetitive construction of the vaults. Two prototype dwelling units have also been successfully constructed using the developed technology in Kerala, where coconuts are available in abundance.
