For safe, sustainable buildings
The Hindu
Low-rises have shown a vulnerability to natural calamities because of non-intervention by structural engineers. A look by civil engineer Shrikant.S. Channal in the wake of recent building collapses
The National Building Code-2016 has made it mandatory to involve appropriate professionals in all stages of construction work in view of the increasing number of building collapses due to lapses in safety issues. This is particularly so in below G+4 category building designs. It is found that the low-rise building category, which forms 98% of the total housing in the country, seems defenseless and susceptible to natural calamities such as earthquakes, cyclones, floods, etc., due to non-involvement of structural engineers and other engineering inputs.
Increased urban population density demands innumerable number of civic amenities in order to keep life safe and comfortable. Systematic, controlled physical growth of the city is one of the primary objectives of any governing civic body. Controlled building growth vertically and horizontally becomes an absolute necessity. A kind of Master Plan (generally called CDP-Comprehensive Development Plan) will be prepared by urban engineering experts well in advance to guide the intended development for the city/town. That is how “Building Bye-Laws” (BBL) comes into existence and taken up later as part of Master Plan/CDP. The primary intention of BBL is to restrict and guide the spatial development of the city/town and the buildings that are popularly covered under the title “Zoning Regulations” in the CDP.