HAFEEZ CONTRACTOR ON COST PRESSURES AND SMARTER HOUSING DESIGN

As construction costs continue to climb across India, conversations around housing have become sharply focused on cement, steel, and labour. But according to Hafeez Contractor, the real issue begins much earlier than procurement, it begins at the drawing board. The most decisive cost factors, he argues, are embedded in planning, proportion, structural logic, and the architect’s understanding of how a building actually performs. Material prices may fluctuate, but inefficient design decisions, once built, are permanent.

Q How are rising input costs — cement, steel, and labour, currently influencing design decisions on the ground?

Before discussing the price of materials, the more fundamental question is how much material a building actually consumes. Two architects designing on the same plot, with identical carpet areas, can arrive at very different material quantities depending on how the building is conceived. Primary material costs are driven by decisions made early on the drawing board — the overall size and proportions of the building, aspect ratios, grid dimensions, the way the building edges are designed, and whether formwork and structural systems are optimised. Cost efficiency is not simply a matter of coordination between architect and engineer; it is more significantly about whether the architect has a sound understanding of structure, construction technology, and load behaviour. A well-designed building resists torsion efficiently, responds intelligently to wind and seismic forces, and avoids unnecessary structural excess. Once the layout is optimised for performance and efficiency, fluctuations in material prices become relatively marginal. This is the part that is most often overlooked in buildings, particularly housing, even though it offers the greatest potential for savings.

Q What compromises or adjustments are developers making in layouts and amenities to manage budgets, and how do these affect livability?

One of the biggest problems is that many developers don’t actually know when they are being sold a poorly designed plan. They may not always recognise when a plan is inefficient or when design decisions are working against long-term value. They are willing to compromise on the overall layout, on landscape, on core planning, as long as the carpet area looks good. While the carpet area may appear attractive on paper, inefficiencies in cores, oversized columns, redundant structural systems, or excessive circulation ultimately increase construction costs and diminish livability. Livability is not just about numbers. It’s about spatial experience, how the building feels to live in, how it functions over time, and whether the cost truly translates into value for the end user. If you don’t understand that relationship, you end up with a building that is neither economical nor pleasant to live in.

Q From an architectural perspective, what creative strategies can balance affordability with functionality and design intent, without diluting quality?

The most critical and surprisingly under-addressed factor is planning efficiency. The more fragmented a building becomes, the more edges, columns, beams, lobbies, and corridors it requires. Even if carpet areas are preserved, the built-up area increases, and with it, cost. Architects must understand buildings holistically. Designing high-rises without a clear grasp of wind behaviour, seismic forces, and structural logic is a fundamental failure. Equally important is knowing when and how to deploy construction technologies appropriately. For instance, take the example of the project we’re doing, the CIDCO PMAY housing project, one of the largest affordable housing initiatives in the country, one would assume that using aluminium formwork for an affordable housing scheme is counterintuitive, given its higher upfront cost compared to conventional RCC construction. However, the sheer scale and repetition of the project allowed the same formwork modules to be reused extensively, resulting in substantial cost savings while significantly improving construction quality and speed. Scale, when understood correctly, can transform an expensive system into an economical one.

Q Looking ahead, do you see cost pressures reshaping the way Indian housing projects are conceived, in terms of balconies, common spaces, or efficiency ratios?

This will always depend on the market segment and the developer’s intent. In luxury housing, certain expectations, balconies, generous common spaces, amenities, remain non-negotiable. In other segments, these elements may be reconsidered or reinterpreted. That said, broader environmental realities will increasingly influence design choices. Rising pollution levels may challenge the conventional idea of open balconies, while climate stress could make it essential to integrate green buffers, shaded spaces, or planted zones at multiple levels in a building. These may no longer be optional amenities but necessary architectural responses to heat, air quality, and urban density. In that sense, future housing may involve strategic trade offs, modest spatial compromises that respond to larger ecological and urban consequences created over decades of unchecked growth.