And also, this is a kind of partial upgrade with reclaimed materials they have the developed with the kind of whatever, they have able to procure from the past site or with their feasibilities, they have made some modifications to their shelters. And within a month 53% of the house owners have started to upgrade their shelters and this is very quick, within a month if this kind of change is 53%.

The priorities were first doors, second walls and the third is windows, so the ventilation aspect. And some beneficiaries bought their own timber for walls, doors and windows as we have seen in this complete set is in a timber. For the outset and used the plastic sheeting provided to the line of the walls, so they covered with a kind of partial covering with a plastic sheet.

Others sold a plastic sheeting and hired the local artisans to build adobe walls. So, they have given it back and they sold it in the market and they could able to get some money and they could able to put some more money and built the adobe walls and so this whole process you know, it’s all showing up an incremental process depending on each household what kind of economic feasibility they had, what kind of infill they are responding to their needs and demands.

So, with this, the government have understood that yes there is a possibility that to scale up this process. So, now what they did was they developed from 18 square meters to 20 square meters and the permanent walls of adobe and timber and they launched the project build about 40,000 low cost houses. So, by the end of March 2009, it is about 16,240 were built and mainly with the partnership of UNHCR and MoSSP.

But when you talk about the theoretical understanding of it, you know as I said you in the beginning transition shelter is not a noun, it is a verb, it is a process. So, as Christopher Alexander describes a house is an activity which is ‘created gradually, as a direct result of living which is happening in it and around it’ by people who spend only what they can afford.

When you talk about the use value derived from this approach was more significant than the market value, as what housing does for the user is more important than what it is. So, this is not a product, it is a process how man evolves, a house into a home. And he tried to see that the use value is more significant than the market value.

John Habraken supports on 3 levels of decision making; one is the tissue and the support which is the base building. The tissue refers to the urban fabric and the support refers to the base building and the fitout refers to the infill, what the people have done in their houses and the tissue tends to remain the same because it’s a larger content and the supports will change with time and infill will change more regularly.

Similarly, buildings are also essentially made of 6 time bound layers. This is space time phenomenon which Ian Bentley also talks about it. One is a site, which generally does not change, although a few buildings are transportable. The structure, the foundations and load bearing element are expensive to change because in the structure, once if you setup the foundation, it is very difficult to change. You can break the walls; you can take out the prefab walls, so people generally try to avoid doing that. The skin which is the exterior surfaces and these may change over 20 years or so. Whereas, the services working guts of a building, electrics, plumbing which wear out periodically, so you need a periodic maintenance of it. A space plan, an interior layout, where walls, ceilings, floors and doors go commercial spaces can change as often as every 3 years and remain the same for 30 years. And the stuff, the intermediate elements of furniture, appliances may change even monthly or even daily.

If the intervention is permanent construction, then the standardized structural options designed in collaboration with end users can be developed into standard bill of quantities and set key-stage grant disbursements. Because each stage we have to look at the funding allocation as well and while still allowing flexibility on the design of skin and space plan.

when we are dealing with this kind of poor communities, one has to look at the livelihoods framework, it is not just only a shelter and this is where, the defeats ASAL framework to sustainable livelihood framework is very apt and considering because how an individual or a communities or a social group, how their abilities to access certain resources whether it is a social, economic, human, natural, political.

The enabling approach recognizes the bottleneck to housing created limited access to finance. So, we talked about the cash flows, we talked about how at a stage wise, how we can deliver the financial disbursement.

Also, the materials and labour because materials have a major cost implications and also inappropriate building regulations can inhabit the production of housing.

The people and governance, where we talk about how we can engage the people to participate individually and as well as collectively. The national policy making, the planning and implementation, monitoring of housing projects and the managing of the services and wider political processes.

So, this can gradually lead to an important transition in their lives because they can be self-reliable, they can make their own system, they can rely on that system they can. Only we need to provide a little support system in order to progress with it.