| Summary: | The paper identifes technology as a key solution for the challenges of sustainability
and quality in housing and recognizes benchmarking as a tool for selection of appropriate
technologies. Suitability of technologies for housing has been explored in respect of functional
needs, sustainability needs, and performance standards. These issues have brought out the
need for an objective methodology for selection of appropriate technologies, especially for
mass housing. The objective framework has been developed by identifcation of needs of
large scale projects, assessment of current issues and their shortcomings and development
of objective parameters. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has been used as tool for
benchmarking. The case example of the technologies promoted by Government of India
for “Housing for All” Mission has been taken up for development of the framework and
benchmarking. Findings from the QFD process highlight that these emerging technologies
cater to limited building elements and not for the building system as a whole. Inconsistencies
amongst performance of these technologies on various parameters have been demonstrated.
It is concluded that assessment and benchmarking of technologies give useful insights into
the comparative performance of each of these technologies and is hence, a useful tool for
selection of appropriate technology for housing.
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