Ar. N. S. Abhayakumar receiving the First Prize in the design competition conducted by the National Housing Bank from Shri. Satendra Singh, Principal Secretary, at the World Habitat Day celebrations organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, on 5 October 2026. Shri Tokhan Sahu, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, graced the event.

About the competition :
In alignment with the National Housing Bank’s mission to promote sustainable and inclusive housing development, the Bank has instituted an award “NHB Award for Best Design in Affordable Housing” to encourage innovation and excellence in housing design. The award will recognize and encourage innovative, sustainable, and inclusive housing designs that address the challenges of affordability, sustainability, space constraints and adaptability to India’s varied climate/topographical zones while offering quality living conditions.

Objective of the Award : The awards aim to

• Promote innovation in “Beneficiary led construction” design on small piece of land.
• Address the unique challenges of India’s varied climate zones.
• Encourage sustainable and environment – friendly construction practices.
• Promote cost-effective and culturally appropriate housing solutions.
• Encourage beneficiary-led construction approaches that optimize the use of small plots of
  land.
• Encourage students and architects to design innovative, affordable, and green buildings.
• Provide a platform for showcasing designs that meet the needs of low-income communities
  without compromising quality or sustainability.

Ar. N S Abhayakumar receives the First prize in the Category of Cost-Effective Rural / Urban Housing Deploying Innovative / Emerging & Disaster Resistant Technology for Project Bhoomika from Shri. Sanjay Kulshrestha, Chairman & Managing Director, HUDCO at the 54th Foundation Day celebrations of HUDCO at the Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

Project Bhoomika, Haripad, Alappuzha, Dist. Kerala designed by Ar. N S Abhayakumar, has been selected for the First Prize by the Jury under the Category-1 Cost Effective Rural / Urban Housing Deploying Innovative / Emerging & Disaster Resistant Technology of HUDCO Design Awards 2023-24.

The prime objective of this prestigious National Awards is to encourage and appreciate the creative and innovative thinking put in by the professionals to make our cities sustainable and more livable. The five categories as approved by HUDCO Board for the HUDCO Design Awards are as follows:

Cost Effective Rural / Urban Housing deploying Innovative / Emerging and Disaster Resistant technologies

New and Innovative Town Design Solutions / Eco-cities

Conservation of Heritage

Green Buildings

Landscape Planning and Design

The first HUDCO Design Awards competition was launched on World Habitat Day 2012. Since then, every year the event had been successfully hosted and organized. HUDCO Design Awards as a design competition event has received positive response and appreciation from the practicing professionals in the urban development sector and has contributed to the brand building image of HUDCO.

Construction photographs

The formal kick-off to the project!
4th November, 2019.
By Dr Adeela Abdullah IAS, Collector of Alappuzha, attended by Office bearers members of the Local bodies in which the beneficiaries sites are situated.
Mr Ganesh, AVP Godrej South India
Mr Jayaram, Commercial head, Kerala, represented the principal Sponsor Godrej at the Function

We will call him S.

Being a practicing architect, it is very common for me when my clients ask  “can the bedroom be a little bigger, its just 15×12, or 13×11 to 16x 14 or 18 x 14 etc etc.

So when you visit a place of residence of 6 and find that the only habitable room in that house is 7ft x 9ft (roughly), it gives a sense of stark reality.

And to add that the family has 2 differently abled people too, apart from S.

S lives with his family of 6, in a tiny patch of land on the banks of Vembanad lake. He belongs to the fishermen community, and he got this land from his father.

One child having Cerebral Palsy, while his mom, is bedridden and don’t have any memory left, an unmarried sister, another senior citizen.

This house had waist-high water almost for a week in this Floods,, making it dangerous to live there as the walls are completely soaked, foundations have settled, with cracks in the wall.

We met with panchayath team, and locals, who have housed them now in a rented place nearby. The district administration will assist us in all the legal formalities, for the rebuild of this house.

Email: keralatwozero@gmail.com for more details.

Mufeed is just 4, he can’t speak, nor walk and need prolonged physiotherapy.

He has “Global developmental delay”, but is showing improvement with multiple therapy sessions.

Well, his medical condition is not the result of the Floods but this poor families life is completely altered after the devastation. While they struggle to find their footing, with a destroyed house, they need help to get his physiotherapy sessions going.

His physio tells us that the sessions should not stop and should be continuous and long-term. We are supporting him for a full year of therapy sessions, financially.  12 of us are paying it up every month, which is a model that can be adapted to ease the pressure on each donor.

There are many who ask, whom do we help?

There are many such kids around who need your support, whose life might be indirectly affected by the Floods.

PS:
We are not publishing his identity here, but those who want to send him a note of love, you can email us at keralatwozero@gmail.com for his contact details.