Planning a dwelling — the seven moves, with their references
1 · Site, orientation & sun
Read the sun before the plot: at 28.6°N the noon sun stands at 84.85° on
Jun 21 and 37.95° on Dec 21 — that ~47° swing is the whole game. Put living
and bedroom glass on the true NORTH (daylight without heat) and true SOUTH (low winter sun in, high
summer sun shaded by a chhajja whose shadow is depth × tan(VSA)). Keep west
glass few and small — low afternoon sun defeats any horizontal overhang; buffer the west with
kitchen, baths, stores and wardrobes. Entrance sits on the road-facing edge.
References: Solar engine (sun geometry, chhajja shading); NBC Part 8 Sec 1 (Vol. 2): air changes — bedrooms 2–4, living 3–6, baths 6–10 ACH (cl. 5.2.2.1).
2 · Air — cross-ventilation
Every habitable room needs openable area ≥ 1/10 of floor (bath minimum
0.3 m² with 0.3 m side). One-sided rooms breathe ~2.5× ceiling-height deep;
cross-ventilated rooms 5×. Give each habitable room openings on two walls — opposite walls best,
inlet toward the prevailing wind (SW over most of India; wind names are FROM-compass). An interior
room with no external opening needs a ventilation shaft sized by building height, or a fan.
References: Ventilation engine (NBC openable-area rule, BS 5925 flow classes); NBC shaft table — verify local bye-law.
3 · Room sizes that pass
Largest habitable room ≥ 9.5 m² and ≥ 2.4 m wide;
every other habitable room ≥ 7.5 m² at 2.1 m.
Kitchen with separate dining ≥ 5.0 m² at 1.8 m (4.5 m² if a store exists);
kitchen-cum-dining ≥ 7.5 m² at 2.1 m. Bath ≥ 1.8 m², WC ≥ 1.1 m², combined
≥ 2.8 m² at 1.2 m — every bath touches external air, and a WC never opens
into the kitchen. Heights: habitable 2.75 m, bath 2.1 m, under-beam 2.4 m.
References: NBC 2016 Part 3, cl. 12.2–12.4 (Circulation engine checks these per plan).
4 · Circulation, stairs & escape
A passage must be at least as wide as the widest doorway discharging through it and never longer
than 15 m as a dead end. The exit doorway is ≥ 1.0 m
clear. Residential stairs: width 1.0 m (0.75 m only for 2-storey row
housing), tread ≥ 250 mm, riser ≤ 190 mm, 12 risers
a flight, headroom 2.2 m. Farthest point to an exit ≤ 30 m (Types 1&2
construction). Occupant load counts at 12.5 m²/person; every 10 mm of stair
width carries one person, every 6.5 mm of doorway width one person.
References: Part 3 cl. 12.18; Part 4 cl. 4.3, 4.4.2, Tables 3–5 (Circulation and Fire & Egress engines).
5 · Structure — from plan to members
Keep wall lines on a shared grid (the AI Designer merges walls within 500 mm) so columns line up
and beams run continuously. Design live loads for dwellings: rooms and kitchens
2.0 kN/m², corridors, stairs and stores 3.0 kN/m²
(the classic under-design), balconies 3.0 plus 1.5 kN/m at the free edge,
accessible flat roofs 1.5. Then the chain: Loads → Load Takedown → beam / column / footing / slab /
stair engines → seismic check → detail plates and bar bending schedules.
References: Part 6 Sec 1, Tables 1–2 (Loads engine); IS 456 suite with 75 pinned regression values.
6 · Services planned early
Stack wet rooms: baths back-to-back and over each other, kitchen near a bath cluster — every
bathroom on an external wall gives its soil stack (100 mm) a straight
drop, waste stacks 75 mm, house drain 100 mm @ 1:60 up to 160 fixture
units. Electrical: one light per ~10 m², dedicated circuits for AC and geyser, DB at the entrance.
The AI Designer draws both layouts from the furnished plan.
References: Electrical and Plumbing engines (conventions); services drawings; NBC Part 9 Sec 2 Table 18 (DFU) & Table 20 (stacks); Part 9 Sec 1 cl. 4.1.1 (water) — see the Services Rules engine.
7 · Paperwork that sanctions
File the notice with: key plan (≥1:10 000), site plan (≥1:500 up to 1 ha), building plans at
1:100 with all floors, one front elevation, one section through the
staircase, structural arrangement, terrace plan and north point; services plans; specifications;
structural sufficiency and supervision certificates; fee receipt. Height ≥ 15 m
or listed occupancies over 500 m² trigger high-rise scrutiny incl. Part 4 fire requirements.
Sanction lives 3 years; deviations need prior approval.
References: Part 2 cl. 12 (Admin engine walks this as a checklist).
Find the clause — both volumes of the Code, indexed
Source. The clause index is machine-extracted from the full text of the
National Building Code of India 2016 — Volume 1 (books/nationalbuilding01.pdf) AND Volume 2, Parts 7–12 (books/in.gov.nbc.2016.vol2.digital.pdf) — every heading with
its Part and PDF page, so you can open the printed page and read the clause in full. Headings carry
the OCR of the scan; always read the printed clause before relying on it. The topic cards above
quote only values verified in the suite's engines.