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| Underground/Basement apartment with Swimming pool |
Living underground saves you from the
stress and headaches that the noise and buzzes of the city brings especially for
those living in industrialized cities; cities that never sleep like Lagos. Research
has shown that adequate noise control reduces stress levels and reduced stress
levels in humans is synonymous with longevity.
Everyone wants to live long
and wealthy but living long in big and busy cities where wealth is perceived to
be abundant means accepting stress as part of life. Avoiding stress and
promoting healthy and peaceful living could mean living below earth but not as
a corpse though. Besides, it is generally safer to live under the ground
especially in war-torn or conflict-prone regions to avoid straying bullets and other
forms of attacks.
At a time when insurgency and rebellion has become a part of
our society, there is no better time to tilt our line of thoughts towards the
design and construction of basement apartments at least for the sake of safety
and peace than now. However glaring the
benefits of underground or basement apartments are to occupants, most Nigerians
haven’t been able to fully take advantage of it either because of the false fears
of the cost implication of such a project or the erroneous belief that there
are no indigenous contractors/builders that can construct them properly.
City homes and mansions without
basement apartments are like jeans without pockets; they are actually
under-utilized. However truth be told, a lot of work goes into the construction
of basement apartments; from stopping water to ensuring adequate lighting and
ventilation all day long and then working towards the attainment of all other
established functional requirements; a process in tandem with the old saying that
‘nothing good comes easy’.
Here are few tips to guide you;
Confirm that no
existing laws, bye-laws or regulations bar you from putting up a sub-surface or
underground apartment on that land; get a comprehensive architectural,
structural and services designs that takes care of space arrangement, lighting
and ventilation provisions as stipulated in the relevant design and building
codes as well as other functional requirements and get statutory approvals; then,
employ the services of a qualified contractor to handle the job.
The work
processes are as follows; excavate the portion of land to build the apartment
using manual or mechanical methods; protect the earth from collapsing by using
earthwork supports commonly made from timber or structural steel; construct the
basement floor slab over a bed of hardcore and damp-proof membrane using
suitable materials like stainless steel or reinforced concrete of appropriate
mix. Construct the external walls of reinforced concrete or solid blocks/bricks
and depending on the water table, fix a damp proof membrane over the wall
surface and blind properly to stop water ingress and insert a damp proof course
to stop water capillarity (upward); allow for openings at surface levels
according to the design and ditto for all other works. Only special finishing
materials designed for basement structures should be used and care must be
taken not to trap workers inside the earth or allow them suffocate in the
process of constructing.
The cost of constructing a basement
structure is not always exceptionally high. For instance, from industry
estimates, a budget of 4 Million Naira can complete the construction of a room
self-contain basement apartment in the Lekki-Ajah axis of Lagos (an area with
generally poor soil conditions and high water table); only a 55% increase from
the cost of constructing the same structure on a surface level in the same
area. On the mainland where the soil conditions are relatively better, the cost
is pretty lower (down by about 30%). Interestingly, for Estate developers,
building sub-surface studio apartments is an added advantage in the market. By
and large, the advantages of underground rooms are far beyond mere additional
living spaces on the same plot.
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