Abu Dhabi: Families learn all about planning and designing their own home

A training workshop to educate Emirati families on all aspects of home planning, including choosing a good design, what a home should entail and how to allocate budget, was held in the Capital.

How do you review your home plans? Organised by UAE General Women's Union, is part of a programme that aims at enhancing the family’s awareness about proper home planning.

Officials said the process of planning to build a new house, or modernising the existing home, requires access to the scientific and engineering foundations, design and decoration or self-learning, in order to avoid errors, and bring the idea to reality with a high quality, and at the lowest cost, which requires the use of experts in this field.

Eng. Tariq Al Hammadi highlighted the importance of working with a consultant, defining a budget and space requirements. “It is good thing to give the engineering consultant the opportunity to express his creative vision for the planned home. The family then needs to take enough time to review the plan when the consultant finishes preparing it and before its implementation,” he said.

He pointed out to the importance of looking into the scheme. "The 3-D design depends on four main points, which are the family budget, the land area, the number of family members and their needs, and the nature of the family's social life,” he explained.

Crucial areas in designing a house plan

The expert noted that there are three areas to look at in the house plan; which include architectural, construction and services.

The architectural plans involves following up on the total building area that fits the family budget, taking into account the trends of the sun, especially in the views, the number of entrance degrees and whether the family needs a slope. “The architectural plan also involves things like the allocation of a place where to put shoes at the entrance, the presence of an entrance separate from the hall, an appropriate view of it, knowledge of the appropriate space for bathrooms and the distribution of sanitary kits, the presence of sufficient spaces for bedrooms and clothes for those who will use them, and the prior knowledge of the areas of workers’ rooms, laundry, ironing and kitchen, determining the dining area for the family, the sitting halls which should be designed according to the number of people in the house and guests, an office and a children’s room should be allotted if the family needs it,” he said.

As for the construction plans, the engineer explained that the locations and sizes of the columns must be decided upon by the engineers and the family. And for the the services plans, the location of the main electrical panels, air-conditioners, internal and external lighting, overhead tanks and others must be determined with inputs from the family.

UAE nationals who have worked for at least 15 years and lived in the UAE for a decade or longer can apply for loans ranging from Dh500,000 to Dh2.25 million from the government to buy a home or a plot of land to build a house. They are then left to find contractors and desired plans for their homes.

This loan has to be repaid over the remainder of their lives but can sometimes be waived if a directive is issued. Typically, these directives exempt retired or low-income Emiratis.

The loans are distributed by the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme. An alternative scheme is run by the Abu Dhabi Housing Authority.

The Abu Dhabi Housing Authority said on its website that it was also working on expanding the base of beneficiaries of financial grants to allow citizens with lower-income to receive a loan of Dh1,250,000.

The loan is repaid only when the financial situation of the beneficiary has improved. The payment is done through instalments for a period not exceeding 25 years.

• Abu Dhabi