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3,800 sq ft structural shell, Shauryapuram

A Structure package build: foundation to plaster, handed over as a complete shell for the owner to finish on his own timeline. Committed in nine months, handed over in eight months and thirteen days.

Locality: ShauryapuramGhaziabad
Built-up area: 3,800 sq ftAll floors
Scope: StructureFoundation to plaster
Timeline: 8 months 13 daysCommitted 9 months — 17 days early

The structural shell at Shauryapuram, Ghaziabad — RCC frame with external plaster going up behind bamboo scaffolding. — External plaster going up on the side elevation. The frame, the brickwork and the plaster are the whole of a Structure build.

The build

This house was built to the Structure package — the shell and nothing else. Foundation, columns, slabs, staircase, brickwork and plaster. No flooring, no fittings, no paint. The owner wanted the structure put up properly by an engineer and the finishing done later, on his own schedule and largely with his own choices.

That decision is more common than the market admits, and it changes what the photographs below are. On a finished house you are shown the façade and the kitchen. Here there is no kitchen to show. What there is, is every stage that decides whether the house stands straight in twenty years — and that is the part a shell client is actually buying.

The structural specification was the same one published on our rates page: OPC 53 cement, Fe500D steel, M20 or M25 concrete to the structural drawing prepared for this house, Class-A red brick, 12 mm internal and 15 mm external plaster with fibreglass mesh at every wall-column junction. Reinforcement was checked against the drawing before each pour — bar diameter, spacing, cover and lap length — and photographed before the concrete went in, which is why the steel photographs below exist at all.

Nine months committed, eight months and thirteen days taken

The commitment at the start was nine months. Handover was at eight months and thirteen days — seventeen days inside the committed date.

We publish the committed figure next to the actual one because the committed figure is the one that can be checked against the contract, and because a builder who only tells you the actual duration is telling you nothing. A house finished in eight months against a six-month promise is late. This one was not.

To be added here: what changed mid-build on this house — a design change, something found in the ground, a material that moved — what it cost, how it was priced, and when the owner was told. One honest paragraph on this does more for a prospective client than the whole page above it.

Stage by stage

The same photographic record our clients receive week by week, shown here in the order it was built.

Foundation and plinth

Excavation, PCC, footings and the plinth beam, then the columns taken up from the footings to plinth level. Anti-termite reticulation piping is laid in at this level — it cannot be added once the structure is up.

Columns risen from the footings to plinth level, with the sump excavation still open and brick stacked on site. — Columns up from the footings, plinth level set out, sump still open

Column reinforcement cages standing above cast columns, with plinth brickwork laid along the line of the walls. — Column cages tied for the next lift, plinth brickwork following the wall lines

Columns and brickwork

Columns cast lift by lift, with the brickwork built in between them rather than carrying the load. Class-A red brick, laid to the structural drawing, with the column faces left clean for plaster to key into later.

Red brick walls built between cast RCC columns, with reinforcement projecting above for the next lift. — Brick walls between the RCC columns, steel projecting for the next lift

Wider view of the site with brickwork up to lintel level and column steel projecting above the slab. — Brickwork at lintel level, column steel waiting above the slab

Slab and staircase reinforcement

Shuttering, then the slab steel laid, tied and checked against the structural drawing before concrete was called. This is the one stage that is impossible to inspect afterwards, which is exactly why it is photographed.

Full slab reinforcement mesh tied over timber formwork, checked and ready for the concrete pour. — Slab reinforcement tied and checked, the morning before the pour

Staircase reinforcement tied over shuttered treads and risers, with timber props below. — Staircase steel over shuttered treads — the detail most sites rush

Slab casting

Concrete placed, spread and screeded in a single continuous pour so the slab sets as one piece rather than in sections with cold joints between them. Pours were scheduled early in the day to get the whole slab down before the light went.

Workers placing and screeding concrete across the slab reinforcement during a continuous pour on a winter morning. — The pour under way — placed and screeded across the slab in one go

Plaster and handover

12 mm internal and 15 mm external plaster, with fibreglass mesh at every wall-column and wall-beam junction — the joints where plaster cracks first if the mesh is skipped. The shell was handed over at this point, which is where the Structure package ends.

Interior of the house after plaster, showing beams, the slab soffit, framed openings and plastered walls. — Interior after plaster — beams, soffit and framed openings

A plastered room with a framed window opening, ready for the owner's finishing contractor. — A room as handed over, ready for the owner's finishing work

What a Structure handover does not include

Worth stating plainly on a page full of photographs of bare concrete. Waterproofing, flooring, tiling, doors, windows, sanitaryware, electrical and plumbing fittings, paint, the overhead tank, railing and gate were not part of this contract and were not charged for. They are all included in the Essential package, at ₹1,650 per sq ft instead of ₹1,200.

If you are deciding between the two, the structure itself is identical — same cement, same steel, same concrete mix, same masonry, same plaster. You are choosing when to pay for finishing, not what grade of house you get. The full specification for both is published here.

Want the same record on your own build?

Send your plot details and we will come back with a written scope and a rate. Quoting costs nothing, and you will be speaking to the engineer who ran this site.

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