Sustainable housing can be defined as housing that can address the social, economic, and cultural needs of the residents. Sustainable housing should be energy efficient and affordable for low-income groups. Nepal Government has listed 22 ethnic groups as marginalized groups among which 17 ethnic groups reside in the Terai region. Among those 17 groups, the highly marginalized group is the Musahar group who is socially deprived. Many private sectors have been involved in the making of affordable housing who are mainly focused on quantity rather than quality. So, the main purpose of this research is to assess the sustainability of the integrated model settlement established by the Dhurmus Suntali Foundation both in Terai as well as in the Hilly region of Nepal.

This research also attempted to study the socio-cultural aspects, economic aspects, and environmental aspects of the settlement with an exploratory and descriptive approach of research, following case study as a research design strategy and observations, interviews, ethnography, questionnaire survey as a research method. For this, first of all, a list of indicators was developed based on the literature review which was precised more, and then the performance indicators were derived which was followed by methodology. A deductive approach of research has been applied to compare the list of performance indicators with the data obtained from the site visits. The study showed that Tamang people in Giranchaur are not ethnically marginalized but from the perspective of social participation and economic dimension they seem to be marginalized. In terms of marking of individual indicator parameters, all the settlements have scored very small marks in indicator parameters like passive solar design, energy-efficient appliances, use of materials, orientation, economic opportunities, etc. Based on these findings, different design strategies have been recommended on those low-scoring indicators.