It is the start of a new year and hopefully it will be the one that will bring a revolution in the way we build houses.
For ages the house or shelter has been at the heart of human life, being one of the most basic needs we have, together with food and love. But still right now in our country and many other places around the world there are many people that leave in slumps which are the breading ground for disease, violence, and poverty.
But thank to some inspiring people solution are being found to provide amazing houses that are affordable for everyone..
1. 3D Printer
At The University of Southern California, Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis has built a 3D printer that can build a house in 24 hours. It does this with a nozzle that spreads out concrete replicating a home based on a computer pattern.
This is an astonishing discovery. Not only it will make the construction industry cheaper, but it will also make it more transparent and more flexible, removing the limits of traditional box shape houses.The machine can be used also to incorporate pluming, electricity, hitting and reinforcements into the walls of the building, and because it allows complex shapes to be built we can use geometry to further reduce the quantity of materials required while increasing the overall strength of the structure. And above all this, it is fully automatic so no qualified personal is required to use it.
http://www.contourcrafting.org/
2. Open source house
Another great approach to affordable houses is developed by architect Alastair Parvin from http://www.wikihouse.cc .This is basically an opened source construction set, where you can find printable patterns for building houses out of plywood. By using large scale cutters and computer design this houses can be constructed by almost everyone with very little cost.
3. Paper houses
Shigeru Ban is maybe one of the pioneers of easy to built structures out of cheap material. He is focusing on building shelters from paper especially for emergency situations. His designs and technics of building are surprising and inspiring and could be a great solution also for areas in our country deeply affected by floods.
4. Self healing asphalt
And to close with an optimistic view of a future where pot holes will be a thing of the past I would like to share some thoughts about self healing asphalt developed by Erik Schlangen. The name speaks for itself and the discovery it’s amazing because with only a minor increase in initial building cost you can substantially increase the service life of the road. The system uses in its mixture metal fibers which when heated “heal” the cracks in the road.
For more info and videos regarding this topics check the links at the bottom of the page.
The future looks bright let’s all help turn this vision into reality.
The choice is always yours.
F.M.B.
reconstructromania@gmail.com
Re Construct Romania 