Mud House design competition winners

The winners of an international design competition to promote earth building and culture in Ghana was recently announced. Run by the NKA Foundation, the winners are listed below. I was fortunate enough to be on the jury. There were over 140 team and individual entries!

My favourite, was the second prize winner for its simplicity, flexibility and thermal performance for the tropics. More information on this design is available here.  This is the design selected by the foundation to be built during upcoming workshops. Architects, engineers and builders (both students and professionals) are encourage to join in. More information is available by emailing info@nkafoundation.org or www.nkafoundation.org. Over the next few weeks I aim to showcase some of the entrants  that were not winners but are quite notable. Please add your email address.

 

3D Mud House Printer

An Italian company has just exhibited an exciting concept of a 3D printer. It demonstrated a smaller version, but they believe they can build structures up to 3 meters tall.

“We will print a mixture made of clay and sand,” CEO Massimo Moretti said leading up to the event. “It takes weeks to print a real house, so we will print a smaller building because we only have two days. But the print, the mixture and materials have been already tested and they’re working.”

It opens up a world of possibilities. I really like the concept as it creates a opportunity to insulate the thermal mass of the earth by using air gaps. Alternatively the voids could be filled to create more thermal mass. It also fits in nicely with open source architecture.

More information at WASP.