Carbon-Neutral Social Housing

  • Location: Cape Town, South Africa
  • Date: 2020

The provision of more sustainable, dignified social housing plays an important in role in responding to our climate change crisis.

Through an inclusive, bottom-up co-design process we aim to develop housing models that directly address community needs. By focusing on densification, we can reduce urban sprawl and by clustering houses we can significantly reduce construction costs and create safe spaces for residents. Designs can accommodate incremental vertical expansion, allowing homeowners to upgrade their homes when circumstances allow.

The use of concrete with alternative, biomass-based binders is a key component of our models. Research has shown that the material significantly improves thermal efficiency and, as well as having superior acoustic properties, is also fire-proof.

During the construction phase, emphasis is placed on skills transfer and job creation. By including labour intensive building methods, we can help address local unemployment issues and through training workshops help to upskill the local labour force.

Using smart design and innovative materials it is possible to produce affordable, quality, carbon-neutral housing.

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