An architectural designer and his co-founder think they have figured out the solution to the world’s housing crisis.
Alastair Parvin, co-founder of WikiHouse, and his team have eliminated the high cost of architectures by creating a wiki-based depository of blue prints that can be downloaded from the internet, and printed using 3-D printers.
WikiHouse is developing a series of open source technologies for the purpose of creating sustainable quality homes that anyone can build even without formal training and experience. The building parts are precise and will fit together perfectly. No additional tools are necessary.
Parvin says it could the solution for affordable housing.
“And to do that we’re using the power of the web and digital manufacturing technologies like 3-D printing,” Parvin told VOA News.
Ordinarily, it would take weeks or months to build one home, but using the wiki-plans, WikiHouse, staffed with volunteers, built a house made of prefabricated plywood panels and parts in just 8 days.
The parts to the 68-square meter wood frame home were precisely cut in a Computer Numerical Control, or CNC mac. WikiHouse displayed the finished house exhibition last fall, then dissembled and took it on the road to tour and show other communities and nations with housing crisis how it’s done.
Given McKinsey Global Institute‘s stat that one third of the world’s city dwellers live in substandard housing and the fact recent projections state the world population will grow to 8 billion by 2030, this could be a much-needed solution to a growing problem.
Watch the WikiHouse go up in 8 days in this VOA News video:
