Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Standardising Traditional African Building Construction



The mud brick building even as rudimentary as it looks,is probably one of the most affordable and sustainable methods of construction.

The abundance of this material "Clay" makes it very popular and affordable for low income people living in hot dry climates of Africa to use as versatile building material, Hence there is a need to have accurate building standards when building with this material.

Two organisations namely La Voute Nubienne which is covered on the Nubian vault article, has already developed its own building models and Osafa.org is in the process of launching its open source information databases according to an article covered in Timbuktuchronicles.

These information databases will provide free floor plans, building descriptions, drafts/photos and commercials calculations, materials etc.

Photos courtesy of La Voute Nubienne

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hello ugo, that's not entirely correct: "la voute nubienne" is not developing a database similar to osafa.org but has instead agreed to submit their building models on osafa.org itself, under an "open source" licence.

Bygningsentreprise said...

That's a brilliant idea to give your thoughts on how to cost cut the expenses in construction building. Keep up the good work