Winners of Open Source House Competition Announced

By Bustler Editors|

Friday, Jul 2, 2010

Detail from the competition-winning design 'Emerging Ghana'

Five winning designs, as well as five honorable mentions, have recently been announced for the international Open Source House competition.

The design competition started on January 15, 2010 and was open for team or individual participation. The challenge is was to design a sustainable, flexible and locally embedded one family house for a specific location in Ghana. The modular construction has to be suitable for local implementation and affordable for its future owners. The winning design will be build in Ghana as a pilot. The aim of this pilot is to test cultural perception, technical feasibility and economical viability. Cape Coast Municipality has provided Open Source House with a plot to build the pilot. Together with a local contractor and Stichting Bouwen the pilot will be realized.

The results of the pilot form the base of the business plan to start implementing the Open Source Houses on a larger scale in Ghana. The aim of this social venture is to provide affordable and sustainable housing to the people of the lower middle-income bracket in Ghana. A local entrepreneur in co-creation with Enviu develops the business plan and will be responsible for local implementation.

After this first competition and pilot project, OS-House plans to continue to promote the implementation of more OS-Houses, challenge platform members to improve available designs, organize new competitions and stimulate local parties to take designs and adapt them to their local conditions.

All designs of the first OS-House competition are made available on the Open Source House platform.

1st Place:

'Emerging Ghana'
By: Ana Morgado, João Caeiro, Lara Camilla Pinho, Maria de Paz Sequeira Braga and Maria de Carmo Caldeira.
Country of origin: Portugal/Mexico/Brazil