Open Source House Temporarily Closed

A group of forward-thinking collaborators plan to design and deliver a single family home in Ghana as an open-source house (image courtesy of Open Source House, http://www.os-house.org).

Most of us are aware of open source software (Linux operating system, for instance), but how about an open source house (OS-House)?

In June 2009, a "mixed, enthusiastic group of young people" (as they prefer to be known) came together to build an affordable, eco-friendly house in Ghana. They were deliberately targeting lower middle class citizens in developing countries so they could avoid donor dependence, according to the case study the group had posted online.

"To kick [off] the big concept OS-House starts small with a design competition," announces the group on its website. "The assignment of the competition is a single family house for the emerging middle class in Ghana on a plot within the Cape City project."

They may be starting small, but they're thinking big for the long run. "Our goal is to realize 100,000 OS-Houses before the year 2020!," the group announced.

Accordingly, the group outlined the eight tenets of OS-House:

1. The design should be socioeconomically, culturally embedded in the local area.
2. It should be designed for the entire lifecycle, including disassembly and disposal.
3. It should make the best use of the climate.
4. It should proportionally conform to local architectural standards (in other words, no Goliath towering over the rest).
5. The load-bearing structure should be separated from the demountable building skin.
6. All connections between the components and the structure are to be dry and demountable, to make reassembly easy and clean.
7. The installation must be smart, safe, upgradeable, and adapted to the local ecology.
8. All designs and ideas will be published and shared, in the hope of inspiring others.

Around November, in partnership with Enviu, the group launched a web-based platform dubbed OSH Public. With a log in and a password, registered contestants could begin submitting their ideas for how this single family home in Ghana should look like. And boy, did they!

Apparently, the project drew more ideas the site could accommodate. The deluge of designs crashed the online platform, prompting the organizers to issue the following note:

Due to a huge amount of sign-ups, the platform is overloaded and now under construction. It will be solved soon. We will keep you updated. Sorry for the inconvenience.

We plan to follow the progress of OS-House by keeping a close eye on the group's blog. Stay tuned!

Comments

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