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WikiHouse By Davina Richards
There’s a heavy current of hard truths which we can’t swim away from; an economic model dependent on ever increasing consumerism, rising population density, soaring house prices and detrimental environmental issues.
None of this means the end is nigh, but it does mean we need to figure out a couple of different ways to address the challenges of the day. One such solution might be sitting right on our doorstep - an exciting project which addresses global urban development challenges called WikiHouse. Could this be the stroke of genius we’ve all been looking for? As entrepreneurs Derek Handley and Sir Richard Branson step up to solve environmental and social issues with The B Team (a team of leaders on a mission to actively face world challenges by encouraging businesses to drive their values towards long term growth for the people and the planet), validation for the WikiHouse comes from providing similar empowerment to people. You may be familiar with Dominic Stevens’ Irish Vernacular, a self-built home outside of Dublin, Ireland, which cost £21,000 and took 50 days to build, during a period of two years. Or Simon Dale, who built his own hobbit house with £3,000 in four months, in Wales, 2009. WikiHouse is another alternative model of living, but it’s firmly in the reach of everyday people. London-based architect Alastair Parvin is one half of the WikiHouse co-founders who shares a common awareness of the housing problem around the world. The concept of WikiHouse is to build sustainable and affordable housing by empowering people to lead development. Although Alastair admits WikiHouse is not an innovative approach, in which he acknowledges the traditional concept of barn raising, it has the potential to be a small revolution staring down a big issue. “Almost everything that we call architecture today is actually the business of designing for about the richest one percent of the world’s population,” Alastair says in his Ted talk 2013.
Create, build, share The term “wiki” is derived from the word wikiwiki, which is Hawaiian for “quick” or “fast”. WikiHouse is an open source construction set made from engineered plywood and allows anyone from anywhere to design (using freely available software), share, download and print designs using a CNC machine. 28 May/June 2014 www.aucklandtoday.net.nz
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WikiHouse allows you to build what you need when you need it and change it when you want it. And because the construction can be dissembled just as easily and as quickly as it can be put up, it’s easily transportable.
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All the pieces, including the wooden pegs and mallet, are numbered, cut out and assembled, much like an Ikea flat-pack. A group of two to three people (enter you and a couple of good friends) can complete a basic frame of a WikiHouse in a single day. WikiHouse allows you to build what you need when you need it and change it when you want it. And because the construction can be dissembled just as easily and as quickly as it can be put up, it’s easily transportable. Imagine living in a house which you can at any point, adapt, expand and replace; unlike conventional buildings which are difficult to modify. Add to this massively reduced build and running costs and you’re looking at a building paradigm ideally suited to the specific challenges 21st century society faces. You would no longer need to lend money to your grown children to put towards a house – you can simply ‘pass down’ a section of your own WikiHouse, which they can then build upon by cutting out more sections, attach it onto their existing WikiHouse and voila, they have an extension. The information is available under a Creative Commons licence which means WikiHouse belongs to everyone, and anybody can take it in whatever direction they like to develop, design, modify and improve the system.
So, unsurprisingly, WikiHouse has exploded to a global reach. UK, US, Brazil, France, Germany, South Africa and Asia is where you’ll find teams coming together to collaborate, adapt, share and build prototypes. This collective design effort is then fed straight back into the project. Because WikiHouse can be used on poor quality land, for example TC3/blue-rated land in Canterbury, it has the potential to offer relief to those who need it the most, especially in disaster-prone areas of the world. The prototypes being built across the globe are meeting different requirements to meet the demands of different climates, cultures and environments, so that no two WikiHouses are the same. In an article titled ‘We’re talking to WikiHouse pioneer Alastair Parvin’ on arcfinity.tumblr. com, Alastair says, “If a WikiHouse in Ghana looks anything like a WikiHouse in Glasgow, then something has probably gone wrong. That’s sort of the point.” In its entirety, WikiHouse is the package: sustainable, affordable and has a social, cultural, environmental and economic advantage.
Finding solutions together People in Christchurch tried to find temporary building solutions to get their businesses back up and running after the earthquakes, and it all began with shipping containers. This is where Martin Luff and Danny Squires, co-founders and directors of Space Craft
Systems Limited and WikiHouse NZ lab, started too. Introduced initially through Twitter, their combined devotion to find solutions for the failures in our built environment led them to TEDx Christchurch and a tip-off to the WikiHouse project. Martin and Danny agree that WikiHouse is a system that goes beyond what we have now and delivers far greater value at an affordable price. It is a concept which encourages individuals to whole communities to become involved, reclaiming traditional values of building together. “How can we create a solution to all these problems that goes up as quickly as a temporary solution, but can last for five generations, while at the same time increasing building performance and lowering the barriers to entry for the ordinary person?” Danny says. “There are lots of examples at the moment in New Zealand and around the world of affordable housing that’s affordable to build, but the people who live in it can’t afford to heat it, or run it on a low income, so it’s not really affordable. “The affordability is about that total cost of ownership and we’re very much trying to enlarge the debate around those total costs.” When asked how much it would cost to run, Martin explains that there are many variables to consider, but they are aiming to meet Passive House standards (building performance) for primary energy consumption