We intend to introduce sustainable villages with the following components in our community: House of sand; Greywater recycling; Water harvesting features; Solar powered; Bio-digester for cooking gas; LED lighting; waste segregation and a crafts portion for waste recycling or reuse; waste tumblers or boxed for quick decomposition of garden waste to manure.
The need for the project is based on the fact that there is a huge shortage of low cost (or social) housing in Zimbabwe and yet the majority of Zimbabweans fall within this bracket. Current housing models which are supposedly for the low cost are beyond the reach of those in the low income bracket. Government is rolling out up to 300 000 housing units by 2018 under ZimAsset in an environment where scarcity of key resources exist like water and electricity.
This model village when developed will house over 560 people on a street which is 200 metres long with community facilities and shops at 18200 square metres. This number of people could support a community hall acting as play centre during the day. At this density it could also facilitate a bio digester to supply the community with methane gas for cooking. Rain water could be stored for washing and for toilet flushing and for gardening.Roof mounted solar water geysers. PV panels for lighting.
A housing model that is economical and reasonably self-sufficient in terms of energy and water supply, with a low carbon footprint in terms of the materials and construction methods and easy to apply the self built concept. A housing model that is resilient in terms of structural integrity, safe in the event of unexpected hazard and habitable in extreme weather conditions. A housing model that makes maximum use of solar energy for energy supply and utilizes low energy consuming devices.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
