Winners of Open Source Housing Competition

Written by Karen Cilento
Published on July 04, 2010

The Open Source House Competition, an initiative of Enviu and architect Vincent van der Meulen, asked participants to provide well designed sustainable housing prototypes for low-income countries. The competition entries were judged according to the following eight principles (listed on the competition’s website): the design must be embedded in the local cultural context; it must address the whole life cycle of materials in terms of dis-assembly and reuse; the design must use its climate to minimize energy consumption; it must adhere to local building standards; structurally, the load-bearing elements must be separated from the demountable building skin; all connections between the components and the structure are dry and demountable; a household organization must be flexible; all designs and ideas will be published and shared on www.os-house.org to inspire others. For the competition, more than 3100 architects participated and over 250 teams from 45 countries submitted their designs. After an intense jury procedure 10 designs where nominated which we will feature after the break.

The 10 Winners are:

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

2nd place ‘W.B.C.’ By:Kari Smith, Dan Burkett and Erin Bodin Country of origin: US