Standing on Sand: The Sand Bag House by MMA Architects in Freedom Park, South Africa.

The Sand Bag House was the first qualifying solution into the 10 x 10 Housing Initiative of the South African based design organisation, Design Indaba. They developed the housing project to build 10 pilot homes within a squatter area on the outskirts of Capetown in a bid to address the humanitarian crises within such areas and provide housing that would conserve money and resources.

Designed by MMA Architects, the Sandbag House achieves this goal. On a budget of $6,150, which comes to very little over N1,000,000, it uses locally sourced inexpensive materials, a local ‘future-resident’ community workforce and a construction method that replaces traditional brick-and-mortar with sandbags (developed by ecobeams) to create a strong, safe and cheap way of delivering affordable housing.

The Design prototype covers 40sqm to cater to a single family 5. Standing on two-storey timber frame, with the sandbag infills, the house is energy efficient, requiring no electricity or skilled labour to construct.

Its a very scalable prototype that can serve larger families and grow to be even multifamily structures.

To construct the walls for the houses, sandbags are assembled inside timber frames and then plastered over, with strong wire attached to the corner sections. The interior ‘ring beam’ carries the weight of the upper floor and the only time concrete was used in the build. The Sand provides very good thermal quality and prevents moisture from getting through. Aside from being waterproof, the sandbags also create soundproof and fireproof spaces and provides a speedy construction pace, saving time and money. It took about 12 weeks or 3 months to erect 8 of the 10 homes. Impressive. Though the issue of water and flooding maybe on the minds of most, a half finished home was said to have stood firm during the storm season while construction was ongoing. Cost constraints forced a few changes and omissions in the final products, such as the terraces, but nonetheless, the initiative was successful and the Sand Bag House, a triumph.