11. 2013
ÂŁ50k House A high-performance, low-cost, sustainable, adaptable house for the UK
What is WikiHouse? WikiHouse is an Open Source construction system. It uses digital manufacturing to make it possible for anyone to download, customise and ‘print‘ lowcost, high-performance houses adapted to their needs, which they can quickly assemble themselves, without conventional construction skills. It is a way of bringing the ‘third industrial revolution’ to housing: radically lowering the barriers of cost, time and skill and giving users the power to create places which are sustainable, sociable and resilient by investing their time and effort instead of just taking on more debt. Why now? Users and governments have actually known for a long time what we want from housing: quality, sustainability, affordability, flexibility, sociability, economic prosperity. Yet the housing we are building in Britain today very often frustrates those ambitions. It sees those things as costs; resulting in homes that are small, unsustainable, unsociable and unaffordable. It’s time for an industrial revolution in how we make housing in the UK, and that means a revolution in who builds our homes. What’s £50k house? Since we began prototyping and developing WikiHouse in 2011, we’ve received incredible levels of coverage and vocal support, and have been joined by a growing community of WikiHouse teams around the world working in a common direction. The £50k WikiHouseUK house is the next milestone for us, working towards completing the first full, high-performance, low-cost self-build house for the UK, with the full designs, cutting files, instructions and costings shared openly, so anyone can easily take it, adapt it and build it for themselves.
0. DESIGNING & PRINTING
£47, 000 80m²
One size doesn’t fit all Each WikiHouse design can be customised. Over time we are developing simpler-to-use and more sophisticated design software, eliminating the need for house to be ‘one-size-fits’ all, but instead making it economical for houses to adapt to different sites and individuals’ needs.
Standard materials WikiHouse uses affordable materials that are widely available, like standard 18mm thick plywood. A house you can print WikiHouse generates a set of cutting files, that can be used to cut the parts using a CNC machine. Aside from allowing local manufacturing, this gives organisations and users potential to manufacture custom, new or replacement parts for their house in future.
1. SITE PREPARATION The layer of topsoil immediately beneath the building is scraped away. Three trench foundations are dug out, filled with gravel and reinforced concrete. This stage is designed to be as simple as possible for self-builders and local builders to do quickly; achieving a level footing for the house and minimising the footprint of the house on the land. If the site is sloped, trenches can be stepped. Alternatively almost any other form of approved structural foundation can be used, such as screw piles or a concrete-free system such as SureFoot. .
2. SERVICE JIG Levelled-timber ‘rails’ are bolted to the concrete foundations for the house to sit onto, positioned within a tolerance of +/-10mm. The services (power, water, data, drainage possibly including water storage) are installed. A jig is provided to give a location to fit these to. This means any builder can be asked to prepare the site in advance, and the services will be in the right location to plug into the house, within workable tolerances. .
3. CHASSIS ASSEMBLY The WikiHouse frames are then laid out and assembled by hand. Each part is numbered, so the system goes together like a large flatpack kit, without the need for traditional construction skills, and the lightweight frames ‘barn-raised’ into place one by one. There are no bolts, just wedge and peg connections, with the final panels held into place using ordinary screws. A team of 4+ people should be able to build the house chassis in 1-2 days. .
4. SAFE ASSEMBLY OF THE SECOND STOREY Scaffolding is a source of cost and delay in house construction. The ÂŁ50k WikiHouse is designed to be assembled without the need for full scaffolding. Once the lower storey is assembled, a roof deck is created with inbuilt handrails, allowing the pieces for the second storey to be carried or lifted onto the roof, and the process repeated, raising frames along the length of the house. .
5. INSULATION The chassis is designed to accommodate a wide range of insulation types, from loose-fill recycled materials to rigid panels. A downside of the CNC system is that the complex joints within the box of the chassis raise the risk of air gaps. The most efficient solution therefore is to use, for example, a full-fill insulation such as cellulose (recycled newspaper) blown into the chassis, filled by hand, or sprayed wet, which is simple and rapid. .
6. WEATHERTIGHT Woodfibre rigid insulation boards are simply screwed to the external face of the structure from a stepladder or mobile scaff-tower. Interlocked and taped, these form a weathertight, breathable jacket around the building and can be easily tailor-cut around windows and profiles. CNC ‘Wikiwindows’ fit directly into the structure, providing high-performance windows for a fraction of the cost and difficulty of the equivalent market products. .
7. BATTENS Battens are screwed directly into the external panels, gutters fitted, and all gaps and edges either taped or handpainted with liquid rubber, meaning there is no need for difficult, expensive metal flashings. An external deck could be used to bed the floor level into the surrounding site and provide level access into the dwelling. .
8. CLADDING MATERIALS Without modifying the structure a variety of different cladding materials can be used for the rainscreen, driven by available materials, local vernacular, planning constraints or simply user preference. Depending on project budget, these could also range from materials as conventional as brick slips or as unconventional as liquid rubber. .
9. SERVICES An open zone runs through the walls, floor and ceiling, making it easy to install pre-certified ‘plug and play’ services, which run from a central service location (not unlike how wiring is run through a chassis in the car manufacturing industry). This hugely increases the speed of assembly and reduces dependency on electricians, plumbers and other servicemen during installation to get the house ready to live in. The system also maximises access for professionals and the home owner to mend or adapt the services during the house’s lifetime. This open zone is also a frame for hackable services, creating the first house designed for individuals to install their own (e.g. Arduino) sensors, off-grid energy, water systems and devices into the house as amateurs. Companies can also be involved, by designing innovative products that can be used by home owners chose to change or upgrade their home.
AN OPEN, MODULAR HOME SYSTEM First, the construction system is designed to be fast and simple to build, and far easier than most construction systems to achieve high levels of insulation and air-tightness. The 385mm build-up is largely the same all the way around the house, and gives an overall U-value of 0.14 W/m2K (suitable for PassivHaus construction). Second, the construction is open and modular so the design is easily adapted or upgraded. Different materials can be used for cladding, finishes or insulation. The system is designed for repair and upgrade. Key to this is the open service zone running around the inside of the house, allowing users to quickly and messily install plug-andplay services (electricity, water, heating, data, security, lighting etc) during the lifetime of the house. The instructions, paths and locations of services can even be milled into the panels, so the assembly team don’t need to work from drawings. In other words, this is the first truly user-‘hackable’ house system.
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HIGH-PERFORMANCE FABRIC 0.14 W/m2K 1 External rainscreen in a material of choice. 2 Timber battens screw straight into insulation board. 3 60mm wood fibre rigid board insulation, acts as breather membrane 0.038 W/mK 4 18mm plywood wikihouse chassis 0.13W/mK 5 200mm deep box-void filled with 200mm full-fill cellulose fibre (recycled newspapers, blown or sprayed-in) 0.039W/mK (9% bridging) 6 18mm plywood chassis 0.13W/m. Airtight vapour line created by taping and sealing joints and holes from the inside. 7 32mm ‘messy’ service void allowing ‘plug and play’ pre-certified services to simply be wired-into the chassis. Paths and locations can be milled into walls, so the building acts as its own instructions. 8 Internal finish in Magnesium Oxide board. Panels are moisture and fire resistant, can be painted and easily removed to gain access to service zone. They simply slot onto the ‘grips’ built into the chassis, no measuring or cutting required. 9 Wall ‘caps’ to conceal screw fixings and pull holes, resulting in a smooth, finished internal surface. .
Bathroom 4m²
Bedroom 14m²+
Bedroom 11m²+
First floor 82 m2 house
Kitchen 13m²+
WC 3m²
Living 24m²+
Store 1.2m²
Ground floor 82m2 house
UK Standards As well as meeting UK building regulations, the UK £50k WikiHouse is designed to meet HCA space standards for affordable housing, and can be extended by 1.2m to fulfil Lifetime Homes standard. The fabric is designed to make it possible for the house to reach Passivhaus standard, or just be used a naturally ventilated, high-energy performance house. Most of the heat requirements of the house come from solar energy . The performance of the prototypes will be monitored during use to find ways to iterate and improve the design. Click here to download an outline SketchUp 3D model of this house.
Bedroom
Kitchen
Bedroom
Store
Living
Long section 82m2 house
Typical Elevation A small 82m2 house is shown for comparison, but both size, roof profile, layout and elevations are indicative. The location of doors, windows and the roof profile can be customised.
The factory of the future is everywhere Digital fabrication tools, such as CNC are increasingly affordable (Blackfoot ÂŁ2.2k) The team is everyone A WikiHouse chassis, completed in 1.5 days by amateurs.
‘Printable’ The house can be downloaded, designed and digitally manufactured locally, or even within the house itself.
Generous Designed to maximise rather than minimise space, daylight etc.
Affordable By making it possible for users to do much of the work themselves or with friends, the 82m2 house can be made for £50k (£610/ m2)
Resilient Equip users with the capacity to safely mend and hack the house for themselves.
Faster & easier The system lowers thresholds of time and skill, aiming for a house which can be assembled by non-professionals within 2 weeks. Sustainable As well as building-in excellent energy performance, the house includes off-grid energy, water harvesting systems.
Solar Almost all the house’s heating requirements come from solar energy, dramatically lowering energy bills.
+1 Some of the world’s biggest companies began in garages. Rather than treating users as consumers, the system is designed to encourage addition (either initially or in future) of hobby or work spaces. If you could add a room to your house, what would it be for?
Sustainable neighbourhoods Aimed to maximise capacity for users to shape their own neighbourhoods for shared transport amenities, passive supervision, play, care etc.
Low carbon Almost all materials and components are from recycled / FSB certified sources, and can, in turn, be recycled or reused.
Modular The house uses standard dimensions and parts that are widely available, and all parts are as replaceable and interoperable as possible.
Homes for life As well as seeking to comply with key HCA and Lifetime homes standards, the house is designed to be easily customised to different (and changing) family units.
Open Source All models, files, costings and instructions are shared in commons under a CCO license, allowing others to easily download, replicate and adapt it for free.
Customisable + extendable The house type is designed to be customised and extended by the user, blurring the artificial divide between design and use.
Locally adaptable The house is capable of adapting to different sites, climates and local vernaculars (within the UK).
COST BREAKDOWN TOOLS NEEDED CNC Machine kit (Blackfoot) £2135 CNC End mills £120 Scaffold tower rent (2 days) £75 10ft stepladder £80 2 x Electric drill & screwdriver £180 £2,590 SITE WORKS Clearing topsoil £252 Excavating trenches £455 Services install £1000 Rainwater storage tank plus pump header tank £1000 Gravel infill £261 £2,968 FOUNDATIONS & FOOTINGS Reinforced concrete trench £315 Timber ‘rail’ beams £223 Angle brackets £119 £657 CHASSIS Structural spruce plywood 2440x1220x18mm 490 sheets £9800 Screws 4920 No. £49 £9,849 INSULATION Woodfibre rigid panels £5450 Full fill cellulose insulation £1090 Silicon sealant £6,968 SKIN Onduline / timber cladding £10/m2 £2180 Fixings for cladding £50 Battens £323 Liquid rubber £200 £2,553 DOORS & WINDOWS Windows CNC £4425 External doors CNC £200 All ironmongery £500 Internal doors CNC £630 £5,755 INTERNAL FINISHES & FITTINGS Magnesium oxide panels £1875 Bathroom liner £600 Bathroom set £700 WC set £450 Tiling or rubber paint £300 Paint (optional) £66 Floor finish (optional) £20/m2 £1,500 £5,755 FIREPLACE & CHIMNEY Wood burning stove (optional) £400 £400 KITCHEN Kitchen units CNC £1400 Appliances £1200 Kitchen fittings £200 £2,800 SERVICES Electrical connection & manifold £1150 Electrical plug and play loom £900 Plumbing plug and play loom £100 Water header tank £100 Mechanical ventilation with air heating & heat exchange £800 Solar hot water store £860 Solar thermal array £1400 Backup electric boiler £500 Photovoltaic array and handler £1400 £7,210 FOOD & DRINK FOR FRIENDS
TOTAL HOUSE COST
£500
£47,342
Contingency fund £2658
Click here to view the detailed specification and costings doc for this house. Please note all costings are indicative and work in-progress.
Rural farmyard 1-10 dwellings per hectare
NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN
Suburban village 35-40 dwellings per hectare
The £50k WikiHouse is only one of many possible designs using the WikiHouse system, but is intended as a base component (think lego bricks) which can easily adapt to multiple neighbourhood densities and layouts. As such it can be used as a helpful tool for users to more easily co-design neighbourhoods. Giving citizens more power in planning has immediate practical benefits, since they are able to invest in costs and take ‘risks’ that speculative developers aren’t able to. Who else is going to invest in better energy efficiency if not the person paying the heating bills? Who else can decide to opt for non-standard street layouts, including shared green space or community amenities, except the people who will be living there.
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Mid-urban street 55-65 dwellings per hectare
SCALING-UP CUSTOM-BUILD The UK housing crisis is now widely felt across society. It is not just a short-term crisis of supply, but also a long-term crisis of inflation, affordability, debt, quality, sustainability, community resilience, health & care and economic prosperity. Underpinning that crisis are two things: first, land supply and second, the industrial-age assumption that the only people who can develop housing at scale are state organisations or speculative property developers, dependent on financial capital and consumer debt. That assumption is no longer correct.
COMMUNITY FACTORY
Custom-build (broadly, allowing users to buy plots and procure their own houses) is increasingly recognised by government, industry and the public as having radical potential to practically address this crisis, and produce housing which is genuinely affordable, generous, sustainable, and sociable. However, it is still largely perceived as expensive, time-consuming and “too damn difficult” for everyone involved. OpenBuild Learning from other models – particularly in Europe – 00 are developing UK neighbourhood development models designed to make custom-build much simpler, leaner, more accessible, lower-risk and realistically scalable. The OpenBuild process is an open source template for neighbourhood development, taking in legal, financial, planning, design and construction phases, the aim being to share the strategy, contracts and costings openly for others to replicate and adapt. Community factories A key part of this process is seeding the neighbourhood with a ‘community factory’ – a walk-in resource where prospective custom-builders can buy a plot, co-design their neighbourhood rules, get support and access shared tools. The community factory is itself a kind of prototype which goes on to become a shared long-term community amenity. It is suggested that the first WikiHouseUK house might double as a community factory, perhaps with a live-in-host to support others as they custom-build their homes; starting a chain reaction. Click here to download a copy of A Right to Build
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NEIGHBOURHOOD PERMITTED DEVELOPMENT RULES
A GLOBAL COMMONS As well as a growing set of open software design tools, we (along with the WikiHouse and wider OS Hardware community) are developing a sharing platform for hardware, a new kind of global commons; owned by everyone and accessible to anyone. This includes not just solutions to house structure, but high-performance, low-cost, sustainable, modular solutions to problems like off-grid infrastructure, design tools etc. In a rapidly urbanising world, this seems like a pretty necessary step. To support this, we are collaborating with others to build a global web platform, making it possible to share Open Hardware simply and clearly. A “Wikipedia for stuff�.
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Who? WikiHouse was started by 00 (‘zero zero’) in collaboration with Espians, Momentum & Beatrice Galilee. WikiHouseUK is now just one of a growing number of teams collaborating globally, including WikiHouseNZ , WikiHouseFR, WikiHouseESP, WikiHouseNL, WikiHouseDET, WikiHouseRIO and other projects in the open source hardware community. What next? We are working on completing the first UK houses. If you would like to contribute to the project, fund our R&D, commission a house or a neighbourhood project, or fund the development of the WikiHouse platform, please get in touch. Some useful links: WikiHouse website. TED talk by WikiHouse co-founder Alastair Parvin. View our research project, A Right to Build. Spacecraft (WikiHouseNZ) website TED Prize City 2. Some friends worth checking out The National Self Build Association The Open Source Ecology project The Open Tech Forever Project SketchUp MatterMachine
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This document is shared under a CC-BY license. Which means you may freely use and distribute it but must attribute 00. WikiHouse Hardware License WikiHouse hardware (design files and any associated content) are published and shared under Creative Commons CC0 license. Which means anyone is free to take it and use it. More > WikiHouse Software License WikiHouse software is published in the Public Domain under the Ampify Unlicense. This means there are no restrictions limiting its use. More > WikiHouse Trademark The WikiHouse name and logo is shared under the WikiHouse trademark license which forms part of our constitution. Any two people may sign and publish this constitution and found a regional WikiHouse team using a chapter name (e.g WikiHouseNZ). View the constitution here.
00 (‘zero zero’) is a collaborative design studio of architects, programmers, technologists, social scientists and urban designers practicing design beyond its traditional borders. We work with individuals, governments, corporations and communities to solve problems, anticipate change, and design deeply successful products, processes, platforms and places.
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