The $300 House Blog

It's been a little over a year since the $300 House was introduced in this Harvard Business Review blog post. 

Today, I'm announcing that the project,which took on a life of its own, has been turned over to the folks at Dartmouth (led by Vijay Govindarajan) and the winners of our Open Design Challenge. 

After dedicating a year of my time to this project, I have decided to return to my family and my "day-job."

Here's a summary of what's happened over the past year, and what happens next: 

After the series of blog posts in Harvard Business Review, the $300 House was featured in stories by the Economist, The Guardian, Fast Company, CNN, New York Times, and numerous other media outlets.  VG was invited to discuss the $300 House with the Whitehouse and the World Economic Forum.  He's speaking at TEDx-New York at the beginning of the Year, and the $300 House was nominated as a "breakthrough idea" by Thinkers50.  I had the honor of speaking about the $300 House at The Guardian's Activate conference this past summer.

The buzz created by the idea led to our $300 House Open Design Challenge (hosted by Jovoto.com, and sponsored by Ingersoll Rand). Our Design Challenge winners - six individuals and one corporate team - are participating in prototyping workshops - one held by Mahindra in India and the other hosted by Dartmouth next summer.  After that, the Dartmouth team plans on a pilot project in Haiti.

In the meantime, teams from Dartmouth visited both India and Haiti to learn more about local conditions and make contact with potential communities.  We also conducted a detailed survey with the help of THL which covered 15 rural village communities across India - using an instrument created by VG and myself.

I want to thank everyone involved - especially the advisors, the Design Challenge winners, Shaun at Mutopo, Bastian and Nathalie at Jovoto, and Scott from Ingersoll Rand for their help and advice. Thanks to all of you for the hundreds of suggestions and discussions we've had over the past year - both positive and negative! Special thanks to Harvard Business Review for all their support. And finally, thanks to my wife and kids for their patience and understanding. 

Eric Ho of Architecture Commons  and an Open Design Challenge winner will be leading the team design effort on the $300 House prototyping workshop and the pilot project, working closely with the Dartmouth team. He's a great guy and a brilliant architect. Please join me in wishing him and the rest of the team all the best! 

My one regret: that I could not get past Ted Turner's executive assistant to get him to join the project at the very beginning. 

For further info, contact VG at vg-tuck.com or Eric Ho at Architecture Commons.

A group of Dartmouth faculty, graduate students and administrators will be visiting a number of locations in Haiti from September 5-11, 2011 in order to sound out the possibility of moving forward with a "$300 House" pilot project that would be focused on the concept that good housing and community building are an integral component in the promotion of improvements in the health of the Haitian people. It is our hope that this model for very low cost housing, combined with sound infrastructure and creation of jobs can be adapted to meet the needs of challenged communities globally.

On the trip they will meet with community members, leaders and various organizations.

Team members include:

Vicki May, Professor, Thayer School of Engineering

Vicki May is an Instructional Associate Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering and she is a registered Professional Engineer in the states of New Hampshire and California. At Thayer School, Vicki teaches solid mechanics, integrated design, and structural analysis. Prior to joining the faculty at Thayer, she was a professor of Architectural Engineering at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo. She also worked in the Los Angeles area for a firm that specializes in seismic rehabilitation of historic structures. She earned her BS in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota and her MS and PhD degrees in structural engineering from Stanford University.


Jack Wilson, Professor, Studio Art

Jack Wilson is an architect and planner and is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Studio Art at Dartmouth College where he teaches courses in Drawing, Architectural Design and Landscape Art & Design. He also teaches a course on Integrated Design at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering. Until 2009 he was responsible for supervision of campus planning as well as project development, architect selection and design review for large scale capital projects at Dartmouth. In addition to teaching he currently also consults on the planning, design and construction of health care, institutional, commercial and residential projects. Prior to coming to northern New England Jack worked for a number of architectural firms in Philadelphia PA. Jack earned his AB in Art at Vassar College and his Master of Architecture degree at the University of Pennsylvania. He has given invited talks, and presented papers nationally and internationally and is active both at Dartmouth and locally on numerous committees and boards, including the Board of Directors of The Family Place, a non-profit organization in Vermont focused on building strong families in order to build strong communities.

Molly Bode, Global Health Program Officer, The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science

Molly Bode is a Global Health Program Officer at The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science. Molly also serves as the Dartmouth Haiti Response Coordinator for medical and educational initiatives with partners in Haiti. In addition to working on Haiti projects, she helps coordinate other global health activities at the College including projects in Rwanda, India, other countries, and in the US. Prior to her current position, Molly served in a two-year fellowship in the President's Office and The Dartmouth Center working on projects for President Jim Yong Kim. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2009 with a Biology and Film major and is currently taking Masters in Public Health courses.


Tyler Pavlowich, PhD student, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Tyler is a second-year PhD student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program at Dartmouth College. He has worked with fish and aquaculture for seven years, both as a researcher and extensionist to rural communities in Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer.

His most recent research has focused on the use of algae as a feed source for tilapia in integrated food-energy systems with Professor Anne Kapuscinski from the Environmental Studies Program. He is starting his dissertation and interested in how appropriate aquatic food production systems can contribute to ecological and human well-being.

Special thanks to Dartmouth for making this happen!

VG and I are excited to see the TATAs and Mahindra and Mahindras of the world enter the market for affordable housing for the poor.  When businesses view the poor as customers, they start designing products and services for them - at a price point they can afford.  Along the way, these same businesses learn what it means to truly innovate.

Read our post on the Harvard Business Review blog >>

Dear $300 House members,

I have followed with interest your design contest (even submitted an entry) and as the winners are announced I would request you consider an opportunity to field trial a/some most suitable designs in a real world situation.

I am trying to develop a self-help project to provide low cost, suitable housing, and a sustainable job/income for poor people particularly in the Philippines.

I am exploring working with a village of Mangyan people in the Puerto Galera area of Mindoro Island and I would ask you consider them as recipients of one or more of the successful design outcomes of the contest.

What I need is simply the design information and rights and a working relationship with the designers of a suitable $300 house that is worth investing over $20,000 to build 60 houses.

I advise that many outcomes could ride on the house design "working" and a lot of goodwill could be won or lost by the results achieved. The 60 houses I propose to build are only a small fraction of what is eventually required.

I am not working with the whole Mangyan population  The group I am working with is only one village and while they are 100% Mangyan people they are mostly in transition from their traditional hill-tribe culture into the today's life, culture and economy of the Philippines . They are maintaining many of their traditional values such as strong village group bonding, sense of culture and community, sharing, hard work and passive nature.

They struggle because of limited educational opportunities in the past but are trying hard to ensure their children receive education, health care and other benefits.

Some are share farming, some making handicrafts for sale in nearby tourist areas and some working as guides and labourers for the resorts and in the town. But, they do it very tough. Their houses are frankly very sub-standard and on a recent visit I was shocked. The photos I have included here are some of the better examples.

Their community is in many other ways very functional - they have a primary school and resident teacher; a church and resident minister/teacher; a community meeting place; limited town water-supply and some solar power.

They appear to have a well organized community management structure - it has respect, authority and is consultative and involving.

The leaders are currently having preliminary discussions regarding my proposal to build low cost houses for each of the 60 families in the village.

I stress this is not a headlong crash into a delicate sociological situation.  The project I propose addresses an immediate needs of a village that is well into cultural transition but struggling with very poor housing. The project treads carefully and only after wide consultation - especially it is lead by the people themselves. They have many advisers as well and I envisage the project will be ongoing for at least three years. The houses however could be built within 6 months - according to the level of local participation. A slower build rate would be desirable to enable training and high levels of villager involvement..

The village is located near an easily accessed major town and in reasonable proximity to Manila the capitol of the Philippines. I am confident that one or other of the major universities located in Manila - such as University of The Philippines, Ateneo De Manila, De La Salle or other would be interested to participate in this project from an advisory and academic point of view.

I have almost certainly secured financial support to build 60 houses with an average cost of $300 i.e. approximately US$20,000. I believe strongly that  other support programs are needed by this community all aimed at creating employment, land ownership and economic sustainability of this group. I am also working on these aspects. For example the villagers needs land to which they have clear title before the houses can be built. This is a priority matter at the moment.

There are many possibilities that can spring from this housing project for this village and in general I can see some very interesting possibilities if there was a house for $300.

About me: I am an Australian and semi-retired; briefly my back ground is as a businessman involved in R&D and manufacture of very advanced scientific components. At the same time I was a senior member of a consortium of Australian businesses that did many small development projects in S E Asia over 15 years (total value ~$150 million) - mainly in Indonesia - such as establishing/upgrading Environmental Monitoring Laboratories, Agricultural Science teaching and research laboratories, Occupational Health and Safety Laboratories.

I am a past Chairman of the Australian Scientific Industry Association, a founding director of the Technology Industry Exporters Group as well as various roles in commercialization committees interacting with universities etc.

Thank you for your time regarding this matter

I look forward to hearing from you.

Ian Fraser
Sydney
Australia

IanFraser [ at ] sydney [dot] net

Felisberto Tole is the team leader in Beira, Mozambique for Awaken Mozambique - an organization founded by an Australian college professor. He has just recovered, we've learned, from a fight with malaria.

I am writing to you from Awaken Mozambique an association here in Beira, Sofala Province, Mozambique. We would like to know how can we assist you , or what kind of information you need from us, and we can then take it from there. 

What began as a challenge in a blog post on the Harvard Business Review website has resulted in a collection of 300 design submissions from around the world. The $300 House Open Design Challenge is complete, with judges picking their final selections after much deliberation, and an extension, in order to go through the entries in detail.

Winners were selected in combination with votes from the community and a panel of judges comprised of expert designers, architects, and thought leaders. The winners share $25000 in total prize money which includes $10,000 in cash awards to the top 16 placements as voted by the community itself, and $15,000 in scholarships to attend a prototyping workshop for six participants (three selected by the community, and three by the judges panel).

The winners of the prototyping workshop scholarship are (listed by username):

• PStouter
•  iLINES
• Rogerio AA
• architecturecommons
• DVS, and
• elsap11

An award of recognition for corporate participation goes to a team from Mahindra Partners - the jurors decided to judge corporate entries separately.

 "We're delighted by the depth and breadth of the submissions we received," says Vijay Govindarajan, Professor of International Business and the Founding Director of Tuck's Center for Global Leadership. "Hosting this contest on Jovoto's open, co-creation platform gave us a wealth of ideas and identified the people who we believe have the passion, skill, and commitment, to take the project to the next level, prototyping and actually building a $300 house for the poor. We invite all the participants to continue the discussion at www.300house.com."

The judges for the $300 House Open Design Challenge have requested more time to make their decision.  According to Dartmouth professor Vijay Govindarajan, the request for extra time is not unreasonable. "We want our judges to take their time, deliberate, and select the best designs. After all, we have 300 designs to go through - I'm not surprised we're overwhelmed, " he explains.

The new date for the announcement of the winners has been set at June 15.  We hope that the community understands why the judges are taking the extra time, and we look forward to sharing the results with everyone on that date.

Have they stopped fact-checking at the New York Times? 

That's the question I asked myself when I saw the op-ed they ran on the $300 House.

VG and I wrote a rebuttal - here - on the Harvard Business Review blog.

Please let us know what you think by posting your comments at HBR, underneath the rebuttal.

Note: the letter has been slightly edited to make the author's meaning more clear... Christian

After building several houses in Africa (Sudan, Ethiopia) and Asia (Srilanka, Nepal). I decided to create my own association - Surya - which would take the problems on more comprehensively.

Most of (European) NGOs work in this way: for example there are money for women rights in Pakistan, so they go there and quickly use (waste) the money in "correct" way, but without concept, without cooperate with another projects etc... many times they create different types of disbalances like make some part of community make too much money (redistributing power in community), or by creating black markets by giving things for free etc.

For me, it was most important to solve problem complexly. Out of all problems I met on my way I found out the lack of education the main problem to be solved. I didn't like to support hospital projects in Africa, where European doctors would give care to locals as long there are money and when there are no more money doctors leave and the situation is same as before. Neither giving to fisherman houses many kilometers away from the sea like I saw in Sri Lanka.

I started 2002 creating school design for Himalayas village Kargyak with special climate 4 days walk distant from nearest road. After 2 years of collecting data from the area,  I graduated with school design at Czech Technical Uni (2004). 2006 I started Civic Association Surya to build the school. Using only local materials and technique which the local people can learn by helping.

2006 we built green house to collect climatic data from the area as model house. 2007 we started the teaching in rented space, and made the main ground work on site, 2008 the school was finished. Since then we measure internal and external climate and helping locals to create their own green houses, but the main think is the education and if necessary also first aid.

So in short what I think is necessary:

1) ethnology and sociology - what the local people need and who is the representative of the community (who we can and want to talk to represent all the community) , do I want to support it, is it possible to manage, how much local community will participate to accomplish

2) research on site
    a) local technologies, materials available and its properties, people skills, prices. (how far are some more skilled people or additional material, how are the transport possibilities)
    b) climate conditions: temperatures, wind, seismicity, rainfall.. etc
    c) animals: termites, spiders, snakes, monekys, rats, mosquitoes (and diseases)...etc.
    d) logistics, existing infrastructure or possibilities to create it (tresh management, water, electricity)

3) site, place which the community would use and owner would provide it for project (and the conditions to do so)(in many places people even do not know their fields are not their property)

4) design and plan of incorporation in existing or planed infrastructure, based on 1) 2) 3)

5) sharing the design with local people and making the agreement with than how the building will look like and will work. Creating the RULES about how much and when is community, you or municipality working for the project and what they provide (in many places it does not work in the way by signing the contract...the agreement is something that must be re insured repeatedly) ... etc.

6) reevaluation based on the feedback from the community

7) making a model structure (could be just simple testing construction or a part of it) in the place where it will be used - prototypes and its testing

8) evaluation of data and testing of building

9) pilot project - testing and feedback from the community

10) at least one year later we can evaluate data and start implementation for the one particular site.

11) house evaluation and recommendations for other projects

12) after 1, 3, 5 years evaluation of local impact of the project (social, economical, environmental )

It is probably not full list of guidelines to success but if we skip some points we can face sooner or later difficulties.

Jan Honza Tilinger, M.Eng.
Chairman of Civic Association Surya - www.surya.cz

For us, the project was more than just that - a project. It was a set of experiences, a journey.

Part 2 captures the essence of our journey while working through the challenges of this project. In this process, we met committed people who were willing to help us along the way. A big thanks to them.

Our Journey

The spring term at Tuck just ended, and with that our assignment to progress the $300 house concept further. We did a lot of work, and we have tried to capture it in our key findings on how to make this concept a reality in India.

Part 1 captures the essence of our business plan.

Business Plan (Scribd/PDF)

Thanks to everyone for their enthusiasm and support!  VG and I are thrilled to see the creative suggestions and the spirit of co-operation that became more and more evident as the $300 House Open Design Challenge went along. 

Special thanks to the Jovoto team - Nathalie, Nadine, Peter (x2), Bastian, and Shaun at Mutopo for making this happen - without your generosity we'd never have gotten off the ground.  Thanks also to Scott Tew from Ingersoll Rand for your willingness to try this experiment.

Now, let the judging begin!

Over the weekend we were surprised to learn that COMMON (via Alex Bogusky) was not going to be hosting our prototyping workshop after all. They pulled out at the 11th hour, telling us that they decided they "would not be able to meet our expectations for the event."  Big disappointment, but hey, this is an opportunity to rethink the workshop - from scratch.

Just wish they had told us earlier!

This morning we had a chat with Scott Tew of Ingersoll Rand (the workshop sponsor) and they're as committed as ever to going forward with the prototyping workshop - at a new venue and under new management. 

Shaun Abrahamson, one of our great advisors, suggests the following:

once we have the winners, it seems that it might make sense to agree on SCOPE of prototyping with them. from the process so far, it seems we will have

+ diverse range of material and equipment needs
+ some decisions on what we will focus on - whole buildings vs specific components (bricks, earthbags, etc)
+ modeling and estimation for time and cost assumptions

I also think it would be helpful for people to talk to stakeholders, including potential customers. dont want to keep pushing for local, but having been on the ground in brazil, south africa, zimbabwe, etc, I think the local realities are hard to grasp without first hand experience.

We think that this is a better approach than what we had planned in Alabama. We're still going to have a prototyping workshop, but now we get to decide (a) the venue, and (b) who the workshop mentors will be (we've asked David Sands to participate already) and we're looking for a few more visionaries to get involved.  They must be able to roll up sleeves and build prototypes!

If you have any suggestions on (a) or (b) - drop us a line at info [at] 300house.com !!

Finally, and most importantly, the contest deadline has not changed.

Have you submitted your entry yet? 2 days to go, go, go! >>

Stay tuned for the details on the prototyping workshop, and thanks for your support.

Lesson learned.

The following is part of an exchange between Philip Herlihy (a $300 house supporter) and LEGO:

Hi Kasia,

Thank you for your reply.  However, I don't think you've quite understood what I was suggesting - I wasn't asking for a simple donation.  The potential scope is much greater, and there could be very significant benefit for Lego, both in terms of worldwide goodwill and also commercial profit.

If a home-building system based on plastic bricks were to take off, the worldwide market would be immense.  Economists have talked about the "bottom of the pyramid" as an overlooked market sector, as although margins are small, the potential volumes are vast.  In these days of globalisation, manufacturing itself would be done in a low-cost environment (e.g. China) but with design, marketing and branding located in the West.  What I'm suggesting is that Lego might look into this not just as a charitable venture but as a long-term source of profit, demonstrating that free enterprise can turn a dollar while bringing vast benefits to the world.  Now, think ten years ahead, and imagine that the poorest people are starting to be housed with a system using plastic bricks.  Now imagine that it *isn't* Lego that's behind this, but some other company.  The Decca record company famously turned down the Beatles...

I realise that this is an unusual proposal to be arriving at a customer service desk.  I understand your response, which is thoughtful and respectful, and makes perfect sense when the request is for a donation for a school or hospital.  But what I'm suggesting has the potential for doubling and trebling the company's revenues while making the name Lego as revered as the name Carnegie has become - associated not just with business success but also with philanthropy and civilisation itself.

For this reason, I'd ask you to pass this request up your management chain far enough to reach a director with responsibility for blue-sky business planning - the people who are responsible for making sure that Lego will still be a household name in 30 years' time.

Just to clarify (as I see my original message is not part of this thread):  there is a project "300house.com" as described in The Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/18618271?story_id=18618271) which seeks to find an affordable way to provide housing for the world's poorest people.  Isn't that something Lego would like to be part of, especially if there's a dollar in it?

Best wishes,


Philip Herlihy
www.WalthamSoft.com

A few weeks ago, following The Economist's publication of an article about the $300 House, we read a comment that in many ways epitomizes an opposing view to this concept: simply providing an affordable home is not enough - building entire communities is needed, and that is too expensive.  We will address his main thesis ("A viable shelter doe not a successful person, family, or community make. Success comes from within a positive and empowered person, provided with local opportunity and support.") at the end, but first we want to discuss several other points this reader made.

"If all you wanted to do was increase health and sanitation you would set up community toilets, clinics, centers, and reliable security outposts where citizens could get daily attention."

Anyone familiar with the work of Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health knows that his success in fighting Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis in Haiti - and throughout the world - is driven in part by his attention to patients' conditions at home, not just in his clinic.  When patients have a safe place to sleep and food on the table, they are much more likely to follow a drug regimen.  Unfortunately, many clinics in the developing world do not have the means or resources to help their patients outside the clinic.  Providing safe, reliable, and cheap housing is only one piece of this puzzle, but it plays an important role.  Most importantly, we need to realize that "increasing health and sanitation" is about the entire community and a person's entire life/customs, not just building clinics or toilets.

 

"Any camper or outdoorsperson can live weeks or months in the most basic un-serviced accommodation and even thrive if the right facilities are available nearby."

One trap that is easy to fall into is associating other people and cultures to your own social norms.  As we researched Haiti as a potential market for the $300 House, our teams often fell into this very trap.  For instance, we assumed Haitian homes could have one door and open windows.  Upon further research we learned that cultural beliefs lead many Haitians to have two front doors and to close all openings to the house overnight.  In the same way, this comment implies that lacking sanitation conditions may not be the primary objective because outdoorspeople survive and thrive without them.  However, we would argue that tens or even hundreds of thousands of people living in slums cannot survive on the same trowel-and-leaf program that hikers in the first world do.  In Haiti, community latrines are overflowing, and people are loading human waste by hand onto trucks that then dump it in landfills or other empty latrines. The situation is simply not comparable.  This is why it is important to truly understand the markets you hope to help, so you can understand the situation from the proper frame of reference.

"So, the answer is to create communities - and this is where the true costs lies. Setting up the businesses, education, and other support systems that allows this collection of inhabitants to push past extreme poverty into simple self-sufficiency and independence."

In our minds, the answer is absolutely about creating communities, but this is not necessarily where the true cost lies.  As mentioned above with respect to Partners in Health, it is clear that communities are needed to solve the problems that face the bottom of the pyramid.  Having an education but no employment, or medicine but unsanitary living conditions will simply not work.  That being said, any attempt to "build" a community from the outside (building a school, a hospital, roads, etc.) is unlikely to succeed.  Communities form organically, and the members of a community are the most important component.  Spending money to build the infrastructure of a community would indeed be costly, but spending money on one basic component, such as safe, affordable housing, is within reason.  We believe that housing is a fundamental part of the community: it is a place to learn and study, a place to rest and heal, and a source of pride and responsibility. By helping individuals obtain safer, sanitary housing we can serve as a catalyst to help spur the growth of a community.

 

Eradicating poverty from the world would indeed be costly, if not impossible, and we certainly don't believe affordable housing alone can accomplish that.  However, affordable housing is one key component - a building block - to solving many of the issues faced by impoverished people.  We believe that a business solution to provide affordable housing is the most practical approach to many problems.  As a business venture, it would be self-sufficient, a "going concern", making it a permanent solution.  And, by providing housing, it would have an impact across many social issues.  While the housing might not solve those issues, we believe it would set a strong foundation to support future progress - and perhaps one day, to support a whole new community.

So, here we are - The original and simple Tuck Haiti Team. From the left - Amith, Pablo, Sam, Jonathan and Soni.

In considering the materials to be utilized for constructing the $300, our team has made the following observations:

 

1. Construction materials that are most commonly available in India include gypsum, concrete and bamboo. The first option (gypsum), can be used to manufacture building blocks.  If produced locally with natural resources, semi-skilled labor and few transport needs, gypsum-stabilized earth construction for low-cost housing can be very cost effective. Gypsum bricks are a very durable option for the construction of boundary walls and can be produced through the utilization of industrial waste. The second option (concrete) would be the most expensive of the three materials. It is environmentally friendly, energy efficient and entails a simple manufacturing process. The key ingredients would include cement, sand and industry wastes such as fly ash and blast furnace slag. The third option (bamboo) is highly resistant to water, termites, borer, insects and wood rotting fungi. Bamboo is also stronger than plywood, more durable and can withstand severe climatic conditions.

 

2. Materials will constitute approximately 60-70 percent of construction costs depending on the type or combination used. The challenge is that house will be piloted in three different states (Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra) with different climatic conditions and availability of natural resources. We are exploring various cost options as part of the business plan to propose a combination of materials at minimized costs based on durability, environmental compatibility and availability. At the same time, the more homogenous the product, the less costly and the greater the possibility that it can be modular and be scaled.

 

We have considered five other material types that could be explored separately or in conjunction with some combination of the aforementioned three common ones.

 

1. Cellular Concrete would be highly conducive for walling blocks and roofing slabs. This type of concrete is manufactured through an aerated cellular concrete manufacturing process and has a high fire resistance rating and can improve insulation in the house.

 

2. Micro Concrete can be used for roofing tiles and is made of graded cement mortar layer vibrated and formed over sloping mould and cured. It would be most appropriate where fired clay tiles are not available and timber is costlier. Further cost reductions can be made by using ferro cement rafter and purlins.

 

3. Corrugated Bamboo is a strong candidate, as it is eco-friendly, light in weight, strong and durable and poses minimal fire hazards compared to thatch and other materials. Corrugated bamboo sheets can be used for roofing, walling, door and window shutters and other components in building construction. It is both termite resistant and fire retardant as well. Moreover, bamboo can also be utilized for walls. A bamboo mat can be placed between horizontal and vertical timber/bamboos as a frame. These walls could be easy to construct, less expensive, and are popular in hilly areas given a self-help system. This walling technique is also relevant from the perspective of earthquake resistance. Treated bamboo can be used for the construction of this with bamboo mat walling between bamboo columns plastered with cement on both sides. The structure is light and economical as bamboo is abundant. Bamboo is also termite resistant and fire retardant.

 

4. Mud is extensively used for construction in rural areas, as it is readily available and widely accepted. Mud is an alternative building material that is significantly cheaper than conventional brick and concrete, and is also environmentally sustainable. Mud has been used as a construction material on every continent for centuries.

 

5. Cement is widely available across India and this option must be accorded serious consideration for construction purposes. Gujarat, one of the focus states of the $300 house project, would be very suitable for this material based on the Bhungas of Kutch, where compressed cement stabilized earth blocks are used for the walls. Earthquake resistant features like vertical and horizontal bands are provided to each Bhunga.

 

Finally, we believe that identifying the right combination of materials will be the single biggest challenge in ensuring a sustainable final product that can meet the needs of low income families. For the house to appeal to customers across the country, it will need to be modifiable in order to conform to local conditions and be affordable. This will require additional discussions with local contractors and raw material suppliers in order to obtain information on prices, product quality and suitability, manufacturing technology and masonry.

 

A few weeks ago the Haiti $300 House team had a research call that got us thinking about the "cost" of being poor; it left us with both concern and hope for those at the bottom of the pyramid.  In this conversation, we learned that the majority of Haiti's slum dwellers pay rent - perhaps more than 80% of them.  This is often a payment made to middle-/upper-class landlords and/or gangs.  They also pay for their water, which has to be brought in by truck or purchased in bottles.  When you consider this, plus the costs of medicine needed due to unsanitary conditions, you start to realize how truly expensive it is to be a poor Haitian.

As you step back and think about it, this is not a unique phenomenon.  Here in the U.S., there are similar high "costs" for the poor.  If for example a low income family needs medicine, they might put it on a credit card and incur 20% interest until it is completely paid.  In contrast, someone with more income might charge it then pay it in full, earning 1% cash back from the same credit card provider.  The pattern holds true for purchasing staples as well: a relatively wealthy person can buy paper towels in bulk at a lower cost, while a low income person can only afford to buy paper towels in the more expensive single-package form.  So across the globe it appears that the cost of everyday life is actually higher for the poor.

It is easy to see this "cost" of being poor as an insurmountable problem.  After all, how can we help the bottom of the pyramid pay for all of the "costs" they are facing?  But these costs are exactly what make the $300 House concept feasible.  What if rather than subsidizing the bottom of the pyramid to help them meet the high costs, we reduce the costs by offering cheaper alternatives?  If the slum dwellers in Brazil are paying $8 per week for housing - as I recently learned from a documentary - why couldn't they spend the same for a mass produced shelter with built in water purification?  If this shelter cost $300, it would take less than one year to pay for it in full.  With micro-financing over a longer period, the cost of housing could be greatly reduced for slum dwellers.

The $300 House idea is appealing to us because it is self-sustaining.  Profit seeking businesses would be interested in it for its potential revenue streams: 1.) selling the house, 2.) selling add-ons (accessories, water purifiers, solar panels, etc.), and 3.) developing a market by improving health/sanitation, leading to greater consumer spending power.  While it is difficult to show a business the impact of a healthier market with greater spending power, it is relatively easy to demonstrate the immediate revenue opportunity from selling the house.  If a business can provide a safe, healthy living environment that is priced below slum dwellers current "costs", it can take the slum dwellers' rent payment away from current landlords (who often care very little about the conditions of their property and tenants).  The business makes money by shifting and perhaps even lowering the cost burden of the poor, and in return slum dwellers pay the same or less for much improved conditions.  The current "costs" for the poor are therefore an opportunity for businesses to improve the lives of those at the bottom of the pyramid.      

When looked at in this light, the "cost" of being poor can also be seen as an opportunity and entry point for improvement.  So, while it concerns us, it also brings us hope.

Greetings again from the $300 house project team here at Tuck school of Business at Dartmouth!

 

To recap our updates thus far, we have introduced our team (here), we gave a brief update when we were in India with couple of photos, and followed it up with more photos on our return to US. We also wrote a brief blog regarding some high-level insights from our India trip (here).

 

Over the past 2-1/2 months, we have focused on determining what would it take to make this project a reality in India. We have had several internal meetings with various stakeholders, spent several hours researching this topic, read hundreds of articles, explored the work that is already being done in this space, and seized the opportunity for our entire team to visit India in early March. Today, in this blog, we will distill some of our key findings, especially with regard to the design of the $300 house. We strongly feel that meeting these requirements is imperative to ensure the success of this project. We also hope that our findings will help the broader community of designers, architects, and interested folks to gain additional insights. At the same time,  we hope to obtain valuable feedback from all of you.

 

We seek to answer two main questions:

 

-      What are the most important design criteria (requirements) for a $300 house in India?

-      What would this house look like?

 

Most important design criteria

 

Based on our visit to several slums in Mumbai and Raipur, and through our surveys with the inhabitants of these slums, we have established the following key criteria to guide the construction of a $300 house. Please note that these do not apply to all the houses in slums, but to the majority that we visited.

 

-      Sunlight: A lot of these slum houses do not have any windows or doors. Upon entering these houses, the rooms are dark, and they remain dark throughout the day. In houses where there is no electricity, this problem is even more acute because families, when inside, are spending their time in darkness or in lantern. (Note: there is one door to enter the house, but it is usually covered by a bed sheet or plastic sheet to maintain some privacy).

 

-      Ventilation: With no doors or windows inside the house, and no specific outlets for ventilation, fresh air does not circulate the house.

 

-      Height of 10 feet: When some of us entered the house, we could not stand straight. We had to bend to talk to these residents. Height of the ceilings is a big issue in these houses, where the houses are less than 6 feet in height. Hence, we think that having at least 10 feet of height has the following benefits:

o    Allows opportunities to create outlets for light and ventilation

o    Creates perception of larger house space

o    Provides an opportunity for the residents to build additional structures (like a small loft or additional storage space)

 

-      225 Square Feet: Most houses that we visited ranged from about 90 sq. ft. to 180 sq. ft. We think that these houses, if possible, should be at least 225 sq. ft. in size. We borrow this number from the fact that the Government of India is making houses of at least 225 sq. ft. in places like Dharavi and New Raipur as part of their initiative to provide low-income housing. This requirement could be tougher to meet because of land issues. But in places where the land is owned by the residents themselves, and possibilities exist to redesign the house (albeit for a cheaper cost), the size should be an important criteria.

 

-      Current family size: Most families are 4-5 members in size; 2 parents and 3 kids.

 

-      Private showers: Most of these houses do not have bathrooms, leaving the residents to go and shower publicly. If public showers are available, they use that; but in our observation, most residents take showers right outside their own houses, leaving no privacy for these residents, especially women and girls. Also, these activities cultivate an unhygienic environment in the neighborhood and community increasing dirt and accumulation of trash. Hence, having a shower inside a house is important for two reasons:

 

o    Hygiene

o    Privacy

 

-      Communal restroom per 10 families: Similarly, private restrooms in each house are missing. We also heard and read that restrooms can get very expensive to build in each and every house. Additionally, our observations tell us that community restrooms, where 10 families use a public restroom, separate for men and women are working well today. We would like to propose the same. From a cost perspective, this helps is average the cost of a single restroom across 10 (or so) families, while providing these facilities, which are then maintained by the respective owners. A key for these restrooms is available to each of these 10 families.

 

-      Security (and ownership): As mentioned earlier, most houses had small doors to enter the house, but no way to protect anyone from entering. These doors are usually covered with bed sheets or plastic sheets (for privacy reasons), but anyone can enter the house at their will. This prevents building a sense of security and a sense of complete ownership for this house. We feel providing a closed door is critical in elevating the living conditions of these people. While they might not have a lot of items that people could steal, it is the perception of ownership that matters.

 

-      "Pucca" houses: This is an important criterion. Many of the houses that we visited were built from mud, cow dung, tin roofs, bamboo, and plastic sheets. They are falling apart. It is important to provide a pucca house (pucca means strong). This could be in the form of concrete or other materials. The choice of material is important here because of the perception of people to move to a $300 house from their existing homes.

 

The last point is important and deserving of further explanation. Please note that the $300 house can be targeted to two sets of people: (1) Those who own a house that is currently falling apart; AND (2) those who do not own a house. For those who own a house, they need a set of reasons to catalyze them to move to a $300 house. What are they? We think the above list captures the most important ones. These criteria are not new, and nothing fancy, but the fact that the current residents do not enjoy these is a BIG ISSUE. If we could meet the goal of providing these features at a decent cost, there is a very STRONG INCENTIVE for the current residents to upgrade. In other words, our housing design needs to cross a certain threshold of aspirational value that would convince the current residents to shift to a $300 house. This is a critical part of the design!

 

Additionally, we have also captured additional criteria and grouped them in three separate categories:

 

-      More requirements:

o    Resistance to heat

o    Resistance to heavy rain/floods

o    Resistance to fire

o    Water tank

o    A sink

o    Scalable design and material so it is not problematic to build these houses in scale

 

-      "Nice to Have" for the house include:

o    Flexibility: modularity to expand the house beyond what it is

o    Small porch

o    A few steps at the front to prevent mud, rain, etc.

o    Gutter to collect rain water

 

More about community amenities:

 

As alluded to earlier, we believe that one of the ways to reduce costs and stay within budget is to provide some of the basic services for the community rather than for each individual house. We would need a big tank and a water filtration system to clean the rain water or other water collected and provided people with a source of potable water which could be different than the tank they need for their shower water for instance. We would also need a community restroom. Our estimate is that we would need one for every 10 houses (50 people), which would constitute a marked improvement over what currently exists. The restroom should be self-sufficient (i.e. compost, etc.). Luxury items would include a space for washing clothes, a community center, etc. but are not required and certainly very challenging given the budget.

 

What would this house look like?

 

Based on the above criteria, we tried to brainstorm as a group to envision the design and layout of this house. Subsequently, a few MBA students went on to realize their design in the form of a Google Sketch Up design. Please note that the below designs are just conceptual in nature, and do not meet the scale requirements. It is just a first attempt at prototyping, with aim of  building upon this protoype, and refining it even more. We hope these sketches will help initiate a collective discussion regarding some of the requirements we mentioned above. (One of the skills which our group lacks is experience in design/architecture).

                                          A single house design    

                 

      A community of 10 houses with a common restroom and water storage