Sustainable Incremental Construction Unit (Modular Housing Scheme)
EiABC (Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction, and City Development) and Bauhaus University
The Sustainable Incremental Construction Unit (SICU) is a process-oriented building product that utilizes a purposefully incomplete structure that is both affordable and rapid to assemble. The homeowners complete the construction themselves according to their own needs.
The Sustainable Incremental Construction Unit, or the SICU, is a process-oriented building product that utilizes a purposefully incomplete structure that is both affordable and rapid to assemble. With up to 90% of the building components (including prefabricated concrete elements and lightweight eucalyptus frames) produced by local micro enterprises, the approach enables capacity building, as the homeowners complete the construction themselves according to their own needs.
SICU is part of the “welcome Africa” project 2012- 2015 at DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) which is an international academic research project between the Ethiopian, South Sudanese and German universities.
*Please note that building designs are being included as “products” in the Habitat Sector of the Solutions Library to allow readers to learn from how projects were designed and constructed and how they are serving the occupants, whether effective or ineffective.
Tested in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, with a focus on informal settlements
$6,100 USD, estimated, excluding the cost of toilet facilities. Interview with design team Estimated costs of individual elements can be found in the SICU Technical Report.
Alternatives include other self-built homes with open source layouts that encourage participatory design. Elemental has been designing incremental housing for several years in Chile. Another worthy competitor is the WikiHouse project.
Families and individuals living within informal settlements.
