Having spent the last 3 years working and living in Tanzania I now think I know what I can do to really add value before I leave. As most of you know my background is in engieering and sustainable buildings. I am hoping to return to Iringa Tanzania and build homes for the disabled staff that work at Neemacrafts. My wife and I believe in this enough to pay for our stay in Tanzania ourselves, so any money you give WONT be going to flights or anything like that.
The building technique uses bags of earth stacked like bricks into a Dome shape. This type of building has shown to be extremely stable and strong, even resisting earthquakes. Because the materials are not processed and can be found locally it is a low cost and environmentally friendly way of building. Also because the walls and roof have a high thermal mass (solid and thick) they balance out the night and day temperature providing a naturally more confortable building.
A lot of people in Tanzania are moving away from traditional building techniques to building poor quality concrete/cement buildings with a corrugated metal roof, to me this seems like a shift in the wrong direction.
If this project gets off the ground then I hope to train local people in this building technique so that local groups of people can get together and build their own homes.
http://vimeo.com/15231229
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