The Design Indaba 10x10 Low-Cost Housing Project aims to stimulate alternative solutions to housing. Ten architectural teams, composed of handpicked South Africans paired with international alumni of previous conferences, were challenged with this pro bono project. The objective was to come up with affordable, attractive and innovative responses to the urgent need to house the urban poor. Sustainable design, construction and operation principles were encouraged.

The first qualifying solution came from Luyanda Mpahlwa of MMA Architects. MMA’s design for a single-family home leveraged the extremely tight budget by borrowing elements from indigenous mud-and-wattle building techniques. In September 2008, MMA’s design won the Curry Stone Design Prize, an international award that recognises creative solutions with the power and potential to improve our lives and the world in which we live.

Design Indaba constructed ten such houses in Freedom Park, a township in greater Cape Town, with materials sponsored by PG Bison/Pennypinchers. The project’s experiences and outputs will be presented to the South African Minister of Housing. This information will also be available online in an open-source manual, contributing to the global knowledge commons regarding the design and construction of low-cost housing.