The bottles are bound together with mud resulting in durable walls that are sustainable, cost-effective and provide insulation from the sun's heat. The resulting buildings are also bullet-proof – a useful benefit in an area plagued by violence. An estate of 25 houses is currently being built with plans for a school to follow.

See our previous story on a house made from sand bags in South Africa.

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Design Indaba 08: here's a new set of photos showing progress on the first sand-bag house being built at Freedom Park in Cape Town, South Africa.

Taken last week, the photos show builders and locals constructing the second level of the house using the EcoBeam sand-bag construction system. The first level has now been plastered and timber shingles are being applied to the upper level.

Designed by architects MMA, the prototype house is part of the 10x10 Housing Project, which is developing new affordable housing typologies.

The house has a budget of 65,000 Rand (£4,300/$8,600).

See more photos of the house being built in our earlier stories.

See images of other 10x10 Housing Project designs by teams including Tom Dixon, Thomas Heatherwick, Shigeru Ban and Will Alsop here.

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Design Indaba 08: continuing our series of stories about the 10x10 Housing Project in Cape Town, South Africa, here are the latest photos showing progress constructing the first sand-bag house.

Designed by MMA Architects, the house is the first of 100 experimental, low-cost homes for former shack dwellers that will be built at Freedom Park on the outskirts of Cape Town.

Work started on the houses last Monday and these photos were taken last Wednesday and Thursday, when local children joined in to help fill sand bags.

See our earlier story for plans of the houses and an explanation of the sand-bag construction method, and photos of the first day's work here.

"The bags have now all been packed in for the bottom floor, and the shuttering was made right on the top for the concrete ringbeam, which was cast on Friday," says project manager Nadya Glawe.

"Next week we'll start plastering the bottom level to give support, before putting up the timber frame on the top level and packing bags again."

The houses each have a budget of 65,000 Rand (£4,300/$8,600).

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Design Indaba 08: the first sand-bag house designed by Cape Town architects MMA is taking shape (see earlier post).

The house, which has a total budget of just 65,000 Rand (£4,300/$8,600), is one of ten houses being built to house former shack dwellers.

The house is part of the 10x10 Housing Project initiated by Design Indaba, the Cape Town design conference and fair, which is taking place this week.

10x10 aims to develop new affordable housing typologies by pairing international designers with South African architects.

A total of 100 houses by ten different design teams will be built at Freedom Park in Cape Town.

Women from Freedom Park are building the houses.

See our earlier story for more info on the sand-bag houses.

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Design Indaba 08: Cape Town architects MMA have started work on a pilot project of ten affordable houses built using a sand-bag construction system.

Each house, being built at Freedom Park at Cape Flats on the outskirts of Cape Town, has a budget of just 65,000 Rand (£4,300/$8,600).

Work started on site yesterday (Monday) and the first house should be substantially finished by the end of the week. These photos show construction of a demonstration wall on the site using the sand-bag system that took place on Sunday.

Above: Luyanda Mpahlwa of MMA architects. Below: women from Freedom Park filling sand bags.

The houses will be donated to former shack dwellers with the first house going to the Jonkers family, who have until now been living in a single-room tin shack.

The sand-bag system, developed by a Cape Town company called Eco-Beam, allows communities to build their own homes using extremely cheap materials.

In this case, the sand comes from dunes located a few hundred metres from the construction site and the bulk of the manual labour is being carried out by women from the Freedom Park community.

The project is part of the 10x10 housing project initiated by Design Indaba, which pairs ten teams of South African architects with international designers to pioneer new affordable housing systems. See Dezeen's story from last year for more info.

MMA Architects were initially paired with London architect Will Alsop, although Alsop has not been involved in the final design of the houses.

Here's a press release from Design Indaba:

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Design Indaba’s 10x10 Housing Project is pleased to announce that building has started on the designated plots in Freedom Park. Launched at last year’s Design Indaba, the 10x10 Housing Project challenged 10 architectural teams to provide innovative and dynamic design solutions for the low-cost housing sector.

Ten of the first solution will be built in this first phase of the project, thanks to sponsorship from PG Bison and Pennypinchers. Future constructions involving the other nine designs are envisioned.

Said Justin Berry, group marketing manager of PG Bison: “As a leader in the South Africa’s building industry, PG Bison is proud to be part of a project that proposes a meaningful solution to the housing problem in South Africa.”

The solution to be implemented is the entry from architect Luyanda Mpahlwa, assisted by Kirsty Ronné. Using an innovative new building system, Ecobeams, which complies with all the rules and regulations of the Cape City Council, fits within budget and fulfils all the requirements with regards to testing and certification of an alternative building system.

"To be part of this project meant a lot in terms of making a significant contribution towards innovative, dignified solutions to the housing situation. I'm looking forward to seeing the final construction," said Mpahlwa.
The design also offers a number of improvements on the standard RDP house. Ecobeams are equal, if not superior, to brick-and-mortar, but cheaper and more eco-friendly.

Taking this into account Mpahlwa has increased the size of the house and created a fluid interplay between public and private spaces in and around the house. The house is also built on a framework, making it easy to expand, and involves the whole community in its construction.

The design, and those of the other architects from around the world will be distributed as architectural open source. “All of these designs will bring new materials and concepts to low-cost housing, and will be an absolute boon to poor families across Africa,” said Ravi Naidoo, founder of Design Indaba and director of Interactive Africa.

The participating architectural teams are: Jo Noero (Cape Town) and Cameron Sinclair (San Francisco); Vanessa September (Cape Town) and Lindy Roy (New York); Luyanda Mpahlwa (Cape Town) and Will Alsop (London); Andrew Makin and Janina Masojada (Durban), and Christoph Egret (London); Lesley Carstens and Silvio Rech (Johannesburg), and Thomas Heatherwick (London); Stefan Antoni (Cape Town) and Eva Jiricna (London); Ruben Reddy (Durban) and Mark Dytham (Tokyo); Martin Kruger (Cape Town) and David Adjaye (London); Henning Rasmus (Johannesburg) and Shigeru Ban (Tokyo); and Don Albert (Cape Town) and Tom Dixon (London).

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