At Nkuru-Nziza Foundation, we are always on the look out for any culturally appropriate, simple but also sustainable ideas that would make a big difference in people’s lives. Being able to provide a decent and comfortable home for a family has always been one of our big dreams. In Uganda and Africa in general, very few people have access to decent housing and in many shanty town areas, people have to be inventive in creating some kind of simple shelter for themselves.
We are currently experimenting with an innovative way to be able to solve this problem. Using recycled concrete tubes to provide some form of housing is a simple idea but one that can change lives.
Using recycled concrete tubes can be a cheap, and a quick way to provide some kind of housing to poor families.
Whilst concrete is not usually considered a green building material, the concrete tubes would be recycled making the build eco-friendly.
The modules are mostly arranged in stacked pyramids of three tubes. The top room of each pyramid is accessible via a set of stairs.
This concept housing project could have a range of uses and has potential to provide secure but non-permanent housing for migrant people, displaced communities and others for whom land-rights are an issue and thus non-permanent housing solves a big problem.
We are on a creative journey of innovation and exploration!
The tube house concept for NNF began as a project to provide a house for a child-headed household where land rights were indeed an issue.
For more information please contact
Read on for the full story
Child Headed Household at Kasangati
About 18 months ago we were asked to help a family of five children who were living on their own in this dangerous shack in a village close to Kampala in Uganda.
As soon as we were able, we rented a small room for them close by, and provided them with bunks beds. Our long-term plan was to build them a small house on the land where the shack is. This is family land and the children have a right to be there, however, there were land rights issues and there was a danger that if we built the house it would be taken by other members of the family group.
To provide a solution to the children and also create a model of temporary housing we are developing the innovative concept of tubular houses. We have made our own mold to cast 12 foot diameter concrete tubes 8 feet long. These can then be built into modular homes that can be moved and relocated. Each tube when furbished with floor, solar lighting, windows and a door costs £2,000.
