i
of the building prototype.
A high proportion of building parts of the house
(approaching 90%) are prefabricated in a workshop
by micro- and small-scale enterprises, creating the
opportunity for new jobs and skills. Considering
the current building system in Ethiopia – which is
highly dominated by imported building materials,
expensive customized processes, and inflexible
cast-in-situ systems – this shift will present a costefficient and faster alternative for the construction
sector.
Through the efficient employment of resources,
energy, labour and time, Incremental Construction
demonstrates that the city’s complex and seemingly
insurmountable installation process of housing units
could be overcome. By learning from the experiment,
it would be possible to self-construct a very
affordable housing unit in less than three months. It
also makes it possible to activate private resources
and form a private workforce to erect necessary
housing units for Ethiopia, which introduces the
possibility to do “more with less” and keep the value
African project:
SICU
chains for production and assembly within the
country.
Different building elements within the SICU system
have been strategically designed and sorted for
convenient development by micro, small scale
and medium business enterprises. From the SICU
building elements manual, pre-existing or newlyorganized youth associations can identify a building
system or component which is profitable for them,
and pursue its production as a business initiative.
The pre-prepared desig