Ivory Innovations Supports International Student Research
Miguel Lantigua Inoa was part of the winning Hack GSD team in our 2021 Hack-A-House competition and attended our entrepreneurship bootcamp in January 2022. Ivory Innovations was pleased to support his research in North and East Africa on housing affordability, focused on self-built homes and town planning methods.
—
This summer, with the support of Ivory Innovations and multiple grants from Harvard University, I conducted research on affordable housing in Cairo, Nairobi, and throughout Tanzania. The in-person fieldwork is part of my on-going investigation on housing solutions across Africa, the United States, and Latin America. For this segment of the research, I focused on self-initiated construction methods and city planning. My goal was to document a range of methods and to learn how these can lead to solutions which improve home affordability and the living conditions of families. A parallel objective was to advance innovative housing while adhering to sustainable and responsible strategies. The case studies I learned about include: twisting blocks implemented in and around Kibera (Nairobi), 3D printed homes, interlocking/mortarless blocks, upcycling agrowaste for panelized wall systems, and the nascent stages of engineered timber in Dar es Salaam to list a few examples. The planning insights include: Tilisi Development, Cairo Festival City, Tatu City, numerous efforts by Tanzania’s National Housing Corporation, and Unity Homes. As a study in multiple countries, this was also an opportunity for cultural exchange. And so, I concurrently initiated dialogue between various stakeholders in the countries I visited.
Suffice to say, there isn’t a silver bullet to the housing crisis countries face. Nor are there easy answers. Rather, the crisis necessitates many approaches (policy, cultural, design, construction, etc.) Moreover, this challenge requires multidisciplinary collaboration, a drive to holistically understand the nuances of each housing sector, and a boldness to test creative solutions – even if in small scales. This will occur differently from city to city, country to country. However, the ethos and appetite to innovate would be consistent. Through this experience, I learned that much can be gained from what communities are implementing, and in some cases, consistently implemented for many decades. Put simply, all solutions were initially new, and indeed, challenging. This trip taught me of the varying routes towards successful execution. I was delighted to learn that there is a strong desire for creativity among people committed to solutions.
With regards to the United States, numerous tracks were informed by my research. I highlight two here which help illustrate the above points. On the construction front, incremental building would allow some families to build/buy as need; for instance, as a family begins to grow overtime, or as a household can afford material and labor. I observed the distinct ways this occurs in each of the visited countries. Once more, this is not about silver bullet solutions, but one of many viable solutions which augments routes to ownership. The interlocking construction blocks I learned about are particularly helpful in this regard – for example, one was even successfully certified in Germany and numerous African countries. As an environmentally responsible, safe, and workable method, the blocks I documented highlight the flexibility, familiarity, and holistic consideration necessary for housing innovation. To be sure, all USA incremental approaches have considerable design, approval, and labor implications. Such will be the case either way. Anticipation of this must be baked into the creative execution process. In any case, housing possibilities will benefit from an exchange of ideas which grapple with affordability, environmental impact, and responsible land use.
On the social track, I was struck by the significantly different housing types families preferred. In the case of Dar es Salaam, due to multiple factors, mid-rise apartment living is rare. Meanwhile, vertical living is ubiquitous throughout much of Cairo. And yet there are promising efforts aiming to provide vertical solutions that account for the benefits of direct access to Dar es Salaam’s vibrant streets – while leveraging density. Through this research, I learned that eliminating a promising programmatic option solely based on unfamiliarity is a missed opportunity to improve affordability. Instead, understanding all the components which constitute cultural interests is the first step towards innovation. In the United States, the markedly different housing preferences families seek is vital to affordability. To this end, this variety of housing products throughout the United States is a tremendous strength. Without diverse offerings, the housing crisis would be much more severe. And so, programmatically augmenting housing types will have substantial impact on home ownership.
To conclude, this summer’s investigation was invaluable to my broader research on housing. What’s more, the experience contributed to my perspective as an architect and the projects I seek to collaborate on. I am thankful for Ivory Innovations’ support, the brilliant interactions I had with their excellent team, and for our shared commitment towards creative housing solutions. Their emphasis on the importance of advancing numerous possibilities, the needs of families, and housing’s vital role in the United States is the kind of forward-looking perspective which makes tackling the housing crisis an exciting challenge to solve.
—
You can learn more about the organizations Miguel met through his travels below: