Habitech Building Systems
1) What is the Habitech Building System (HBS) ?
The Habitech Building System is a construction system used to build durable housing and social infrastructure buildings (schools, health clinics, hospitals, community centres, etc.) using prefabricated modular and interlocking components: concrete bricks for walls, concrete joists for floors, concrete pans for casting floors, adjustable concrete beams, concrete staircases (treads and stringers), concrete rings for sanitary units (double vaults aqua privies) and concrete roofing tiles.
The building system was developed at Habitech Center of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and conceived for providing solid and durable buildings resistant to fire, wind and earthquakes.
The HBS is an inexpensive and quickly erected building system; the cost of which consistently undercuts conventional building systems by as much as 30-50%.
2) Cost Saving with the HBS
Because the system uses interlocking concrete bricks in wall construction, the bricks can be laid dry and are automatically aligned when placed; eliminating the need for skilled masons thus reducing wage costs and augmenting construction productivity.
Because interlocking bricks are laid dry and in lieu of mortar joints, the interlocking bricks use vertical grout to achieve a permanent bond and seal the walls. The amount of grout used is only 7% of the mortar used in conventionally laid bricks.
The bricks can be reinforced vertically and horizontally without the need to use form works. The wall produced is a load-bearing wall capable of supporting floors and roof structures without reinforced concrete columns and beams.
Because the components of the system are modular, there is no need for cutting elements to put them in place; hence no wastage of materials. The components are designed to use basic materials optimally in terms of their strength and structural characteristics; hence less materials is used in fabricating them.
Furthermore, to eliminate the need for heavy construction equipment, all of the components have been designed to be lightweight, requiring no more than four persons to manually put them in place without the need for complex equipment thus reducing the requirement for capital investment.
The interlocking bricks can be produced using locally available raw building materials. Interlocking bricks can be made with soil, sand or stone dust stabilized with cement.
3) Construction Training and Supervision
Because construction with the HBS is very simple, the training of the persons involved in construction and supervision of buildings during their construction is not complex and requires little time (one month) when compared to the training of skilled labor (1-2 years) in conventional construction.
When sudden and unexpected demand for workers occur in the construction sector, it is possible with the Habitech System to train workers rapidly and integrate them into building teams. Projects using conventional systems on the other hand will experience shortages of skilled workers, delays in construction and lower quality workmanship.
Much less supervision is necessary with the HBS since the components are modular and interlocking and easy to put in place by unskilled workers. Because the HBS is particularly well suited for construction by unskilled labor it permits community participation in all the phases of construction.
4) Construction Time
With the HBS, construction time is considerably shortened because:
- The placement of interlocking bricks is a dry process, wall construction is much faster than when using wet mortar;
- There is no need for columns and beams as the walls are reinforced horizontally and vertically with steel using the cavities of the interlocking bricks. There is no need to prepare form-work for reinforced beams and columns;
- There is no need to cut other elements of the building system to put them in place as they already have the right dimensions based on the same module.
5) HBS Production Facility Set-Up
Standard production facilities can be easily transported using small trucks. A typical facility can be up and producing within 15 days from the date of arrival of the equipment. Similarly, it can be easily dismantled and brought to another site within a week.
Production facilities can be located on or near the project site, eliminating or reducing transportation costs of the finished construction materials to be used in buildings.
6) Employment Generation
A typical HBS production facility will generate local direct employment for up to 30-40 workers and 100-150 indirect jobs in construction for the project it supplies. Production facilities can become permanent and address local construction markets.
Furthermore, a production facility will have an economic multiplier effect through backward and forward linkages to others areas of the construction sector and the economy in general.
7) HBS and the Environment
The rapid rise in the cost of timber and the equally rapid depletion of forest reserves, with consequent aggravation to the environment, make imperative the use of alternative materials to replace the use of timber in construction. The HBS completely eliminates the use of wood in the construction process; limiting the use of wood in the construction itself to doors and window panels.
In the production process, the HBS building use either manpower or clean energy (electrical) and does not contribute to green house or other gaseous effects by burning natural resources into the atmosphere.