Main principle addressed: Leverage resources that are abundant at the local level
5) Description of housing product/service offering: In the sub-Saharan region of Africa, and other parts of the world with similar climatic conditions and environments, this project aims to promote the construction of timberless vaulted mud brick houses which are environmentally friendly, affordable, and comfortable (compared to houses using expensive imported sheet metal roofing and timber beams), using a well-proven and easy to implement technique ('la Voute Nubienne', or VN). The VN technique, based on age-old methods from the Nubian region of Egypt, is relatively unknown in the Sahel. The project operates through demonstration (people seeing the VN houses being built and lived in), ‘sensibilisation’ (meetings, demos, films…) and on-the-job training of new apprentices on VN building sites. This training method is based on traditional, culturally embedded , methods of apprenticeship and skill development.
The project is in many ways a text book example of South > South technology transfer.
For more details, and a rich slection of photos and reports on the project, please consult our website at
http://www.lavoutenubienne.org
The site is available in French and English versions, and provides details of construction methods, basic house plans, photos of the exteriors and interiors of completed VN buildings, and technical reports.
6) Description of innovation: The VN technique is the first major and replicable instance of the construction of timberless vaulted buildings in sub-Saharan Africa. The unique nature of the VN project, which differentiates it clearly from earlier initiatives, lies in several key aspects:
- the simplicity and standardisation of the VN technique
- the speed with which local, generally illiterate, builders familiar with mud brick construction can learn to construct the vaults (2-3 months of on-the-job apprenticeship on a VN building site)
- the notion of a geographic zone, of a radius of around 50km, within which the project’s campaign is centred each year, with a trained VN master builder responsible for coordinating work in the zone and liasing with potential clients
- the complete integration of the technique into local economic circuits, with little need for external financial resources (most of the cost of construction is attributable to labour)
- the comfort of the VN houses, well insulated from extremes of heat and cold, and able to incorporate traditional features such as flat terraced roofs into their construction
- the durability of the houses: since the first VN houses were built eight years ago, not a single one has collapsed or been damaged by the seasonal rainy periods.
At a technical level, several innovations distinguish the VN technique; for example:
- strict specification of building requirements for foundations, walls, openings, and the actual vaults
- the use of a stranded wire stretched between the two gable walls, along which runs a ring with a standard length of cord, to define a constant radius for each vault
- the use of oil drums as temporary supports for forming window and door arches
- the use of plastic sheeting over the roof, covered by a final waterproof rendering to protect it from solar degradation, to reduce the annual maintenance load for the roof
- the option to easily convert the completed vaulted roof to a traditional flat terrace roof.
7) Benefits to clients: The delivery model is based on the selection of geographical zones (around 50 km diamater) within which each annual VN campaign is focused.
Publicity is through meetings, community associations, and by demonstration - when villagers see a VN house being built, they get interested, and will approach the local VN builder for advice and help: when a client decides to go ahead with a VN home, some initial help is provided with labour, and two or more local builders will be taken on as apprentices to learn the technique.
The most significant criterion of the success of the project's delivery system lies in the almost exponential growth, year on year, in the number of vaults constructed and the number of VN builders trained and apprentices in training. In the first year of formal existence of the project (2000), 7 vaults were built and 3 builders trained; during the current campaign (2006) 72 vaults have been built, and there are now 36 experienced VN builders (including 14 who also act as trainers), and a further 35 undergoing training. In total, some 200 vaults have been built since 2000; 80% of these are in low-cost low-cost rural homes (the average home has two vaults).
In addition to homes, the VN technique has been used to construct larger buildings for community use, including a church, a mosque, a library, several low cost hotels / guest houses, and a house for a women's association. These other buildings, because of their community focus, and community involvment in their construction, provide valuable word-of-mouth publicity for the project.
8) Key operational partnerships: The VN Association brings together the various private initiatives, underpinning their efforts, and acts as a relay between institutional or private clients who approach the Association, and the trained VN entrepreneurs and builders in Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries.
To help in the development and expansion of the programme, The VN Association also carries out fund-raising work, maintains this website, produces publications and reports, and handles enquiries from the media and elsewhere.
Key operational partnerships have been established with:
- Acroterre (Association des Constructeurs pour la Rehabilitation et l’Optimisation de la Terre, Grenoble, France)acts as an adviser to the project. A proposal for co-financing, drawn up by this NGO, was accepted by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who agreed to provide a financial subsidy over three campaigns (2002/2003, 2003/2004, and 2004/2005)
- The city of Grenoble and the district associations of Villeneuve and Beriat St Bruno, who have financed the construction of a VN library and a women's association house in Ouagadougou
- The Sidi Landa Association of PIAMET(Parc International des Arts Modernes et Traditionnels), and its President, Konate Boumavé, in Boromo. This local association has contributed to the start-up of the project, and continues to support it in the field.
Plans for new partnerships are making good progress.
9) Financial model: The VN Association provides some pump-priming support to initiatives in new zones in Burkina Faso and Mali: this comes in the form of payment of a proportion of the salary of a trained VN master builder, and in provision of lodging and maintenance for apprentices working on homes for new clients. The Association also purchases the plastic sheeting needed for providing extra waterproofing during the rainy season.
The Association encourages the involvement of the local community and local informal economic circuits in making and transporting the mud bricks and helps trained VN builders to set themselves up as independent entrepreneurs. Once this has happened in one zone, the Association pulls out and moves to another zone: in fact, a sucessful example of a 'snowball' approach.
• Costs as percentage of income: 95%
• Financing: The project costs are mainly to do with organisation and scaling up of the project. As the programme develops, actual building costs are mainly, and increasingly, met by the clients, with the VN Association restricting its financial input to provision of a proportion of labour costs and training for the first buildings in new zones, and for the provision of plastic sheeting for roof insulation. For example, in 2001, of 50 salaried months of labour, half were paid by the VN Association, and half by clients; but in 2006 so far, of 426 salaried months, all but 18 were paid by VN clients. Clearly, the less financial support is needed, the closer we are getting to a self-sustaining market economy for VN buildings.
10) Effectiveness
• Project outcomes: The direct beneficiaries of the project include:
- the 36 builders so far trained in the VN technique, able
to work for clients and become independent entrepreneurs on
their own account
- the 35 current apprentices who are paid during their
on-the-job training period whilst they learn how to build VN
houses
- the 100 families living in VN homes (and using VN
constructions for their agricultural and other commercial
activities) and who benefit from much increased levels of
comfort compared to the tin roof houses or shacks which are
often the only alternative
- those involved in ancillary activities such as fabrication
of mud bricks, transport of materials, extraction of rocks
for foundations etc
- local associations and NGO’s who have erected comfortable
VN buildings.
• Number of clients in past year: VN homes were constructed for 40 families in Burkina Faso
during the 2005/2006 campaign, and 35 apprentices were in
training on these VN building sites. In addition, the first
VN mosque has been built, near Ougadougou, paid for by a
local family, but with extensive involvement of the local
community in providing labour.
• Percentage of clients that are poor or marginalized: 60%
• Potential demand: On a 20 year horizon, if successful scaling-up can be achieved, we would hope to see, cumulatively, something like 10,000 trained VN builders, and some 400,000 homes built in the Sahel regions by 2030.
Recent enquiries coming from outside the Sahel suggest that the Association will need to investigate the applicability of the VN methods to different socio-economic contexts (e.g. in the Maghreb, not only for social housing, but also for agricultural buildings, and residential villas and hotels), and to different climatic conditions (e.g tropical countries such as Madagascar, southern Benin, and Sao Tome et Principe). Studies analysing the economic and technical factors concerning the adaptation of the VN methods to these new contexts will need to be undertaken in the future before an appropriate response can be made to such enquiries.
11) Scaling up strategy
• Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.
• Expansion plan: In Burkina Faso, Mali, and Togo, we are already experiencing, and are assuming for the future, an exponential growth in the number of vaults constructed and in the number of VN builders trained. By 2009, it is expected that the total number of vaults built will reach 650, with 110 VN builders trained.
In parallell with this work in the field, the VN Association is confident that funds will be found from various agencies for promoting the development and growth of the project, and the opening of new construction zones.
12) Origin of the initiative: In 1998, Thomas Granier, a builder from France, and Seri
Youlou, a farmer from Boromo, Burkina Faso, were asked by
Bomavé Konaté, the founder of PIAMET in Burkina Faso, to
develop the original prototype VN buildings. The interest
aroused by these prototypes led to the setting up of the
Voute Nubienne Association and the 'Mud roofs for the Sahel'
programme on a formal basis in 2000.
Contact Information:
Anthony Kaye
Responsible for international / anglophone relations for the VN Association
La Voute Nubienne
(An 'Association' under French law)
268 Grand'rue, 34190 St Bauzille-de-Putois, France
France
Tel: 00 334 67 73 30 91
Email: tonyk@fastmail.fm
Website: http://www.lavoutenubienne.org
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Definition of Nubian Vault
Posted September 9 '06, 3:15:49
Some background information on the 'Nubian vault' technique can be found in Wikipedia, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubian_vault
- Tony Kaye
Photos and documentation
Posted September 11 '06, 6:09:16
In the Sahelian regions of Africa, where deforestation and the encroaching desert means that timber is no longer available for supporting the traditional mud flat-roof homes, and people have to resort to expensive, imported, thermally hopeless tin-roofed houses, the VN technique, using locally made mud bricks, is the only environmentally sound and econmomically feasible alternative.
To understand the potential importance of this technique, it is essential to be able to see photos of the actual houses and the construction methods. The VN website (available in French and in English) contains a representative selection of photos from amongst the 200 or so vaults already built in the last 6 years. Please have a look at these, at
http://www.lavoutenubienne.org
Best wishes Tony Kaye
- Tony Kaye
Changemakers Online Review Team
Posted October 4 '06, 12:24:16
Dear La Voute Noubienne,
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful work with us. It is laudable that you have turned to an age-old technique used by some of the world's most inspirational architectural works and sought applications with the base of the pyramid.
If one is take this your model to scale, a key challenge is in the business plan and execution. Therefore, my initial questions are:
1) What are your main challenges to scaling this model?
2) How do you anticipate financing this project in the future? [please also clarify what is the average cost per home]
3) What challenges are you facing on the ground with the supply and distribution of materials (including raw materials for the mud bricks, rocks for foundations, etc.)?
I look forward to your responses. Thank you.
- Helen Ng, Acumen Fund, Housing Portfolio Manager
A few answers on the development plan
Posted October 5 '06, 7:55:57
(Reply to: "Changemakers Online Review Team")
Dear Helen,
Thank you very much for your interest in our programme. It is indeed a very old technique that we have simplified and adapted to be easily transmitted among the peasant-builders of the Sahel. Simplicity of the building technique, on-site training and melting in the local social and cultural environment are the key points.
To answer more precisely to your questions: 1) Since the beginning we are on a scaling-up move. Let me explain how it works: a couple of builders were trained by us at the beginning and became entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs have apprentices working with them on the building sites. After a few month of training these apprentices can become themselves entrepreneurs and pass on the technique to even more apprentices. Therefore, the number of trained builders increases each year, and so the number of buildings. As you can see, the growth rate is limited by the number of available teacher-builders, which is itself limited by the transmission rate among the builders. This is a very efficient and reliable way of scaling-up: since the beginning of the programme we experience an annual growth of 60%, both in number of buildings and of builders. According to this rate, we expect the 1000th vault in 2010. Sustaining and increasing these figures are now our main goals. We are working on a business plan for the next 3 years during which we expect to reach a critical mass that will allow us to diversify our activity. Please feel free to inquire for more precisions.
2) The average cost per home (2 vaults, about 50 m2, equivalent to a 44 metal sheets house) is below 1000 euros, for the structure only. Other costs for the finishing (doors, windows, painting, etc.) vary greatly from one owner to another and are not part of our activities. The price of the house is paid by the owner to the builders. We have no financial interest in the transaction whatsoever. It is important to stress that, as the only used material (except for the covering plastic sheet) is mud (which is free), 95% of the total cost is dedicated to work force (brick makers and transporters, builders, etc.). In the local economic situation, this work force can be brought in by the owner's family, friends and neighbours, lowering the cost in money to a very great extent.
The project itself still needs funding for what we bring in: organisation, control and validation of the teachings, information of the populations, support and development of the market of VN buildings, analysis and prevision, etc. We are putting the last hand to a funding plan for the next 3 years and will submit it soon to potential partners. These 3 years will give us the time to prepare the business plan and financing on a longer time scale for the future. Truly speaking, our main worry is about the gap between now and the acceptance of our funding plan.
3) About the raw materials supply: the technique is only economically competitive (for the people at the base of the pyramid) if the materials can be collected in the surrounding (2km max) of the building site. The area has to have earth of good enough quality (this is a vernacular knowledge). To date, we haven't faced any problem on this side. The main issue is about water: as the walls are pretty thick, a big quantity of big bricks are needed (they are usually made or bought by the owner). Late in the building season, the water holes in the river beds may be too dry to make these bricks. We try to address this issue by asking the future owners to prepare the bricks in advance.
Hope, this will give you a better understanding of our project.
Yours
- Jérôme Ravier, in charge of the developement
Feedback from Competition Judges
Posted October 18 '06, 13:46:46
“I’m a huge fan of appropriate technology and local materials and developing things both with local labor and in ways that are consistent with local taste. I think this project hit all of these criteria because what they’re actually trying to do is gain the community involvement in building things that uses technology that the community can embrace and use, but doing it in a smart way that makes it scalable and has very strong chance of really going to a significant scale. I think it was just outstanding in terms of its innovation. It’s hard to identify innovation in something that’s using just kind of new building -- local building materials and a different kind of technique, but I think it just combines a lot of elements, and the simplicity of the approach is one of the things that I really liked because it made it likely that it could be adapted and taken up in a lot of different places…”
“I appreciated the geographic targeting. I know Mali is in the bottom 10 of the UN Human Development Index. I suspect Burkina Faso is there or close, and so they’re going into one of the most impoverished regions of the world in terms of where they’re doing this work…”
“I could appreciate the construction technology as being an innovation in the sense of what it contributed, but I think that married to what seemed like a sustainable approach to financing the project served a more long term approach. In regards to financing where does it suggest that they are on a trajectory that allows it to move toward becoming self-sustaining? The reservation, again, had to do with a limited impact; that is, it’s in a particular situation, a particular set of principles.”
- Changemakers Affordable Housing Judges: Habitat for Humanity, Ford Foundation, International Housing Coalition, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
A self-sustaining trajectory
Posted October 19 '06, 13:22:44
(Reply to: "Feedback from Competition Judges")
Many thanks for the valuable comments from the panel of judges - it was very gratifying to read these, especially the points concerning the simplicity and ready adapataion of the VN techniue to local needs, conditions, and prior building experience in the Sahel. These are among the key factors which lead us to believe that we are already at the point of a 'self-sustaining trajectory' (to address the final paragraph of comments).
The growth in the number of vaults built and VN builders trained since 2000 has in fact been almost exponential, and the proportion of labour costs directly covered by the AVN has dropped from 37% in 2000 to 5% in 2006 (i.e in the last campaign, 95% of labour costs were paid by the VN clients themselves, the only financial contribution from the AVN being in supply of plastic waterproofing sheeting for the roofs). So it is clear that we are practically at the point of market forces driving the building programme. A conservative projection based on the last 6 years' growth rate would suggest that, by 2010, the 100th VN vault will have ben built in Burkina Faso.
The main limiting factor on the scaling up of the building programme lies in the number of new apprentices who can be trained each season; any additional funding we can obtain (e.g. from the Ashoka prize) will be used to help in accelerating as best we can the financing of the training of new apprentices in Burkina Faso and neighbouring coubntries of the Sahel.
The main issue
- Tony Kaye, Association la Voute Nubienne (AVN)
2010 Horizon
Posted October 20 '06, 6:04:35
(Reply to: "A self-sustaining trajectory")
There was an error in my last posting - our conservative estimate, based on current growth rates, for 2010 in Burkina Faso is at least 1000 vaults by 2010 (not 100, I missed out a 0 - there are already over 200 built)... this will teach me to take care checking my entries more carefully before putting them up ;-)
- Tony Kaye, Association la Voute Nubienne
Housing Solutions for rural Africa
Posted December 15 '06, 9:24:59
This seem to be the solution for the housing need in rural africa, the soil, is every where, and peolpe are there to work communally.
- Tanzania Economic Forum
Sponsorship
Posted July 15 '07, 7:02:17
Dear Director, Greetings and Prayers from Manovikas. Manovikas is a registered charity of the parents of the Intellectually Disabled, started in the year 1994 in a rural Catholic fishermen village in Kerala, South India. Today we give service to over 300 MR children through our 3 Special Schools and 15 Community Based Rehabilitation Centres. We collect no fees and all our services are rendered free of cost. Kindly visit our Web. www.manovikas.com, which will give you more details about our service to the community. We shall be verymuch thankful to you if you shall extent a helping hand to these special children of God, for their permanant rehabilitation directly, or through their parents or Self help Groups of mothers of the disabled. Awaiting to hear from you really soon With regards
D.Jacob Chairman, Manovikas.
- anovikas Special School For Mentally Handicapped
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