Started: July 2011
Based: London
Website: www.wikihouse.cc
Twitter: @wikihouse
Category: Media, Architecture and the Arts

An open source construction set for anyone to design, download and 'print' houses and components that can be assembled with a minimum amount of skill.

Alastair Parvin is leading a team on a mission to help individuals and communities build their own homes. As well as writing a publication called Right to Build, Alastair and the team at Project 00 have partnered with collaborators such as Momentum Engineering and a number of designers to harness the potential of the web and digital manufacturing for the production of homes and neighbourhoods. The result is WikiHouse, an open source construction system for citizens to digitally manufacture houses in an economically sensible way.

WikiHouse has been prototyping for three years and currently has 14 teams around the world. The latest project, in partnership with Arup, is WikiHouse 4.0, the world’s first open source, digitally-printed house at the Building Centre in London to demonstrate how a low-energy house can be assembled in a few days with no construction skills and for less than £50,000.

Alastair refers to the WikiHouse approach as the Third Industrial Revolution. Knowledge is open, shared and democratised by citizens for citizens.