Sustainable Self-reliant Complex--Make It Home Submission

I made this project for the Make It Home Contest. Even though I am 14 I still hope I will be able to compete because being younger does not mean being dumber. In this complex there are solar panels, batteries to store power. There is no definitive parking space because that costs lots of money. The complex is as green as possible to help encourage people around it to go green (put more trees and plants in). The houses are made from recycled plastic around the streets with steel beams in between the walls. This makes it as lightweight and recyclable as possible. People can bring in specific types of rubbish from the streets to earn money and food. This will benefit everyone by making the ecosystem healthier, the people healthier and the buildings cheaper.

One last thing is that while the houses are movable and can be moved from one place to another, the concrete foundation may not be that easy. I was meaning for this design to actually be made and stay in where it has been made for a long time. But I guess no design is perfect so even though the concrete foundation is not ideal, it can still be changed in later designs. But for now let's stick with the concrete foundation (which if the houses were moved it could actually be turned into a floor).

-3D designing platform

You want to find a place that has a lot of housing issues. Alexandria Township is in South Africa and is one of the oldest townships and most crowded places in South Africa. Rubbish and litter lies everywhere. This is why I chose this place. People are very poor here so they cannot afford normal housing. As you can see there is not a lot of grass or trees. My design were not blend in because it is not supposed to. It is supposed to get people thinking how much better their lives would be if they put in more trees and grass and used the rubbish to build new houses.

Because I built this design on Tinkercad, it was not the most detailed designing app but it still does the job. Here are the steps to begin designing your sustainable complex.

1. Build a beginning platform.

2. Build a parking space. Make sure you don't damage the environment.

3. Either build a platform over the parking or start building your first story houses near the parking.

4. Put a few more stories on top of the base.

5. Add elements that support nature and recyclability.

6. Add solar panels or other things environmental friendly ways of making electricity.

Everything on my design was put to scale, 1=1m. I also went and checked the minimum living space for five people in South Africa and made it a few meters over that. I put quite a lot of solar panels on the roofs of the top houses so that I can know the electricity the units were using were sustainable and emissions-free. This is the link to my design: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/3LJl9V7NJe1-copy-of-make-it-home-starter-model

Always remember that if your places are in a different hemisphere from yours, you must always remember that solar panels must face where the sun is and make houses that are suitable for the conditions in that certain place. The unfortunate thing is that there is so much efforts put into places that already have a much better environment and housing then compared to other countries. Here is the difference between South Africa and America:

Average Yearly Income per Person (including unemployed, kids, elderly):

South Africa: R100,000 (~$5,300)

United States: R960,000 (~$51,000)

Average Monthly Income per Person:

South Africa: R8,300 (~$440)

United States: R80,000 (~$4,250)

Average Living Space per Person (including homeless as 0 m²):

South Africa: 25 m² (~270 ft²)

United States: 67 m² (~720 ft²)

As this shows there is a lot of work to be done on places like South Africa, which is one of the richest places in Africa!

Just be for you read all about the pricing, please do you know that these materials and the construction companies used would be local so that the local economy could be boosted. Rubbish would be collected from the streets and the people who collected it would be paid for for each kilogram of usable plastic. Now let's carry on.

🧱 1. Concrete Slab (Shared Base)

Size: 37 m × 22.5 m = 832.5 m²

Cost per m²: R1,400

Total = R1,165,50

🏗️ 2. Concrete Support Pillars

10 pillars, 1 m diameter × 4 m height = 31.4 m³

Cost per m³: R3,500

✅ Total = R109,900

🏠 3. Plastic Houses (38 Units)

Size: 10.1 m × 5.6 m, Height: 3 m

Total surface area: ~154 m²

Reinforced plastic walls + roof: R600/m² = R92,400

Metal frame: R8,000

Labor: R12,000

Per House = R112,400

Total = R4,271,200

🔌 4. House Electrics (Per Unit)

Basic wiring, DB board, plugs, lights

Certified install (solar-ready)

Per House = R6,000

Total = 38 × 6,000 = R228,000

🔥 5. Water Heating (Per Unit)

Solar-compatible geyser/collector system

✅ Per House = R5,200

✅ Total = 38 × 5,200 = R197,600

🚶 6. Sustainable Walkways

3 floors × (37 m × 2.7 m) = 299.7 m²

Eco-decking + recycled railing

✅ Total = R359,640

☀️ 7. Solar Power System (Off-Grid)

72 large panels = R201,600

2 inverters = R90,000

2 lithium batteries = R130,000

Wiring + install = R50,000

Total = R471,600

🚰 8. Plumbing System

Internal plumbing: 38 × R10,000 = R380,000

Extra piping, greywater, drainage = R60,000

Total = R440,000

🏢 9. Greeting + Storage House

Size: 9 m × 11 m = 99 m², Height: 4 m

Shell (259 m² @ R500) = R129,500

Labor: R20,000

Plumbing/fixtures: R15,000

Total = R164,500

🛋️ 10. Light Furniture (Per House)

Beds, shelves, table, chairs

Per House = R5,500

Total = 38 × 5,500 = R209,000

🌎 11. Environmental Extras

Rainwater system: R35,000

LEDs, low-energy fans: R30,000

Compost/septic base: R25,000

Total = R90,000

Updated Total Project Cost

Slab R1,165,500

Support Pillars R109,900

38 Houses R4,271,200

House Electrics R228,000

Solar Water Heating R197,600

Walkways R359,640

Solar System R471,600

Plumbing (All) R440,000

Greeting/Storage House R164,500

Light Furniture R209,000

Green Additions R90,000

GRAND TOTAL R7,706,940

🏘 Final Cost Per House (All Inclusive)

Shared costs divided evenly by 38 houses:

Item Cost per House (ZAR)

Shared slab R30,670

Shared pillars R2,890

House build R112,400

Electrical system R6,000

Solar hot water R5,200

Walkways share R9,460

Solar system share R12,415

Plumbing (in-house) R10,000

Greeting/storage share R4,329

Light furniture R5,500

Green upgrades share R2,368

TOTAL per House = R201,232

These prices are not exact but are extremely close to the real thing. I used some help from my good friend ChatGPT (with an unfortunately large amount of difficulty). This would really help the government be able to house many people as it would be for a family of five which would be livable. This means they could house about ~150 people. People who have enough money could pay their own rent which would be about R2,000 a month. This would definitely help the housing crisis, and with a few modifications could be used in real life, all the while keeping as green as possible. I do not include the cost for planting trees and gardens buts but the trees would have shallow spreading routes and it would not be much more money to put in so grass and trees.

I made this design because I feel like people create housing solutions for people who already have money to buy houses. The houses that I created are made for people who have extremely little money and the houses are as sustainable and cheap as possible. This means that if people have a small income they could pay for their own house or the government could pay for their housing if they have no money. This means the government would not have to be spending millions on just one house and could spend almost five times less.

Obviously there is still room for improvement in my design and probably a few things that I would need to change but at least I made an effort. I did not the interior design but I probably will in a later instructable. Thank you for reading my Instructable and hopefully you learned something from it, that no matter how small you are, you still have the potential to change the world.

Anyway thank you for reading my instructable and see you next time maybe.