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Urbanite Construction

Background:

  • Just like stone construction, except one uses chunks of old waste concrete
  • Local urbanite is collected and sourced from demolition and dump sites. The urbanite can be broken up and sorted using locally sourced unskilled labour.
  • This building technique supports skills transfers and entrepreneur initiatives.

Benefits:

  • Minimizes the use of new concrete.
  • Is a very low maintenance material.
  • Aesthetically pleasing and ages very well, looking like stone of first appearance.
  • Can be used to clean up the environment, by harvesting urbanite from illegal dumps.
  • Reduces the amount of waste going into landfill sites and reduces and can help to clean up illegal dumping in the environment
  • Turns waste into a resource.
  • Similarly to stone, it will have a high thermal mass, which can be used to buffer the extremes of temperature.
  • Can be used to create extra jobs at a local level.

Technical Information:

  • Properly built urbanite is an extremely durable material.
  • Urbanite has a high thermal mass, which can be used to buffer the extremes of temperature.

Company Track record and examples of work:

  • Alterations & Additions to House Bezuidenhout - Pinelands, Cape Town, 2012– 2013
  • OR Tambo Narrative & Enviro Centre – consulting, Leeupan, Johannesburg, 2011 - 2012












 

We offer a number of construction & info manuals on our website on natural building technologies which specifically refer to the South African context. The info manual "A LIME DUNG PLASTER RECIPE" has recently been added to the collection.   Click here for more information.

All our manuals are also now available as E-Book downloads. Click here for the E-Books.