Main fundraiser photo

Starting with Prototype 0

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We are a group of young architects, designers and building professionals from Ghana, West Africa, who are united and driven by our passion to work with and develop local material technologies.

Charles Quartey, SpaceAccra
Emil FischerBamboo for Integrated Dev. Ghana
Kwame Deheer and Joelle Eyeson, Hive Construction
Mae-ling Lokko, Willow Tech. Ltd. & AMBIS 
Samuel Siaw, Geointell Housing

Our goal is to engage our community, the youth and the wider public in the building of a public installation showcasing the beauty, strength, environmental advantages and affordability of local materials. 

+ All donations will go towards the materials for a live , public build of Prototype 0. 
+ On November 10-11th, the 24-hour building party will be hosted the Mmofra Foundation Park:
Friday, November 10 (9am - 9pm)
Saturday, November  11 (7am - 7pm)

Mmofra Foundation Aerial View,
Photo Credit: Ibrahim Mahama

The site is a rare gem of a urban green space in the city of Accra.  Situated in a green public park, the Mmofra Foundation , a foundation dedicated to enriching the cultural and intellectual lives of all children in Ghana, has given us a site that we plan to activiate with two, open air shelter framing an open social space. This building will provide a shelter for the park's programming around children's edcuation and promoting green public space and design. The Mmofra Park is a wonderful site for local experimentation, interactive learning with local technoloiges and this adds another vital aspect to this project ---that through the built form, we can instill a deep appreciation for local materials in children at a young age. 

Partners at the Mmofra Foundation include Prof. Esi Sutherland, Amowi Philips, Ato Annan and Adwoa Amoah

Prototype 0 Plan  by M. Lokko

We believe that Prototype 0 can become an activation project for a series of collaborative builds that seriously take on the problem of affordabability and lack of housing in Ghana and beyond. 

We see Prototype 0 within the Mmofra Park as becoming the kind of destination where children or anyone looking for a retreat from the urban hustle and bustle can retreat to--bring a book, have a group meeting or just relax in. 


What wider problems are driving this project?

In the last two decades Ghana’s building and construction sector has experienced rapid growth rates of over 8%, surpassing the economic growth rates of 5-6%. Alongside this rapid growth, Ghana’s building sector has been marked by an increase in the use of imported materials and technologies for development and decreasing use of local resources and labor. 

With over 75% of the building sector materials being imported, the cost of real estate in Ghana is disproportionately expensive when compared to the country’s GDP per capita. The barriers to the use of local materials for construction have been attributed to the lack of local professional and technical knowledge for proper building and maintenance, inconsistent supply chains, lack of building performance data on local material technologies, higher initial costs due to specialized equipment, and skilled labor and higher maintenance costs stemming from the aforementioned problems.

What is Prototype Zero?
Axo Render by M. Lokko

In response to these problems, ‘Prototype Zero’ is the first step in a series of building projects aimed at showcasing and improving the use of local materials as an affordabe, high-quality alternative to imported materials for housing construction. We envision that Prototype 0 to remain an open research and showcase platform to the public, providing education materials and a physical testbed for players in local building sector to brave experimentation and dialogue around the economic, cultural, envrionmental and technical challenges and opportunities for local material technologies and design.

Perspective Render by M. Lokko

The shelter is a 6m x 3m x 3m box in shape, framed with a light steel box structural system. Oriented to reduce heat gain on the east-west facades and to maximize site’s prevailing winds, the structure is lifted two feet off the ground and includes a gap between the ceiling and roof to drive natural ventilation across the structure’s height. The performance of an identical adjacent structure built with conventional, imported building materials will be monitored and compared to the demonstration structure.


What your donation will support
Every donation towards our $10,000 goal we receive, will be used to fund the build including materials such as steel, flooring,  lights, landscaping and materials transport for the build. Every contribution is deeply appreciated, even if it is only a few cedis or dollars. That dollar or cedi could fund a plant or a bolt--- so every donation counts!   We really appreciate it and thank you for your time and for your generosity. 

About this fundraiser: We receive all the donations made through this GoFundMe online campaign. For donors in Ghana, we will also accept mobilemoney donations via MTN MobileMoney or ExpressPay to +233553002824. Your donation will be logged as an offline donation (and listed in this campaign's updates) and will still count towards our goal.  If you would like to know more or support our build via materials donations or any other way, please email us at [email redacted]. 


Join us Build!
We would love to have you join us build at an interactive, fun 24-hour building party!
Showcasing the advantages of onsite material use and prefab modular design, the building of Prototype 0 aims to be an interactive, exciting affair that celebrates the spirit of innovation and experimentation. Broadcasted as a live-24 feed on socia media, we invite you to join us build and assemble the structure in 24-hours onsite. 

The public and other building companies interested are welcome to join in the build and participate in the assembly of the structure from November 10-11, 2017 at the Mmofra Foundation Park in Dzorwulu, Accra. After the build, there will be an open discussion on research and development of local material systems in Ghana’s building sector and role of green public space on November 11 (5-7pm).

If you or a team of friends/work colleaues would like to volunteer in the build, please RSVP to [email redacted].

Collaborating Partners

All partners are donating their time, services, equipment and where possible, their products to the build. 

Willow Technologies Ltd.
AMBIS Technologies, Inc.
Hive Construction 
Geointell Housing
SpaceAccra
Bamboo for Integrated Dev. Ghana
Mmofra Foundation

Donations 

  • Clara Price
    • CHF200 (Offline)
    • 6 yrs
  • Dr. Monk
    • CHF100 (Offline)
    • 6 yrs
  • Kuukuah Baiden
    • CHF23 (Offline)
    • 6 yrs
  • Maxxis & Crown (Ivory)
    • CHF113 (Offline)
    • 6 yrs
  • Stone Depot Gh
    • CHF227 (Offline)
    • 6 yrs

Organizer

Emil Fischer
Organizer

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