Colombian eco-company Woodpecker WPC is building houses for as little as $4,500 that are made using their own technique of combining recycled plastic and coffee husks, which would otherwise become waste.
The company has an impressive list of projects and photographs on their website demonstrating the practical uses of their innovative material and design.
As a building material goes, this has a lot going for it. Besides being environmentally friendly and cheap, it’s using a raw material (coffee husks) that are readily available in abundance locally. Woodpecker says they chose the product because it is dry, lightweight and is also fireproof and insect resistant – all desirable characteristics in a hot country.
The panels are produced like lego kits which are transported and then assembled on-site around a steel frame. The process of assembly is so simple, that some owners are able to put them together themselves – akin to lego.
The solution is not new. The company developed the original concept about a decade ago and has since been expanding the frame kits and refining the process. A house can be assembled in about a week by a trained worker, which makes it a good solution in response to hurricane damage.
In fact, when hurricane Iota ravaged the country, displacing thousands and wrecking 1,300 homes, the Colombian government asked Woodpecker for help. The company donated 2 houses themselves which the army built in just 5 days, and are now hoping the government will give them orders to build more to replace the lost homes.
