Plastics News Europe - July/August 2019 - 8

PLASTICS IN CONSTRUCTION

Bricks, reimagined
An architect from Mumbai, Rushabh Chheda, sought a way to tackle the
twin problems of affordable housing for the nonaffluent part of the world's
population, and waste plastics. His innovative construction product - the
UniBrick - not only provides a localised solution, it also has the potential to
address both issues in one go. By Rushabh Chheda

umbai is a city of over 24
million people, of whom
around half live in slum
dwellings. Mumbai does not stand
alone. Although unsafe, with poor
living conditions, such dwellings are
the only affordable option for a billion
people in the world today - a number
that has been forecast to rise to 2 billion by the end of 2030.
Urban areas around the world are
facing enormous challenges and
changes compared to 20 years ago,
including important systemic problems such as affordable housing, sustainable cities and social inequality,
that society tends to assume will be
solved by architects and designers.
Yet in reality, architects happen to
work for the richest 1% of the population.
My challenge, during the final year
of my graduation project at Technical
University Delft, in the Netherlands,
therefore became: "How can we as
architects reach out to the rest 99%
of the population?"
Additionally, another global issue
- waste plastics - is one that had
drawn my interest. Of all plastic produced since the 1950s, some 79%, or
a staggering 5bn tonnes, has either
been landfilled or has leaked into the
environment, an amount equal to
700,000 Eiffel towers by weight.
With annual plastic production expected to grow to almost 3 times the

Informal housing in
Dharavi, India. Inset:
UniBrick, made from
plastic waste

current rate by 2050, if nothing is done, this problem will
only get worse. It is a topic I
worked on in a few of my projects during my training as an
architect.

Do-it-yourself housing
Plastic is the most versatile invention
of our time and it has an unrivalled
application at a material level. Yet the
same properties that make plastics so

The interlocking design enables easy construction

versatile in innumerable
applications - durability
and resistance to degradation - make these materials difficult
or impossible for nature to break
down.
The concept of the 'UniBrick'
was prompted by a desire to find a
way to address the two mega problems - waste plastic and affordable,
reliable housing - with a single localised solution able to deliver a
strong social, economic and ecological impact. The idea behind UniBrick is to empower local communities worldwide to build their own
houses, making housing construction simpler, cheaper, faster and
more sustainable. It is a project that
is focused on helping people help
themselves - with a broader goal of
doing this in a way that, at the same
time, will reduce the impact on the
environment.
UniBrick building blocks are stackable, with a self-locking design, like giant blocks of Lego. No cement or
binding materials are required. The
shape ensures a flexible construction

JULY/AUGUST 2019

Plastics News Europe - July/August 2019

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