Putting heart in the home again
House in box concept opens the door to dignified living
THE quest to see more people living in a “dignified” way has led to a local company building homes it believes will achieve this.
The company has created mobiles houses made of wood and ranging in size between 18m² and 60m², which it calls dignity houses.
According to Darren Bibby, the founder of the project, the aim is to introduce an innovative, dignified and systematic way of living in a beautifully constructed deck house.
He said it was called a dignity house because it was felt South Africa needed its people to live in dignified homes.
He said they hoped to make the homes affordable, and a two-bedroom, one bathroom home would cost about R399 000, excluding VAT.
The cost would not include the land. “We will give you the house with the kitchen. It will have the floors, the ceilings and the lights.
“We’ll give you a house in a box,” Bibby said.
The house has interesting and new technological features.
Because of the small size of the bedrooms, a desk, for instance, would double up as a bed.
Bibby said that for students needing a space to study, the “dignity house” was ideal.
“All these little ideas, even with the dining-room suite, we are going to make one that goes into the wall.”
There was no need to have a big space for a dining-room table when families ate at only certain times of the day, he explained.
“We want to build houses, we want to change housing… we want to build houses in factories that can be transported to site because if you get to a building site, materials get damaged and stolen,” he added.
“The government should not be building houses, but rather providing the land and services, and leave the building of houses to me,” he said.
“I’ve heard people saying: ‘this is too good for the poor, so stuff them’. This is not too good for the poor, this is what the poor need.”
According to Bibby, the companies they dealt with would guarantee the product, adding that it’s made to supreme standards and could last between 20 and 25 years.
The materials used to build the homes were SA Bureau of Standards approved, he said. The aim, Bibby emphasised, was to take the traditional building and make something amazing out of it.
“This is what I think is the future for South Africa. I think that for the millions of people living in shacks, it’s wrong that they cannot live in a dignified way.”
Those wanting more information on “the dignity house project” should call 011 472 7420.
‘This is ideal for the millions living in shacks’