
WikiHouse – Open source buildings and interiors for self-build - bizzleDawg
https://wikihouse.cc/
======
pnathan
Too much designer, not enough carpenter.

And by that I mean, you have spent a good deal of thought on a pretty
marketing page, but your spiel doesn't really demonstrate knowledge of the
wooddust and nails that make up homebuilding. You're not being careful with
which codes you satisfy, you're not talking physical tolerances (earthquake?
hurricane? heavy rain? wind?), you're not discussing the existing prefab
systems and what makes yours better.

There is, of course, potential in prefab. But I would suggest more sweat of
talking to carpenters and other tradespeople. Hiring a top carpenter for 6
months to throw darts at the thing would be useful. willyt provides some good
feedback, but I think its revealing that you don't treat that kind of
information, in that kind of depth, in your current information copy. You can
get there though!

best of luck.

~~~
peller
Seems like they're aware, if not super upfront about it. Under the R&D tab,
the #1 challenge listed is structural testing and documentation.

Quote: "In order to make it easier for engineers, building control officers
and mortgage companies to do structural calculations and to certify WREN in
projects, we need structural engineers to do further R&D, structural lab
testing and documentation of the system’s structural performance."

So a couple of points in reply to your comment:

This looks to be an open source development model, and so appearing to be
professionally designed may help attract the needed expertise, instead of
having said people get the impression the project isn't going anywhere and not
see a point in joining/helping.

As for carpenters/tradespeople - and I've worked as a residential carpenter so
please don't take this the wrong way - but from what I can tell this project
is pushing the mold enough that they need structural/materials engineers more
so than tradespeople. Tradespeople have a lot of practical knowledge about how
easy/hard it will be to build what the engineers put in front of them, and
that knowledge is valuable, but to use a car analogy, you wouldn't ask a
mechanic to design you an electric car. And sticking with the car analogy,
this project looks far closer to an electric car than your standard internal
combustion engine car (ie standard 2x6 framed pine style construction, which
most zoning laws assume)[0].

[0] In America. I see this projects hails from the UK, dunno what their zoning
laws or standard construction practices look like.

~~~
pnathan
In manufacturing, the best way to build a device for effective fab on the
factory floor is to have a senior assembler involved in the creation. They
will point out amusing errors like "You can't run wires there or no one will
be able to build it", or, "If you rearrange the widget over 2 inches, it'll
cut time to put the widget in by well over half". Obviously they don't run the
show, but they should be involved in the entire design-build phase to ensure
the effectiveness of the system when the rubber is deployed on the travelway.

Physical product development is an entire skillset in and of itself, and the
skill gaps are pretty big when you're coming in from the software world. As
I'm sure you know. :)

------
andrewingram
There's a similar idea for (mainly) office furniture:

[https://www.opendesk.cc/](https://www.opendesk.cc/)

I think we'll be seeing a lot of things like this in the next few years.

~~~
iDemonix
Why are domains like this using the .cc domain? Is .cc the new trendy .io?

~~~
easuter
If I had to guess, the .cc TLD implies that what the site hosts is licensed
under Creative Commons.

~~~
alex_hitchins
This is what I have been assuming also, makes sense!

------
alastairparvin
I’m one of the creators of WikiHouse project (and lead founder of WikiHouse
Foundation) – @ben_howes
([http://twitter.com/ben_howes](http://twitter.com/ben_howes)) gave me a nudge
and suggested we throw some thoughts into the mix on this (it is Hacker News
after all). Some really great points made here - I’ll focus on a couple and
try to keep it brief.

The WikiHouse project began as just an experiment into digital, distributed
housebuilding, but has turned into a serious open source project aiming to
change the way building information works. We’re doing it the hard (and slow)
way – so currently busy working through certification, regulation, liability,
commercialisation etc. It’s already in use in various pilot projects by a
bunch of teams around the world already, but as you can imagine, change
happens slowly in this space.

In a nutshell, the advantage of digital fabrication is similar to any
fabricated components (think IKEA). It brings speed, value, precision,
performance-predictability, safety and mistake-proofing (which lowers skill
and risk thresholds for small players) to construction projects, plus it’s
editable as code. The opportunity we see is to push this from big centralised
factories to distributed networks. The lead technology, WikiHouse WREN, is
just intended as a starter for ten really. We started designing for machines
and materials that are pretty widely available (Plywood, CNC), and then
invited others to fork and edit, which is what’s happening. It is strong,
buildable, airtight, performs well on cost etc, but yes, at the moment, it is
limited in terms of span, height... Please do fork and improve it, or get into
developing other open building technologies.

As a couple of comments mentioned, the key issues are around the limitations
of sharing static design files, because, yes, price, conditions, regulations
etc vary depending on where you are, and yes, there is a legal risk of any
specific design shared being interpreted as professionally certified, and
therefore exposing professional contributors to risk. So, over the last few
months we’ve been working on some browser-based generative software for
designing and delivering homes digitally without relying on external
proprietary software like Rhino and Sketchup, with support for distributed
supply chains and with checking protocols built-in. We’re hoping we’ll have
some stuff to release before too long for people to get their teeth into, but
as you can imagine, we have to moderate our excitement with a degree of
sensible caution and thorough testing. But as a rule, we’ll be open-sourcing
everything we can, as soon as we can.

~~~
saeranv
Thanks for posting Alastair! What will be the status of your Rhino/Grasshopper
process as you move over to your browser-based generative software? Will it
still be integrated and supported, or are you phasing it out?

I ask because it is beneficial to have it integrated with Grasshopper/Rhino
(or Revit/Dynamo) for not only the generative design stuff, but also the
simulation and optimization plugins. i.e. Energy/environmental simulation,
multi-objective optimization. These engines are starting to be ported over to
the web, but for now Grasshopper is state-of-the-art in terms of
design/simulation/optimization integration.

I'm interested in forking and playing with these kind of features, but would
be prevented if this moved over to a browser-based software...

------
bungie4
So much time and effort has been put into applying technology into making home
bigger and more luxurious, all to further elevate a price point. It needs to
stop. Use the technology to lower the price point and make the buildings more
efficient.

~~~
mikestew
You read the page, of course, so you can understand how I'm having difficulty
with the point you're trying to make given that the only house plans I could
find on the site are for a house that could be built in my garage. I put some
honest effort into looking, but could you point me to the plans for a "bigger
and more luxurious" house on that site?

------
jimnotgym
OK for all those asking about UK building code. It is pretty strict. Thermal
insulation requirements are _really_ high. Structural stability and fire
resistance are also tough. Yes a UK roof can hold snow! In fact they hold a
massive weight of tiles normally.

We don't really get tornado's or earthquakes however. we do get winter gales
regularly.

There is a huge need for cheaper, and more efficient (in terms of energy
needed to make the materials) homes here. Due to aesthetic requirements (and
as a traditional way of making a house that will survive the damp in the UK),
most homes are still built with fired-clay brick skins forming a cavity wall,
although the inner masonry skin is often a prefab timber frame these days. The
roofs are usually clay tiles (or concrete copies if local planners allow) or
natural slate. The foundations are a solid trench of 1 metre deep concrete
(more if the ground is soft). Ground floors are usually thick concrete onto
thick hardcore bases with insulation incorporated either in the concrete or
under the floor covering. The whole thing is massive, heavy, concrete and clay
focused and expensive. Of course land prices are high in the UK so the
resultant houses are really expensive no matter what. There must be a more
efficient way of building.

------
ZenoArrow
Similarly, OSE (Open Source Ecology) have an open-source house project:

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/622508883/open-
building...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/622508883/open-building-
institute-eco-building-toolkit)

[http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Main_Page)

------
phkahler
It would be really nice if they promoted open source software for handling the
open source building plans.

------
veritas213
Excellent concept.

Especially if one can source local CnC/machine shops to send material to be
pre-cut then delivered on site.

I do see 3D printing eventually being a more efficient way to build spec
houses.

~~~
bizzleDawg
The question with 3D printing is around the materials and the build times.
Wood is a great low carbon material, whereas printing in concrete is a
different matter.

A low carbon successor to concrete could change this if its low carbon and not
so dense that it's difficult to transport (like concrete)

~~~
tantalor
> Wood is a great low carbon material

Wood is half carbon by weight!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood#Chemistry_of_wood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood#Chemistry_of_wood)

~~~
bizzleDawg
great low carbon _emmission_ material. I should've known better than to make
such an elementary mistake.

------
yardie
If anyone is curious on how to build a house I urge you to volunteer at the
local Habitat 4 Humanity. Not only will you help someone build a home but
you'll learn loads about the home building and permitting process. It seems a
lot of people in this post are overthinking things.

------
AstroJetson
The local school has been working on building a Wiki House for two years now.
They struggle with issues around the CAD drawings and getting them into the
system their CNC router uses and getting parts made with accuracy.

The thing that I noticed is the material waste is pretty high. Getting things
fit to 4'x8' sheets of plywood in the US has lots of waste in the sheets. When
you stick build a house, most of the materials are used, with a little careful
thought things work out. With the long arches, only a few fit in the sheets.

I wish the basic issues could get fixed.

------
willyt
Buildings are a really complicated mix of design, engineering, regulations and
regulated trades. This looks like a nice student concept project with some
great graphics for the assembly drawings. Here are some hopefully constructive
comments.

Structure. What is the advantage of all the machining that is being done here?
It looks like there is not enough structure? I'm not convinced that the clip
together frame screwed together on site from 18mm ply will form a convincing
portal frame? That stuff costs about £40/sheet what happens to all the wastage
from the machining? Once these are assembled and filled with insulation they
will be pretty heavy to lift into position without a crane which is a
safety/legal issue, so if we need a crane, what is the advantage over other
cassette systems like dan-wood, hof house, cross laminated timber or even just
prefabricated stick frame panels? A ply/foam sandwich could make for a pretty
rigid structure (think surfboard), but the insulation is loose filled here;
opportunity missed! I note that Arup are listed as partners in the project,
they should be able to advise on this.

Design. Its a massive amount of effort expended on developing a new
construction method to create a 40m2 one bedroom single storey house like many
others before. Why is it better to build like this? What is the maximum
structural span of this machined plywood slot together construction? What
advantages does it give me if I want to have walls at angles other than 90
degrees or rooms wider that 4m? How high can I go? It seems like you have
chosen eco friendly materials but single storey construction is fundamentally
not environmentally friendly because the density is too low to support public
transport and efficient public services provision.

Energy. They are proposing a Mechanical Heat Recovery unit and very little
heating which means they need airtight construction, but the airtightness
membrane is very close to the inside of the house and will be easily damaged
when the electrician and plumber fit the services. Airtightness is critical. A
more robust design would rely on a taped board as the airtightness layer,
preferably somewhere in the construction where it won't be damaged by someone
putting a picture up. The integrity of the vapour check layer is also very
important as any significant interstitial condensation will degrade the
plywood structure quite quickly. Loose fill insulation is notorious for
slumping and leaving cold spots that go mouldy.

Cost. Double it. E.g. £1000 labour allowed for the foundations installed. That
pays for 4-5 days of a 1 skilled labourer's time, it's not enough. There are
no plant hire costs in there either. Also only £1500 allowed for the
electrician!

Legal. Who gets sued if this design goes wrong? Who pays for the insurance?
You have a disclaimer, but if any of the designers contributing to this are
architects, engineers or other construction professionals the construction
case law in the UK suggests that a professional can't blanket disclaim all
advice given in their professional capacity as potentially incorrect. So any
professional contributing to this could still be held responsible for design
failures. It's rather terrifying what has been blamed on architects giving
free advice off hand. I don't know if the creators of this are architects, but
bear in mind that Architects in the UK are required by law to have adequate
insurance to cover the full cost of any mistakes they may have made for
undefined period after the building is completed I don't remember the exact
figures but you are generally advised to carry insurance at least a decade
into your retirement. Hence no professional will contribute to this website
for free unless you find a way of guaranteeing that they are insured as
otherwise it will have an unknown ongoing cost to them into the future.

~~~
patcon
These are very intelligent musings. I take it that you have some relevant
knowledge. Thanks for engaging :)

I'm interested in this stuff (to the point that I've rented a shipping
container and plan to non-destructively press-fit a frame and document that
process), and yet find the conversations like in this thread don't tend to
happen in the open. Building and construction is arcane knowledge. Especially
compared to the openness of software knowledge.

Bringing those conversations into the open seems to be the value of a project
like this, imho

------
aamederen
I see it becoming Github for container house manufacturers. Put some
"community" level designs here to market yourself and your "enterprise" level
designs or finished products.

------
ptaipale
Building houses is hugely dependent on local regulation, building code, and
also climate. This project has home in the UK, so it probably is adapted to UK
regulations, weather etc?

~~~
goda90
Living in the Midwest US, my first questions were if these could handle snow
on the roof, deep ground frost, and tornadoes.

~~~
ptaipale
Right. I'm in Finland, and would have the same concerns, with tornadoes
replaced by regular extreme changes in temperature and humidity (well, I guess
someone building in UK at least has thought of the humidity).

Anyway I'm pretty sure these houses would not be permitted here due to not
having enough insulation, so that they need more heating energy than is the
norm, thus do not meet our CO2 reduction targets.

------
fergie
Its interesting to see how much Git(Hub) is being adopted outside of software
engineering.

~~~
saeranv
I'm really glad github is being adopted in architecture/engineering. That
being said, I've contributed to a handful of popular, open-source tools in
architecture, and the big problem for us is that architecture depends on large
binary CAD files that don't cooperate with github.

------
redsummer
I've always thought origami-style cardboard furniture would be a good idea.
Cut, fold, put on a blanket and cushions, and you've got a sofa. And getting
hold of some cardboard is not difficult.

~~~
coredog64
I bought a copy of this book [0] to furnish a crash pad but then ran out of
energy and just dealt with no furniture.

Subsequent attempts to try it in the real house were vetoed by my wife.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Nomadic-Furniture-Victor-
Papanek/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Nomadic-Furniture-Victor-
Papanek/dp/039470228X)

------
waynenilsen
A nice idea but.. Prefabricated houses have been around for some time, I can
see how one size doesn't fit all but I think a few sizes sure fit most.

~~~
bizzleDawg
The plan with wiki-house is that you'll be able to to draw a plan and have
software generate the structure for you. A few years ago they were working on
a plugin for sketch up to do that - not completely sure what happened to that!

~~~
saeranv
I remember checking this project out around 2014 and it seemed it was all
being done in Sketchup using ruby. Now it looks like it's mainly being done in
Grasshopper/Rhino (visual scripting) with some components being done using
custom C# or Python scripts. I think its the right move, as Grasshopper/Rhino
is a more powerful CAD engine, and has a more useful and extensive ecosystem
of plugins for them to develop around.

------
znpy
This is, in my opinion, an awesome delusion.

The reason can be condensed in what pnathan already said in his comment: "too
much designer, not enough carpenter".

This is nothing new, this project is at least 3-4 years old and I clearly
remember donating a small amount to "the cause".

Yet the number of full designs are pretty much the same as when I donated.

What this project is lacking, imho, is a full-blown project, as in "from
plywood to finished/furnished/habitable house".

------
cr0sh
A friend of mine - a long time ago - told me of a concept he had that he
termed "Mennonite-in-a-Box" \- basically, some kind of machine that you could
load a design into, and it would construct a home on-site. He never elaborated
more on it, but it got me to thinking. Unfortunately, I am not someone who
ever has built a house (nor do I have the money or time to experiment on such
a scale) - so my thoughts never went anywhere either.

I ultimately came up with a couple of ideas in this regard; one seemed
potentially doable, and the other seemed absolutely doable. Both rely on the
idea of the main building material being plywood or OSB - like 1/2 - 3/4 inch
thick 4x8 sheets (or the metric equivalent).

The first concept was something that a "do-it-yourselfer" could own or rent.
Essentially it was to be a plotter you would attach (in some manner) to the
sheet of plywood, and it would "plot" the outlines of the cuts and such on the
wood (at the time, I envisioned an ink-jet like approach - today a small LED
laser engraver might work better), with annotations and other such things to
guide the builder in fabrication and assembly. These annotations could also
refer to areas in a reference assembly diagram or software that could take the
user step-by-step in cutting out the pieces (using various tools - a jigsaw
and circular saw mainly) and assembling them (perhaps with 3D views, audio,
graphics, etc). The plywood pieces would also be numbered or otherwise noted
so that each is used in the proper order. The whole thing could be sold as a
simple robot, perhaps attached with cords or something to the wood, in a case
with software - user supplies a laptop (or perhaps it comes with it?).

This machine actually does exist - in a way nowadays. I know of a CNC router
that attaches directly to a piece of plywood, which could cut the parts
directly; however they wouldn't be numbered (but perhaps they could be
engraved?). There's also another tool that is something like a "user guided"
CNC router; the user holds the tool, and guides it based on an on-board
reference (I'm not sure, but I think it can also help to auto-correct
problems). Ultimately, both of these machines come really close to the first
concept I had. It's nice to know someone had the same ideas and took it
further - but that's to be expected, I guess.

The second concept I had was something that I could only see as either an
owned piece of equipment, or as a rental/lease system. Essentially, this would
be a container (ideally a standard shipping container). One end, you'd load an
"elevator" of plywood sheets (like a printer of sorts), the pieces would go
inside the "magic box", and would be spit out the other end (again, stacked)
as mostly pre-cut pieces of plywood containing the parts of the building.

Think of these pieces as being similar in scope as those "pop-out" wood
puzzles of dinosaurs and such you can buy as toys, just larger scale. The cuts
made by the machine wouldn't be "complete", but would have to be completed by
the user using a jigsaw or handsaw. This would also allow shipping pre-cut
pieces (which could be made in a factory) to a building site. Perhaps these
could be "ordered online". But the original concept was that the container box
would be dropped off at the on-site building location, with a load of "blank"
pieces of plywood/OSB.

Inside the box would be a simple system of conveyors and other plywood
material handling devices that would move the pieces from the input stack, to
a cutting machine, then to the output stack. The cutting machine could be
either a CNC router (like a 4x8 shopbot or similar) or some kind of large
(2-300 watt?) laser cutter. The latter might be preferable, because it could
also engrave assembly annotations, etc on the parts.

The downside of this machine (actually both ideas have similar downsides)
would be the fact that you'd need to monitor and do tool bit changes as they
wear - or in the case of a laser cutter/engraver - monitor and prevent fires
from starting. Which would seem to make this kind of a system more suited to a
"factory floor" installation rather than an on-site system rented by a diy'er
or a contracted builder. Then you'd just go online, select a floorplan/style,
make certain mods as available, and order. Completed sheets of the parts would
be delivered to your building site (perhaps with all needed fasteners and
such).

Lastly - I'd be willing to bet that such a system (and the "WikiHouse"
designs) - at least in the United States - will suffer from the same issues
that plague people who want to use other alternative construction techniques
(aka - rammed earth, straw bales, earthship, etc): That of the hassle of
getting permits approved for the construction, then obtaining homeowners
insurance for the resulting structure. In some areas, both can be so onerous
as to make such construction impractical, more expensive, or impossible...

~~~
Zigurd
You can now get a mortgage to buy an Earthship. It only took 4 decades.

~~~
SwellJoe
But, getting a mortgage to _build_ an alternative style of house is still all
but impossible.

Code in most places still isn't up to snuff on the issue of natural building
materials, and the like, as well. New Mexico is one of the better locales, as
it has specific code coverage for adobe, earth bag, and a few other kinds of
natural building material and design. You still need to have an architect sign
off on it, most likely, but it's plausible to get a weird house built in much
of New Mexico without a tremendous amount of money/time wasted on code
compliance.

I've been researching this, as I'd like to build a house with my own hands,
and figured if I was going to do it, I'd want to do something interesting. New
Mexico is among the most friendly states in which to do that, but some other
states and counties are viable, as well. But, again, banks don't really like
weird houses.

