SUSTAINABLE LIVING Africa’s First Self-Sufficient Zero-Energy Smart Community
Contents 03 What is AsaDuru? 04 Self-Sufficient Community 06 Rammed Earth 09 Smart Homes 10 Renewable Energy 11 Water & Wastewater 12 The Living Building Challenge
What is AsaDuru? About
Visions & Values
The name AsaDuru comes from the Adrinka saying “Asase Ye Duru”, which means “The Earth has Power” or “The Earth is Powerful”. That is what we at AsaDuru want to do, empower the people using the Earth.
Our initiative is simple, provide homes while respecting our environment in every possible way. Our goal is to create communities that not only respect the earth, but are designed to be dependent on the well-being of its surrounding environment. Therefore, there won’t be a need for regulations or laws to preserve it, because it would be the most natural and efficient way to do so.
AsaDuru is a Swedish company working towards creating a modern and sustainable African living standard. We are doing this by creating selfsufficient, zero-energy communities, places that use state-of-the-art technology in harmony with nature.
We are aware of the current state of the world, the destruction of the environment, deforestation, contamination of oceans, rivers and ground water. We are aware that the need of housing in many places ascend to millions.
Self-Sufficient Community Our goal is to achieve a completely self-sufficient community, breaking free from the chains of the current oil, water and waste recycling industry, even growing our own food supply. Our community uses the planet’s natural resources and manages them in the most efficient way possible. We believe that for this relationship to persist we need to be symbiotic with the earth, we need to create a bond of respect and nourishment in the same way it nourishes us. We expect to conserve large areas of natural environment not only for the local flora and fauna to thrive but for the community as well.
Climate Mitigation Deep climate and ecosystem studies are necessary to assure that our proposal completely fits in with the local environment, seasons, weather changes as well as respect the ecosystem flora and fauna. It is crucial to build a community understanding of ecosystem services, human valuation of biodiversity and its importance for these services. The relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being is a strong one and must be valued.
Rammed Earth Strong and Durable
Rammed earth walls at minimum 300mm thickness are load bearing and does not need any core filling, reinforcing or other structural framing. Rammed earth constructions around the world are still standing more than 1,000 years later. Examples can be found all across the globe, from the Alhambra castle in Grenada in southern Spain, which is 1,200 years old, to sections of the Great Wall of China that are still standing today. Several centuries-old residential building can be found across the Western world, such as 7 stories high-rammed earth buildings in Germany. The images in this broschure showcase modern rammed earth by Earth Structures Group.
Low Maintenance
Rammed earth walls require very little maintenance. There is no need to finish with plaster, wallpaper or tiles, saving both energy and money during construction and throughout the life of the building.
Stunning Aesthetics
Bring bold and natural beauty into a living environment. No other walling can provide architects with such natural elegance combined with such low environmental impacts. Architects choose rammed earth to create beautiful and highly functional design elements that can transform a multitude of building projects. The rammed earth walls system offer a distinctive and visceral connection to the places they are constructed in, allowing the designer to use the layering and colors of the earth to enhance the aesthetic and beauty of any project.
Smart Homes Environmentally Sustainable
Rammed earth buildings are very low in embodied energy since they are often made out of local materials and there is very little waste during the construction phase, including low use of wood as the formwork can be removed and reused. As there is no firing process there are no kilns, toxic emissions or greenhouse gases. Because of this, rammed earth has an extremely low CO2 emission of 8.08 kg/m2 compared to conventional building materials (160.4 kg/m2 for reinforced concrete homes) and has been classified as a BREEAM A+ material.
Human friendly
Walls built with rammed earth are non-toxic and non-polluting, which creates safe and people-friendly homes. By eliminating the chemicals found in some conventional building materials and substituting them with the natural, “breathing” earth walls, the air quality is improved. This is particularly important in our time when more and more people are susceptible to allergies, asthma and other airborne toxins. In addition to that, termites and other pests are not concerned with rammed earth and as the walls are load bearing, the amount of termite-friendly timber is low. On top of that, rammed earth walls have a 4 hour fire-rating, making it an ideal option for buildings in fireprone areas.
Residents of AsaDuru’s community will be using the latest technologies, integrating all resource systems in an easy, user-friendly interface were they can see and manage all production and consumption needs. We believe smart homes encourage smart behaviour.
Water & Wastewater
Renewable Energy AsaDuru’s community will be entirely self-reliant on energy using renewable sources. It is not about installing fields of expensive solar panels, it is about prioritizing energy efficiency and system optimization in combination with the technical solutions. We must take a holistic approach to eliminate wasteful spending of energy and money. By carefully studying the site’s natural resources, we can determine the most efficient renewable energy source. Thankfully, solar radiation is accessible to the whole world, even more so in Africa, and harvesting it is not complicated. Depending on the local market and the location of the community there may be other viable renewable alternatives such as wind turbines and hydroelectrics.
Water Management
Because water is a human right and is needed for any kind of life, water management is an issue of importance for all humans. The major source of water and food contamination in the world has been, and will continue to be, unsafe handling of excreta or sewage. Only a safe handling of these resources, which is what they really are, will guarantee healthy living conditions and help control water related diseases.
Rainwater Harvesting
With water becoming a more and more scarce resource, it is important to harvest the water falling on our roofs. Rainwater harvesting results in more water resources and together with green areas protect against flooding.
Wastewater
Experience show that because of high operation cost or lack of operational capacity, it is necessary to use simple treatment processes, also known as processes based on appropriate technologies. Appropriate technologies basically means simple treatment processes of proven technology of low investment, operation and maintenance costs. Such processes are especially fitted for countries of warm climate where biological processes perform better at higher temperatures.
The Living Building Challenge
The Living Building Challenge is the most rigorous building performance standard in the world, looking beyond LEED, BREEAM and other certifications. To successfully achieve the Challenge the community must meet a series of Petal requirements: Place, Water, Energy, Health & Happiness, Materials, Equity and Beauty. The combination of high thermal mass from rammed earth walls together with renewable energy sources, efficient appliances, sustainable consumption and economies of scale of a community sets the ground for achieving a net zero energy community. Creating a state-of-the-art modern and sustainable living standard requires us to approach the challenge holistically.
“Instead of buildings that are less likely to give you cancer, how about buildings that can’t give you cancer? Instead of buildings that produce less pollution than the average building, how about a building that produces no pollution?”
Social Impact
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lobal unemployement is rising and the youth are particularly affected. Unemployement and increased inactivity is a dangerous mix for young people. Addressing this issue requires a global effort and proactive action. According to the UN, one third of the world’s 1.8 billion young people are cur-
Jason McLennan - Creator of the Living Building Challenge
rently neither in employement, nor neurs and contractors in this foreducation nor training. gotten building technique, together with our modern technological ur solution is not a construct- improvements. Through engageand-leave solution as most ment with the national engineerreal estate developments. Rather, ing and architecture universities, we create a positive chain by em- we spread the awareness and ploying local, unskilled labour as encourage future generations to well as educating local entreprework with this beautiful material.
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WEBSITE: www.AsaDuru.com E-MAIL:
[email protected]
PHONE:
+46 769 10 92 96
© 2015 ASADURU AB. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Any reference to AsaDuru, its logo and/or its products or services is for demonstration purposes only AsaDuru AB is a Swedish company registered under Swedish law
