Sustainable blocks let you build your own house
They’re like children’s building blocks, except these ones are designed to construct real houses.
German start-up Polycare says its Polyblocks – made from artificial resin – provide an environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional building materials.
Location: Suhl, Germany
Polycare's bricks are made from polymer concrete – consisting of 90% filler from naturally occurring sands and 10% binder.
This allows for the use of local raw materials such as desert sand or other free-flowing filler – a possible game changer for the construction industry.
Polycare’s COO Andreas Kunsmann.
"We need extremely few materials for one building block. Here in my hands we have the smallest block we produce and it requires 75% less material to build. The main reason is that our material is up to five times stronger than ordinary concrete which allows us to calculate our blocks very economically.''
The Polyblocks are recycled, recyclable, and mobile which means they can be taken apart and rebuilt elsewhere.
This allows people to build and rebuild their own homes in a short space of time.
"The building blocks are not just easy to carry by hand (moves block in his hands), they also don't require mortar or glue. They are simply plugged together before you insert threaded rods into the blocks which are held together with ring anchors. That's why the construction is extremely simple. It doesn't require any special skills and you can dismantle the building again if you so desire. This makes for a very ecological product which doesn't require a specific floor plan. You can adapt or change it later."
The company has already constructed around 100 homes in Namibia using the Polyblocks.
"We are looking at which materials make for the most sustainable and cost efficient version of our building blocks so that we can act economically and sustainably together with our local partners. We come to different solutions. We don't just look at the various types of sand but also at industrial waste streams, which we then use as additional or filling substances for our building blocks."
