Human Settlements Review - Parliamentary Monitoring Group

Human Settlements Review, Volume 1, Number 1, 2010
houses per annum (Ramabodu, 2004).
According to Statistics SA (2007), the
population is continuing to grow. The
population was 40.5 million people in 1996,
44.8 million in 2001 and 48.5 million by 2007.
The survey also found that housing conditions
have improved from the previous survey in
1996. In 1996, only 64% of households lived
in formal dwellings and this has increased to
71% by 2007. Households living in informal
dwellings were accounted for at 15%, while
11.7% live in traditionally-built houses. Service
delivery has also improved since 1996 with
more households having access to electricity
and the majority of households, at 88%, have
access to piped water.
ecology of the area;
• Utilization of less resources by
recycling and by using improved
technology;
• Minimization of the effects of building
materials on the environment;
• Utilizing less harmful chemicals;
• Minimization of waste through
recycling;
• Maximising the use of public transport
to reduce the use of additional
vehicles;
• Utilizing existing buildings to preserve
land; and
• Increasing the quality of indoor
environments by using natural light
and air, and building orientation.
If 15% of the South African population live
in informal dwellings, it calculates to being
7.275 million people who still require adequate
housing. This number increases annually as
the population grows. Adequate solutions are
required to reduce this number.
10. Sustainable Housing
According to Engela (2006), there are principles
that guide ‘green’ or sustainable housing
developments with key emphasis on reducing
energy consumption, providing a safe and
healthy working and living environments, and
reducing waste. Beyond these, the following
also help in the guidance of building in a more
ecologically-beneficial way:
• Energy consumption must be
minimised and, natural and renewable
sources of energy should be used;
• Minimization of site impact to the
Having set the ground work for determining
the sustainability of buildings, two building
systems are proposed as sustainable due to
their consideration of the environment and
their social awareness. Both of these building
systems promote self-reliance, which means
that people who do not have adequate housing
can use these systems to build their own
houses with the use of natural and recycled
materials. These building systems are the
Tlholego Building System and the Earthship
Biotecture.
10.1 Tlholego Building Systems (TBS)
“The TBS is a flexible, owner-built, low-cost,
high-quality housing system.” It aims to avoid
the serious shortcomings of the present lowcost
housing projects in South Africa as it
addresses social, environmental and resource
problems that are not considered in the
construction of the country’s low-cost houses.
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