Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) and Indian non-profit organization WeRise collaboration gave birth to the prototype of a portable “motherboard system” to improve housing conditions in rural parts of India, called Livingboard.
Livingboard encourages an open-source approach to design, allowing people to build their own dwellings on top of a prefabricated core. The house is so conceived of as an ongoing project wherein the residents are co-creators.
Furthermore the Livingboard motherboard can potentially be carried by helicopters or even drones so as to reach any remote location.
“Livingboard is a flexible ‘core’ system to support the development of housing initiatives in any rural area of the world. This core must be positioned horizontally, constituting the floor of a 12-square meter room (3x4m). It can provide, depending on the geography and infrastructure of the region in question, water storage and distribution, water treatment through filtration, waste management, heating, batteries to accumulate PV-generated electricity and wi-fi connectivity. Also, from a structural point of view, it provides seismic isolation by separating the building’s superstructure from the substructure,” writes CRA.
“An important challenge for the next years will be to apply the same principle to construction – transferring the DIY attitude of Fab Labs to housing. This is the vision behind our design for ‘Livingboard.’”