Selibaby Affordable Housing

The city of Sélibaby is facing serious challenges due to being exposed to yearly inundations. For this reason, a masterplan was made by the Mauritanian Ministry of Habitat to gradually relocate the complete city to a water protected area. LEVS was commissioned to propose an urban plan and design for the first 250 houses to be realized as part of the ‘New Sélibaby’. The houses are built by local people, who have been trained, and made with hydraulically compressed earth blocks which are produced on site of locally mined clay. The plan marks a shift from the often-imposed grid system. With its public and semi-public spaces of different sizes and privacy levels it aims to inspire people to form a liveable community.

Building sustainable cities and communities is one of the biggest challenges across the African continent. The sustainable houses for Sélibaby are made of hydraulically compressed earth blocks, a natural material suitable for making comfortable interiors in hot climates. For the local people, both men and women, a 5-month training was provided for soil testing, block production and construction. Spreading this knowledge is just as important as the design itself: the only way to meet the current housing demands in Africa is to encourage local, private initiatives so that even informal housing will be built with quality, providing adequate affordable shelter for all.

Besides, this project focuses on creating a liveable community instead of following the trend of rapid construction of houses. This is achieved primarily through planning of public functions such as squares, parks, markets, mosques or schools. Small streets and broken viewpoints create a sense of human scale, inviting the inhabitants to activate the public spaces. The plots are grouped into housing blocks, each of which will have a shared vegetable garden to ensure food security. Grey water purification system will provide enough water for the gardens at no extra cost. The next step is to introduce a complete off-grid system with solar panels and an independent water source.