Designed To Be Kind

Who would have thought a prefab house could look so good? And the bonus? It’s ecofriendly!

- Friedale Roux

Her future home in Rosendal in the eastern Free State had to be kind to the environment as well as affordable. This was Hanli Deysel’s vision for the abode she wanted to build, but when she started doing her calculations, the high cost of constructing a conventional house put paid to her plans.

“I was extremely excited to begin construction after I bought my plot in 2010. Architect friends immediately began drawing up plans for a home similar to what I have now,” says Hanli. But the costs – more than a million rand – made her think twice. Rosendal’s out-of-the-way location was also a hindrance as it would make the delivery of building materials particularly expensive. “But actually it was the clay soil that really set us back,” she says.

“Due to the way the clay shifts in this area, nearly every house in the town has cracks; there’s even one that is literally held together by galvanised wire to keep it upright! The old houses that were constructed with eastern Free State sandstone have survived, but stone is very expensive. The newer brick houses in Rosendal have floating foundations, but that also drives up the construction costs by a few hundred thousand rand.

“I wanted to build something that wouldn’t just crack and require unnecessary maintenance.”

Search for an alternative

These factors prompted Hanli to investigate alternative construction methods. One option was a prefab home, but she felt they were impersonal and was concerned about the weather extremes in the eastern Free State: hot summers with hail and thunderstorms, and icy winters.