OneCo

EASY HOME® OneCo

INTRODUCTION
Proposal for redevelopment of old housing Estates consists of high-rise buildings proposed
the development of social housing consisting of studio, 1 bedroom, 2 bedrooms and 3
bedrooms units.

The houses with common areas such as parking and recreational green spaces. The design
intends to create a high quality and sustainable development through careful selection of
affordable quality finishes, functional articulation of spaces and aesthetic appeal.

FUNCTIONALITY
Functionality has been addressed at both scales of the layout plan and the housing design
solutions.

Layout Plan

The layout plan has met the following key design functionality considerations as had been
highlighted in the design brief.
• Efficiency of land Use; the foot prints of the buildings have been designed within the limits
of the ground coverage and plot ratio allowable by the Nairobi City Council. Through careful
spatial planning the high density of the development will not be felt due to the combined
large open spaces in between the buildings.
• Legibility of the housing scheme; the overall planning of the site is anchored on a central
axis, with the housing courts on either side of the axis. Subsidiary axes run across the
various courtyards, interlinking them with the green areas to give visual unity and
continuity to the various spaces within the scheme.
The vehicular and pedestrian access network is based on this central spine from which short
side link roads provide access into the courtyards thus creating an environment for
convenient movement, making it easy to find one's way around.
• Privacy; a clear hierarchy of spaces from the public main road to the semi-public cluster
courtyards to the staircase lobbies, to entry lobbies and finally to the individual units
enhances appropriate privacy gradient, sense of belonging and ownership and identity.
• Safety; separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic means there will be no conflict
between the two road users. Bumps will be provided to slow down speed of vehicles in the
access roads within the development. The incorporation of gates to control (entry will
further ensure that vehicular traffic is substantially slowed down before it enters the
courtyards. The main social spaces are located between and behind the housing blocks
away from vehicular traffic to minimize accidents.

1
 OneCo

OneCo
• Security; a masonry boundary wall with electric fence is provided all around the scheme
plot boundaries to ensure maximum security for the residents. Only one access is provided
to the housing scheme through a manned gate to ensure adequate screening of all residents
and visitors. At the cluster level smaller guard houses and additional entry gates are
provided for closer policing of the estate.

The layout design enhances neighborhood surveillance.

• Livability; open green spaces provided serve as recreational spaces as well as play areas
for children. These are integrated into and between the courtyards for easy access while
also ensuring that there are opportunities for socialization among the residents from
different courts. A jogging track to encourage healthy living has been incorporated along the
green belt at the edges of the scheme and is accessible from all courtyards. In addition,
there is a fitness gym at the shopping cum community center. A commercial center has
been proposed to cater for other needs of the residents such as shopping, meetings, health
clinic, and gym. The convenience shops at the center ensure that basic commodities are
available to the residents without having to go outside the development.

Housing Unit Design

The design of the housing units addresses the following functionality considerations:
• Efficient spaces: circulation is provided at its functional minimum in the overall design of
the unit, taking up only approximately 15% of the unit area. Some circulation spaces have
been integrated into usable areas and space wastage minimized while optimizing on flexible
space usability. The kitchen yard for instance is adaptable for multiple usages like washing,
hanging clothes as well as being a cooking gas storage space. The dining and the lounge are
designed as one flowing space for complementary usage. However, all the room sizes in the
room have met the requisite functional space requirements.
• Privacy: a hierarchy of privacy gradient has been achieved from the common areas, the
public lounge and dining, to the semi - public passage and to the private bedroom spaces.
• Views: The day rooms enjoy good visual connections with outdoors. The lounges have bay
windows that present captivating views to the neighborhood. The kitchen balconies on the
other hand open out to the green recreational spaces.
• Services: wet areas have been clustered together to reduce on piping costs. The soil vent
pipes are located in louvered ducts at the kitchen yards for maintenance access. Roof
storage tanks for each unit are placed above the staircase while the meters for power and
water are situated under the staircase. Data and centralized TV outlet connections have also
been provided in the design.
• Ventilation: adequate windows ensure that the rooms are naturally ventilated.
• Safety and security: each unit is accessed from one main entry door that leads to the
staircase lobby area. The conspicuous access to various blocks that are visible to most
residents of the blocks as well as from the parking areas enhances security Fire risks are
mitigated through Co2 and H20 fire extinguishers located at the staircase lobby area and
fire blanket at the kitchens.

2
 OneCo

OneCo
• Lighting: the design is optimized for sufficient natural day lighting in all spaces. The
common circulation spaces like the staircases and lobbies will in addition have backup
lighting from solar panels and LED lights in the event of blackouts.
• Rain water harvesting and storage: gutters and downpipes are provided for harvesting the
rain water to be stored in underground storage tanks.
• Landscaping: green areas next to the housing block are for use by children and adults of
the immediate blocks. Gazebos and garden seats are provided.
• Parking spaces: parking spaces are allowed for each unit and a common bicycle parking
area provided for each block.

• Materials: simple easy to maintain finishes will be used in the internal spaces, for instance
plaster and washable paint on wall. Locally manufactured ceramic tiles will be used for floor
and wall finishing in all wet area walls such as kitchen and bathrooms.

3
 OneCo

OneCo
INNOVATIVENESS

NEW SISTEM CONSTRUCTION

EASY HOME® is an advantageous system from every point of view because it offers:
• High quality performance (energetic, acoustic, static and aesthetic).
• Integrated construction system.
• Time of realization reduction of 20-40% compared to traditional systems.
• Certainty of costs.

• Maximum architectural flexibility.

• Industrialization of the construction site processes. General construction cost
optimization.
• Better planning of the whole process.
• Finally, a new concept of building: an innovative and technologically competitive
process of countless benefits.
• Just because of our internationally experience, we are able to realize this construction
system.
• EASY HOME® is the smart and practical solution to bring innovation and quality in
residential construction.

INNOVATION

• System’s ability to meet the requirements of the Social Housing

• Technological features of the proposed construction system
• Construction features
• Structural features
• Installation features
• Execution times
• Additional innovative elements
• Economic aspects
• Proposed construction system references

Main features

4
 OneCo

OneCo
The proposed project consists of buildings of twenty-four floors above ground and the
buildings of twenty-three floors above ground used as residences for a total of 1,050
apartments and a collective/recreation space on the ground floor, and a building of 11 floors
used as parking spaces.
The distribution of housing is through two staircases and two elevator shafts each serving
floor apartments. The apartments on the ground floor have the access to the private green
spaces. Collective/recreational space has the access to a green space equipped for children.
The realization of the building at the project is made by the use of an innovative building
system.

It is a system that presents a few structural elements and some complementary elements
The integration of structural elements and additional elements guarantees a high level of
industrialization and, simultaneously, a high degree of flexibility. It’s a lightweight flexible
system, which is linking the size of the elements to the flat module (no more room to the
room module), high quality components, competitive with traditional, to make buildings
ranging from single-family row house to high buildings.
The system presents technological innovations that make itself revolutionary in the field of
precast systems.

Technical and quality standards

The main strengths of the system such as to make it successful for the social housing
application are:
• Time of realization

• Economic control
• Possibility to start a new process of industrialization
• In addition, the same system provides:
guaranteed quality during production at the factory - optimization of logistics: before in the
factory and after on site - compositional flexibility in plant and in façade - flexibility in the
choice of types (detached house, tower, row house) - high performance structures (high
degree of insulation, high degree of earthquake resistance, mesh up to 12 meters, speed
assembly) - high seismic resistance - minimum weight per square meter of surface -
minimum number of elements per square meter of surface - high fire resistance of
structures – controlled and certified processes in a highly automated plants - installation of
the equipment in the factory, prepared before transport - realization in plant of the available
finishes - assembly independent of weather conditions - reduction of operating costs with a
high thermal insulation and with the avoidance of any thermal bridge - integration with
systems of modern conception for the use of renewables - reduction of maintenance costs
through the inspection of all the installations.

Architectural quality

5
 OneCo

OneCo
It is important to emphasize that the system meets the operating margins of the formal
intervention, which must be addressed, as well as to give characterization to the
construction, to incorporate the taste and expectations of the designers.

Flexibility and adaptability of the architectural product

The system has been conceived so as to fully solve the requirements of flexibility inside of
the housing spaces.

In particular thanks to the horizontal distribution of the plant system and the use of
partitions that can be equipped you can easily vary the distribution structure of the
individual units.

The modifications of the plant housing are attended also to the possibility to introduce
corresponding variations in the outer casing which could also consist of dry elements and
can be varied through the creation of new window or the closure of transparent elements of
window or even the closure and modification of balcony elements.

Similarly, in the case of families who have a reduction of the number of components is
possible to envisage compensation for living space in favor to other units or to common
areas of the building.

The change of the spaces can be obtained, in the same housing and within the original
physical limits, through certain procedures of subdivision /encapsulation such as: splitting of
the original spaces; amalgamation (total or partial) of the original outdoor spaces; closure
(total or partial) of interior double volumes; closure (total or partial) of external double
volumes; application in facade of protruding volumes (like bay windows) that can be
additional portions of the original rooms.

Costs
The significant reduction of the costs connected with precast techniques is a direct
consequence in the dry assembly procedure of the artifacts that do not require the creation
of temporary works (scaffolding) in all stages of construction work. The artifacts of the
façade, also in great size allow high speed of realization thanks to the conception pre-cast
conception and to the lightness of the same which does not require lifting equipment of
particular commitment.

Timing
It was actually verified the possibility to realize a complete production in the factory, with
delivery times for housing, making use of the criterion of assembly of pre-finished elements.

Security
The total industrialization of the system allows to substantially restrict the activities on site
to the only assembly.

6
 OneCo

OneCo
The total absence of scaffolding, the altitude transfer of the elements to be assembled by
crane and the presence of workmen only inside the building, reduces drastically the chances
of an accident usually found on construction sites.

7
 OneCo

OneCo
STRUCTURAL REPORT

BUILDINGS
The residential towers are of two different main types.

The proposed structure of the towers is made of precast elements in concrete and steel with
a reduced size for the installation by self-moving cranes in the lower levels and tower crane
for the higher ones, linked by mechanical connections, integrated with additional vertical
and horizontal linking steel reinforcements and completed with structural cast in situ floor
by floor.

The construction technique combines the speed of assembly of the prefabricated elements
with the best features of the traditional monolithic structures.

Foundation structure, either made in plate or lattice solution in reinforced concrete, will be
equipped with the appropriate bars of recovery protruding for the connection with the
vertical prefabricated bearing elements.

These elements are constituted in elevation by wet joint columns, which could be solid or
empty inside and by concrete load-bearing walls and double precast concrete walls
completed with vertical and horizontal steel reinforcements and properly cast in situ.

Vertical structures due to the progressive stressed reduction taper gradually to the upper
storeys.

Stairwells and elevator walls are always made with loadbearing panels completed on site.

Stairs ramps are prefabricated in concrete and supported by baffles and floors slab panels.

The horizontal elements are completed with lattice girders REP® beams with a caseback
made of precast concrete of 10 cm thick under it or with a steel lower plate, combined with
predalles slab of 30 cm thick.

The perimetral coating of the building is made of concrete panels hanged to the supporting
structures and finished with washed marble pebbles in different colors or smooth.

Multi-storey Parking
The structure consists of one multi-storey building connected by an aerial structure under
which passes the main access road to the complex.

The circulation is mainly in single-way traffic in each aisle and the access to various levels is
made by a rectilinear ramp of 20 m length for each running direction.

The proposed structure for the parking is made with precast elements in concrete or steel
with reduced size for the installation by self-moving cranes in the lower levels and tower

8
 OneCo

OneCo
crane for the higher ones, linked by mechanical connections, integrated with additional
vertical and horizontal linking steel reinforcements and completed with structural cast in situ
floor by floor.

The construction technique combines the speed of assembly of the prefabricated elements
with the best features of the traditional monolithic structures.

Foundation structures either made in plate or lattice solutions in reinforced concrete will be
equipped with the appropriate bars of recovery protruding for the connection with the
vertical prefabricated bearing elements.

These elements are constituted in elevation by wet joint columns, which could be solid or
empty inside and by concrete load-bearing walls and double precast concrete walls
completed with vertical and horizontal steel reinforcements and properly cast in situ.

Stairwells and elevator walls are always made with loadbearing panels completed on site.

Stairs ramps are prefabricated in concrete and supported by baffles and floors slab panels.

The horizontal elements are completed with lattice girders REP® beams with a caseback
made of precast concrete of 10 cm thick under it or with a steel lower plate, combined with
predalles slab of 40 cm thick.

The perimetral coating of the building is made on the ground floor of concrete panels
hanged to the supporting structures and finished with washed marble pebbles in different
colors or smooth and in the upper storeys are alternated with light metal facades with sheet
elements to promote the natural ventilation of the building.

9
 OneCo

OneCo
AESTHETICS

The following aspects related to aesthetics have been attained in the design solutions for
this scheme;

• Gardens: to attain the pleasant overall environment landscaped compounds with flower
gardens, trees and lawns have been incorporated in the design and thus integrating the
housing blocks within nature. The greenery around the buildings and those at the parking
areas create a balance with the hard car park surface as well as providing shades to both
cars and people.

The trees in the gardens in between the blocks create breaks in the built structures masses
and offers visual variety while enhancing the unity of the scheme with nature.

Thematic gardens to be created at various places by providing variations in plants and

spaces to serve a variety of users, from large groups, to small groups as well as niches for
intimate individual use.

• External facade finishes and scaling: the five story high blocks have been given a variety
of visually captivating and harmonized material finishes whereby the lower part is finished
with natural quarry stone while the upper parts are finished with plaster and paint. The
lower grey stone finish blends well into the natural green garden environment around the
building blocks. Colors variation at the upper parts of the building are used to create a
sense of place and distinct character to each court while maintaining unity by having a
common color at the base. Windows have been skillfully used as decorative elements and
together with the horizontal plaster moldings they scale down the building further vertically
to relate more with the human scale.

10
 OneCo

“GREEN BUILDINGS” SOLUTIONS OneCo

The following scheme shows the main areas of intervention and the applicable technologies
for the realization of sustainable solutions in the field of building design.

For some of them may be enough any commitment in their use during construction, while
others need to verify its actual feasibility.

Below are highlighted the types of intervention that could be used in our case, referring to
the following points, the application notes.

The use of this method of intervention can lead to environmental certification in accordance
with the principles of sustainability in use in Italy. Solutions of international certifications
like LEED does not seem appropriate for the costs, for the difficulties in reaching the
required standards and for the type of housing provided.

RATIONAL MANAGEMENT OF RESOURCES

• Thermal insulation
• Use of renewable energy for ACS Energy savings
• Exploitation of the solar radiation
• Checking the solar thermal contribution
• Control of thermal inertia
• Use of recycled and reused
• Recyclability of materials
• Environmentally friendly materials (from renewable)

MINIMIZING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF HUMAN ACTIVITY

• System of sustainable management of the yard
• Selective demolition
• Sustainable housing models (cohousing)
• Permeability of the soil
• Heat island effect

OPTIMIZATION OF INTERNAL QUALITY STANDARDS

• View out
• Penetration of direct sun radiation
• Soundproofing
• Natural ventilation
• Internal surface temperature during winter time
• Humidity control inside the walls
• Reduction of VOC and fiber emissions
• Reduction of Radon emissions
• Electric and magnetic fields in low and high frequency

BUILDING PLANT SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

• User manual and Maintenance program

11
 OneCo

OneCo
• Access to installations

THE SUSTAINABLE SANITATION APPROACH

The design approach in the water and wastewater management will follow the principles of
the sustainable sanitation.

Sanitation problems are strictly related to the quality of superficial and ground water
resources, to the quality of life of the communities and to the various health diseases that
affect the population and particularly small children. The governments usually doesn’t
recognize the lack in sanitation and water access in development countries, leaving
thousands of people without basic infrastructure and services.

The observed problems are very common to most urban centers in poor countries:
• All wastewater produced in the urban environment is often not collected and treated;
• Greywater is discharged directly in the streets (mixing it with human and animal
waste) or into superficial bodies;
• There is no drainage system for stormwater, that wash the road surface delivering
solid waste and polluted water to the superficial bodies.
• Existing on–site systems (as pit latrines and septic tanks) generally lacks faecal sludge
management and leakages affects the groundwater;
• The scarce or non–renewable resources (such as scarce water, phosphorous and
energy) are consumed and lost in a completely unsustainable way.
Where a sewer system is present, the sewage is not adequately treated, or the adopted
solutions (as activated sludge plants) are affected by several problems (high energy
consumption, sludge production with difficulties in their disposal, inadequate operation and
management, lack of skilled personnel, use of chemical, poor removal)

A successful sanitation approach is made more difficult by the complexity of the urban
setting compared to the rural environment; sanitation issues demand an integrated
developmental approach and are strictly related to urban planning, public health, stream
restoration, flooding and hydraulic issues, agriculture, solid waste management,
environmental protection, resources management, economics and politics, recovery and
reconstruction strategies, religion and social aspects, etc.

In the last century the common approach to sanitation in the urban areas of rich country
was to collect liquid waste in a sewer system (often the underground drainage system
previously constructed to evacuate stormwater), to treat wastewater in a centralized plant
and to discharge the effluent in a surface water body; this conventional approach have
improved the health safety and the environmental protection in those countries that can
afford to realize and manage properly the sewer system and the technological treatment
plants. Recent studies have shown that this approach could not be the only available
solution, and not the most appropriate, to the urban situation of many growing cities in the
developing and undeveloped world (SuSanA, 2008).

In many shanty towns and unplanned areas the investment and maintenance costs of sewer
network and centralized treatment plant are too high and the available economic resources

12
 OneCo

OneCo
are not sufficient: it is a fact of matter that more than two billion urban households in
developing countries use on–site sanitation facilities such as pit–latrine or septic tank for
excreta and wastewater disposal, with a limited and often insufficient service to manage and
treat them.

The usual centralized solutions and a disposal–oriented approach doesn’t take in account of
ecological, economical and socio–cultural sustainability:

Surface and ground water bodies quality decreases every day and the potential reuse of
different wastewater streams is lost.

An integrated well functionalized water service, if disposal oriented, represents only a cost
in low–income and poor urban areas; big sewer systems and high–technology treatment
plant increase maintenance costs and requires technical capacities that are difficult to be
found in this context.

An absent sanitation opens a gap between rich and poor people, causes more
unemployment and poverty, lower attendance rates in schools, privacy and safety issues for
women etc.

The result is that people continue to live with inadequate sanitation and contaminated water
issues.

The need of the implementation of a “sustainable” urban sanitation system, together with a
more sustainable development, is evident.

A sustainable sanitation has not only to protect and promote human health by providing a
clean environment and avoiding disease, but have to be also economically viable, socially
acceptable, technically and institutionally appropriate, and protect the environment and
natural resources (SuSanA, 2007).

Sustainable sanitation, according to local circumstances:

• Is designed for low water consumption (demand side management), especially in

regions with water scarcity.
• Aims for full reuse of water and fertilizer.
• Is often based on source control of faecal matter to secure highest hygienic standards
and keep it apart from freshwater.
• Is adaptable to the socio–economic conditions through the use of high to low–tech
technologies, depending of the development rate.
• Allows economic water reuse by separate collection and treatment of greywater, the
fraction of wastewater not polluted with faecal matter.
• Is often decentralized and is capable to provide high performance at low costs – user
involvement and proper maintenance is a key to success.
• Improves urban drainage, especially with systems that improve water quality,
infiltrate water in the ground and reduce hydraulic risk increasing the hydraulic

13
 OneCo

OneCo
retention time of the urban runoff (these systems are usually indicated as SUDS
(Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems).
• Is oriented to rainwater harvesting and storage within the settlement for reuse,
improving microclimate or for pleasure and recreation, and still broadening the peak
flow and reducing the flooding risk.
• Minimizes energy consumption and gains renewable energy through wastewater and
human plus animal excreta treatment.

The recommended solutions for the water management in development countries, especially
when affected by water scarcity and other issues related to the climate change, should
consider the application of integrated solutions sustainable for the communities, trying to
implement “tailor made solutions” in order to ensure the minimization of investment and
maintenance cost, an adequate operation and functioning of the adopted tools for collecting,
treating and reuse, a good level of environmental protection and resources recovery. These
interventions should include:

• The adoption of the most simple water saving devices in private and public structures
in order to reduce the water consumption;
• The adoption of a decentralized approach minimizing the length of the sewage
collection network and permitting to locally reuse the wastewater;
• The wastewater treatment by appropriate an simple technologies, such anaerobic
treatments and constructed wetlands, characterized by low investment and operating
cost, low or null energy demand, low sludge production, simple to conduct by unskilled
labour and at a community household level;
• The sustainable management of treatment sludge at a local level adopting natural
technologies (as sludge drying reed bed for septic tank sludge or constructed wetland
systems for raw sewage) that permit to recover the stabilized and dehydrated sludge
as soil conditioner in agriculture;
• The separation of greywater, softly polluted and easy biodegradable, locally treatable
with trickling filters or constructed wetland systems, with the aim to reuse the water
for irrigation of green areas or other not potable uses;
• The roof rainwater harvesting by mechanical and natural filters and storage in ponds
or underground tanks for not potable uses;
• The stormwater control and drainage by natural systems that permit the control of
erosion and hydraulic peaks, the infiltration in the soil of good quality water and the
creation of green strips and small areas contributing to landscape requalification and
avoiding the recourse to costly sewer networks.

WASTE
Given that it is absolutely inappropriate to address this issue in accordance with the
approach of the Western world, based on technology and network efficiency management, it
should take simple systems that do not require complex maintenance and specialized
personnel. The basic criterion must start from upstream separation into two main groups:
dry and wet, that will be collected in special areas (islands) fenced, guarded and kept clean.
The maintenance and the functionality of such a system will depend very much on the
involvement of the population, which already currently operates informally and self-
managed in the collection and trade of waste.

14
 OneCo

OneCo
These operators can be hired officially as a safeguard of the sites, but especially for the
manual selection of the dry, so you get quality and quantity of interest for a good product of
a secondary material (specific plastics, glass, aluminum, paper).

The organic material will instead be devoted to composting site, or always at specific areas
around the neighborhood, so then you can reuse on-site the stabilized compost.

Such a system does not require large investments, but only the identification and property
of the areas, the endowment of some simple means for handling, processing and equipment
for selection (conveyors, hoppers, etc.), as well as a shed that will hold such equipment and
the working staff.

All it is accompanied by a simple and rational work plan as well as commercial connections
with the sector of the secondary materials market.

The environmental report will clearly very positive, given the current situation, and the
environmental, landscaping and health impacts will be minimized with simple design and
management precautions.

PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS
As for the photovoltaic from the indicated surfaces can be installed:

- 27 kWp for the surface of 500 m2;

- 36 kWp for the one of 650 m2.

The probable inability to operate in the trade regime with the national grid, the definition of
the use of photovoltaic systems for the production of electricity for the common areas use
should be assessed on the bases of the amount of energy required during the day;
otherwise it should provide storage systems (battery room etc.) for use even at ceased
production.

For the powers envisaged for the total exploitation of the indicated available spaces, the
contribution to the cost and complexity of the installation could be important, and therefore
it may be recommended to use the installations only for the diurnal necessities running in
line with the available power.

It is highlighted the need to create the implants in protected zones, for reasons of safety
and protection from theft and vandalism.

Photovoltaic solar panels can be placed on flat covers or roofs. Flat cover means a roof with
maximum inclination of 1% (about 0.5 °) to the horizontal.

Usually on roofs made of reinforced concrete covered with waterproof membranes.

Even in the case of the flat roof, the solar panels must be installed in an optimal way (in
reference to the inclination and orientation).

15
 OneCo

OneCo
If they are installed on a flat roof it is important to pay attention to balustrades or parapets
that can cause shadows on the modules and appropriately outdistance the rows of modules
to avoid to shadow each other.

16