OPEN-SOURCE HOUSING: A Transformative Circular Model for Co-creating Decommodified, Incremental Affordable Dwellings.

Open-source housing proposes a transformative model for affordable and sustainable housing delivery. Inspired by existing models of open-source design and production – such as WikiHouse – Open-Source Housing goes beyond offering an open, decentralized process: it aims at integrating its open-source production tool kit into an incremental, decommodified, and radically circular housing delivery scheme. Using the Communitly Land Trust (CLT) and Limited Equity Co-operative (LEC) models, Open-Source Housing not only establishes a CLT to extract land from speculation and lease it back to its trust members at an affordable price. It also establishes an LEC that integrates all produced and used materials into a leasing system, where the building materials are considered part of a revolving pool of resources that will return to the LEC after disassembly to be reused or recycled. With this approach, Open-Source Housing will literally open up possibilities for a diversity of owners, dwellers and inhabitants to participate in the production of a multitude of ecological and affordable housing solutions applied at different scales and adapted to various contexts.