Brick- and block-making machinery manu- facturer Hydraform has contributed to the construction of 27 affordable homes in the Eastern Cape on behalf of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.
The project was completed last month.

As part of the department’s commitment to development and upliftment, the Radway Green Farm community, which is situated outside Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape, has been provided with permanent shelter.

“The opportunity this initiative gave us was to implement our own project and prove that a community can be transformed and enabled by participating in local construction in a short period of time and enjoy benefits beyond housing delivery,” Hydraform sales and marketing director Nazlie Dickson notes.

She says, that beyond supplying machinery, Hydraform’s participation in this project has not only helped create shelter for citizens, but has also involved the community in the construction of their own houses.

Radway Green Farm community members have benefited from being gainfully employed during this process and have also acquired the necessary transferable skills in both block-making using Hydraform’s technology and construction.

“The community members we employed for this project previously had no transferable skills other than farming. Now they have the ability to produce blocks and build using the Hydraform interlocking building technology.”

She adds that a key objective of the project is to ensure that the community members are also not only beneficiaries of homes, but that they are also trained in block-making and construction as part of their skills development. The community produced 150 000 blocks that went into building their houses.

The Hydraform block-making machinery was transported to site, ensuring a good quality product that did not have to travel far to reach its destination, which cut down tremendously on transportation costs and rendered the product more inherently energy efficient.

The Radway Green Farm project also offered a unique setup to test the versatility and robust nature of the machinery.

“The project itself is in a rural setting where there are no formal water and power facilities or supply. But this made no difference to the performance of our machinery, which is highly mobile and can produce blocks on site.”

Hydraform block-making machinery provides smart solutions to the logistical challenges presented by a rural build and, owing to its innovative dry-stacking method, the final product has a lower embodied energy than traditional bricks and blocks.

Dickson comments that Hydraform blocks are not baked or fired, which saves a remarkable amount of energy. The dry-stack interlocking technology also saves construction time and cement costs and also provides materials with less embodied energy, contributing to a structure that is greener overall.
“This project is a self-sustainable and independent development that included solar power generation, a waste management system, as well as water delivery,” she says.

Hydraform’s product offering is said to be uniquely positioned to serve developing countries in their quest for infrastructure development and stability owing to its inherent adaptability. “Our products are able to work around infrastructural constraints and still deliver housing, public buildings, clinics and schools – even in the most remote areas.”

She says that the company was able to show that Hydraform technology can be employed by a local community, allowing them the full benefit of participating in project development while learning new and invaluable skills and, in turn, improving their living standards.

“Projects like this prove that we are able to adapt to market needs and, in this case, the affordable housing market by providing specialised and dynamic turnkey housing delivery options. This extended offering means we make meaningful contributions to South Africa’s job creation, skills development and community upliftment objectives,” concludes Dickson.