If you take Malibongwe Drive north out of Johannesburg, past Cosmo city, on the way to Lanseria airport you very quickly find yourself flanked on both sides by large, undeveloped plots. It is here, down a small, non-descript road that the team at RWPA Solutions have set up a new kind of housing marvel. Designed and developed from upcycled chip packets, bottles and other often forgotten plastic waste RWPA have created a series of small, fully-functioning buildings that today house a playschool for local children.

The buildings come in two primary sizes, and while most of the buildings are stripped down to function as a toilet block or storage areas, a few have been done to full specifications that include insulation in both the walls and ceilings, as well as electricity and in some cases plumbing. It’s a design that RWPA hopes to eventually take nationwide to fill the desperate need in the country for low-cost housing.

The houses are generally laid out as one large open room that includes a small kitchenette counter, as well as a bathroom that includes a toilet and shower. It’s stripped back and minimalist, but it is also, “Warm in winter, cool in summer, lockable and safe.”

The homes stand on stilts to ensure that wherever they are delivered they can be set up immediately without any need for earthworks on site.

“The stilts are made out of durable plastic too, to ensure that they can not be damaged by the elements, or eaten by insects,” he says, before adding that these buildings have already received approval from Agrément and are, as such, perfectly certified and ‘fit for purpose’.