Ger Innovation Hub


The Ger Innovation Hub provides much needed community infrastructure to residents living in the Ger districts of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 

The Hub will offer a crèche, after-school club, performance space and educational workshops for talks and vocational training. Inspired by the ger, we designed a layered structure: An inner room made of mud bricks is surrounded by an outer layer of polycarbonate, creating a buffer space that traps radiant heat in the winter. This reduces energy consumption and serves as a model for the district to reduce coal use.

The building is a place for all sections of the community and offers an alternative place to go, when, particularly in winter, residents are confined to their households. As we continue to monitor and evaluate the building’s performance, the project demonstrates how the process of making architecture can be a model to enable the construction of a community.


Mongolia


There are 840,000 people living in the ger districts of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. These sprawling settlements of gers (traditional felt tents) and self-built houses do not have centrally supplied water, heating, or sewage infrastructure. 70% of these households live in just a ger with each using an average 3.5 tonnes of coal and coke briquettes to heat their homes each winter when temperatures can drop to -40°C. The resulting toxic air makes Ulaanbaatar the most polluted capital in the world.

Even if people are able build a house, they typically lack basic sanitation, are poorly built and insulated, and still rely on fossil fuels to heat their homes.

The aim is to set up a business to design and implement affordable and sustainable homes for these districts.



DDU
Mongolia


There are 840,000 people living in the ger districts of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. These sprawling settlements of gers (traditional felt tents) and self-built houses do not have centrally supplied water, heating, or sewage infrastructure. 70% of these households live in just a ger with each using an average 3.5 tonnes of coal and coke briquettes to heat their homes each winter when temperatures can drop to -40°C. The resulting toxic air makes Ulaanbaatar the most polluted capital in the world.

Even if people are able build a house, they typically lack basic sanitation, are poorly built and insulated, and still rely on fossil fuels to heat their homes.

The aim is to set up a business to design and implement affordable and sustainable homes for these districts.