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Honeycomb Village: Global, Sustainable, Housing

Honeycomb Village for 1 Million people. We are building a new housing industry. Please donate!

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Honeycomb Village: Global, Sustainable, Housing

Honeycomb Village: Global, Sustainable, Housing

Honeycomb Village: Global, Sustainable, Housing

Honeycomb Village: Global, Sustainable, Housing

Honeycomb Village: Global, Sustainable, Housing

Honeycomb Village for 1 Million people. We are building a new housing industry. Please donate!

Honeycomb Village for 1 Million people. We are building a new housing industry. Please donate!

Honeycomb Village for 1 Million people. We are building a new housing industry. Please donate!

Honeycomb Village for 1 Million people. We are building a new housing industry. Please donate!

Scott Knox
Scott Knox
Scott Knox
Scott Knox
1 Campaign |
Maharashtra, India
$240 USD 2 backers
0% of $250,000 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal

Honeycomb Village, Sustainable modular houses, globally wise

by

SUNLIGHT

Welcome to Honeycomb Village

We've designed housing for 1 Million people in India. You might be asking yourself "Why is housing in technology?". Once you see our Pavilions and techniques we have developed to build a new sustainable industry you'll understand Why and want to contribute. Honeycomb Village is light, modular, and affordable pavilions set on a raised platform to create a clean and healthy environment for people. This semi-permanent housing can be lifesaving, a stepping-stone for millions of people who need quality housing for a limited time anywhere in the world. Please enjoy the video and see how significant your contribution will be to so many people’s lives. I never knew how important my contribution was until this summer.

photo by John Warner

This project was born a few months ago when I was invited by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology- Media Lab to come to India. I brought my semi-permanent housing concept and sketches to serve millions people who attend Kumbh Mela (the world's largest human gathering). Since the day I set foot in India, hundreds of people from students to professionals have volunteered their time and effort to work for change. After the first week MIT-ML asked me to extend my stay. A year may be to short to realize a project of this magnitude, so I've committed to stay indefinitely. The opportunity to provide affordable housing exists around the world and it include housing for:

·  Humanitarian relief after earthquakes, tsunami, wildfires, and floods
·  Construction workers
·  Agricultural workers
·  Transportation projects
·  National Parks
·  Slum re-development
·  Homeless transitions.

Neither governments, nor private interests have adequately met the housing challenge. So, together we are the forming a partnership to move the tipping point for people away from poverty, and we need your help!


Endorsements:

Project / Career / Academic / Personal 

" Mr. Knox's expertise and experience in engineering, architecture, and urban design would be valuable in contributing to this year's success in Nashik. His design and architectural experience gives Mr. Knox a systematic understanding that will facilitate his teaching, mentorship, and promote a design for temporary housing that may ultimately benefit people around the world."

Dr. Ramesh Raskar- Associate Professor, Head of Camera Culture Group

Massachusetts Institute of Technology- Media Lab




I was prepared for the technical challenges. As an architect, I’ve worked on the vanguard of large-scale and high-tech projects from Airports to Semiconductor ChipFabs. I’ve traveled in North, South and Central America, Europe, and now Asia. I’ve applied principles of sustainable design and urban planning to fashion the best out of high-tech to serve people in sustainable housing

I was not prepared for the overwhelming acceptance. The support I’ve received to to seek answers to Why people need housing? is inspiring. The answers are embedded in a context where critical inquiry and experience blends with feeling, function, and form. Where better to take a stand with human dignity than here?


“ There are writers I admire for their sensitivity to the place and context in which they write. Scott has a similar understanding and command of the contemporary condition within his field and the historical applications. The proposals he has authored, his research and development, and his attention to detail show a strong commitment. I would recommend few candidates to contribute to the restoration of the Parthenon (knowing the Parthenon marbles from my own research and writing), but Scott is an exception. I can think of no better candidate and no better use of today’s science and technology than in the service of such a noble cause.” 

Christopher Hitchens- Author


Honeycomb Village: beautifully simple

We’ve placed self-supported tensile structures on a honeycomb platform. The raised floor (from ChipFab design) integrates utilities below deck. The roofs harvest rainwater and capture sunlight to generate electricity (via photo-voltaic). Crucial to people’s health is indoor plumbing and sanitary conditions on-deck. Inside each Community Pavilion is plumbing in bathrooms and kitchen. Bio-digesters (located below deck) transform the contents of the sanitary system into cooking fuel, irrigation water, and fertilizer. All these standardized systems are combined into a sustainable model for both house and a village that’s scalable.

Honeycomb Village is completely modular from set-up to dismantle from deck to roof, and no tools are required for assembly. After each use HV can be disassembled and packed into standard containers and shipped anywhere around the world. Sustainable, Modular, Safe, and Healthy: a recipe for promoting people’s lives with dignity and we’re here to prove it!

Some believe poverty is rooted in people, whether in slums or uprooted by disaster, people tainted by poverty will remain in chaos or homelessness. I believe there are thresholds throughout human history. Thresholds that bar many people from making significant changes in their lives.

One significant threshold is the barrier many people face in their lives to reach permanent housing from destitution or despair. From the lowest rungs this stretch is too great, the cost too high, the treadmill of life doesn't allow them to make ends meet, and battling unsanitary surroundings saps their health and will to do little more than let them survive, and for all-too-many, not even that.

Honeycomb Village can provide safe, efficient, and affordable housing to people in need or displaced by circumstances. They’ll have a direct role raising pavilions in which they live and in-turn housing people around them. This constructive act may build skills, engender a sense of ownership and responsibility, and promote their contribution to society. The ultimate goal of improving surroundings is have people live investing their time, energy, and money in themselves. Self-worth may single most important stance against poverty. People who elevate themselves and clear that “threshold” of poverty in a few, smaller steps may lift society with them. A society that abandons its responsibility to promote a safe and healthy infrastructure will carry the reproductive weight of human neglect.


“As a medical professional and medical technologist I see Honeycomb Village as a balanced environment for serving people’s needs. Integrating Tele-Clinics and Educational Forums into the network of housing shows foresight that is essential to successful urban plan designed to lift people beyond their situation in life. The design of the structure is such that it is easy to maintain the necessary hygiene and sanitation in these pavilions of the Honeycomb Village, making them an ideal place for Tele-Clinic services.” 

Dr. Pankaj Parashar- MBBS, PhD Indian Institute of Technology,

Delhi/ AIIMS New Delhi 


Who else can help make this happen?

We are talking with International Red Cross, USAID, and others who provide essential services for earthquake and tsunami humanitarian relief. We’ve presented HV to construction and agriculture interests who see decent housing with medical and school pavilions for workers and their families. Event and resort interests see on-site housing for visitor accommodations. An outdoor enthusiast saw HV as accommodations in national parks with minimal impact on the natural surroundings. I’ve met few people who don’t see some shared aspect in Honeycomb Village.


“Specifically, due to the position I have held for many years in connection with the Parthenon reconstruction I constantly receive visits and correspondence from individuals …who aspire to make a contribution to the work of the Parthenon. The volume of these requests is very high and given that the time that I can devote to them is limited I only concentrate on the ones that are most promising. Among those that I regard as the most serious proposals is the one submitted by American architect Mr. Scott B. Knox for the production of primary digital documentation of the Parthenon with actual on-location use of laser scanning techniques to produce a high-resolution three-dimensional computer model.”….” I wholeheartedly support Mr. Knox, not only because I know precisely what useful purpose it will serve but also because, following a careful study of his accompanying documents, I concluded that both he and his associates have the required technical knowhow and the proper professional attitude.”

Dr. Manolis Korres- Parthenon Head Architect,

Committee for the Conservation of the Acropolis Monuments, Athens, Greece.


Why Crowdfund Honeycomb Village?

The first “anything” is more expensive than each of the thousands that may follow. Economies of scale will drive down costs for each pavilion, but few people can self-fund a project of this scale alone. This project’s goals are too large not only in the monetary sense, but in the practical sense as well. I helped design and build the nano-technology industry in New York and learned the power of Public Private Partnerships. Nanotechnology hardly existed there a few decades ago. Now, with the kick start it received from broad support the semiconductor industry is a multi-billion dollar engine for growth. Semi-permanent buildings are more than an inexpensive housing design, they can be a new industry in a country with a great need for safe and affordable housing. This is where crowdfunding come in: we need your help to fill the gap. India builds quality permanent housing, but for a LARGE percentage of her VERY LARGE population the leap from no/low quality housing to that permanent house is just too great. Once we crowdfund this project with help from many stakeholders, then Honeycomb Village will have an opportunity to build an industry, create jobs, and generate income. The result may provide a stepping-stone, a transitional point, for people at the lowest rungs to reach a permanent housing and be the true gift of your donation. Imagine, you can help make ALL housing more affordable, build a new industry from the ground up, and plant seeds to grow a middle-class! Sound like a grand challenge? It is, but we can’t do it without your help.


Honeycomb Village- a sustainable and modular solution.


When I first heard about the HoneyComb Village concept, I was amazed. I never imagined that this type of well-thought through "semi-permanent" housing concept is possible! In India, we have huge problems when it comes to housing for the poor. This type of concept could be an answer to our current situation. This model will not only provide housing to the poor but can actually build industry, create jobs and provide a stepping stone for them to reach permanent place to live. What I like the most about HV concept is it's architecture and color coding system. It's unique and easy to understand for both the literates and the illiterates, which is extremely important. This kind of housing concept should not only be looked at during some kind of disaster, but should be looked at for turning the rural villages into smart cities. I think this is a very innovative concept and it may be the NEXT THING in housing sector!

Aria Ohi, Mumbai India


Official Honeycomb Village Tee Shirt

Please join us by making a DoNation?

This phase is the first step to manufacturing 25,000 pavilions. Our goal is to eventually house 1M people in health and dignity. Let's IndiegoGO and begin Honeycomb Village. I have boot-strapped this project since it’s inception. We're engaging professional architects and engineers, government officials at State and local levels, national organizations like the Red Cross and Rotary, doctors, specialists in sustainable design from rain-water harvesting, solar photo-voltaic, and bio-digesting. We now greatly need your support to launch Honeycomb Village into production and seed a new economy for people and affordable housing in India and around the world.


“ Scott was often relentless to make cross-disciplinary connections as well as making cross-disciplinary critiques. His insights and questions were challenging both to me and to his student colleagues. In a fashion that is typical for him he labored assiduously to consider every facet of the design from urbanistic issues to political implications to details. Overall, Scott was one of the most mature, self-directed, and highly motivated students I have come in contact with in our graduate program. ”

David Bell, Architecture Faculty 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute



Why Crowdfunding?

Indiegogo is a proven start-up platform, whose community of “early adopters” vets, funds, and helps refine new designs and spur social entrepreneurship in an efficient, timely manner. Therefore, we highly value the Indiegogo  community and its role in supporting innovation and hope that together we can launch Honeycomb Village!

Please Share Honeycomb Village's Kickstarter Campaign on ALL your favorite social medias: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, 


I have known Scott Knox for over 25 years, and highly recommend him because I have seen his dedication to work and family. I know that because he has been working in and around building construction as both a tradesman and an architect, his balance of theoretical and practical experience helps him grasp a wide scale of projects. Scott’s comfortable communicating and expresses himself well in everyday circumstances and under pressure. I expect you would find him to be a great asset to your organization, and someone people truly enjoy working with. 

Jeffrey Kosmacher, Director of Media Relations & Public Affairs
Vassar College


Competition, risks, and challenges

        What other semi-permanent housing solutions are already available? From Pup-tent to mobile-homes when you need 1 liter of fresh water you have to walk and carry water back each time you run out. There are too few solutions that incorporate indoor plumbing, proper sanitary waste management, and sustainable utilities in an affordable solution. Most simply do not adequately provide necessary utility service.

       Risks are inherent in manufacturing. We’ve taken precautions to prepare drawings, model known conditions, and document logistics from manufacturing through deployment. The risk is in the unknown conditions that will arise in the process. Our response to the rise will be to collaborate with our design, manufacturing, and distribution partners and overcome the challenges. We are dedicated to keep our backers updated on the HV website and inform them about issues and our efforts to resolve them as they arise.

       The challenge of designing Honeycomb Village was to integrate all the basic services within each pavilion and throughout the village. Making a sustainable infrastructure affordable is meeting the challenge. The price estimate will be confirmed and economies of scale will bring them down. The raised platform is a proven solution in high-tech industries around the world. Data centers, ChipFab's, and other process industries have developed and tested the functionality of access floor services. But, how will these "high-tech" services work in housing? Therein lies some risk. To residents these utility lines are invisible. The utility infrastructure will only be accessible to platform maintenance staff of Honeycomb Village.

Critics say we risk not providing 100% utilities sustainably. We use the 80/20 rule throughout Honeycomb Village (HV). Rain Harvesting, PV's and bio-digesting are goals, not sole ideals. Locations will have some resources available. When there's no rain in Ujjain, trucks can deliver water and plug into the central water line of HV to top-off our tanks. When the Photo-Voltaic (PV) micro-grids supply is outstripped by demand our network is connectable to a central utility or generators to re-charge our batteries. We call it being pragmatic. Save where you can, use when you must. This dovetails with our approach to form a Public-Private-Partnership with institutions to promote sustainable utilities and a manageable infrastructure. Good housing design is applied to all components of HV for maintainability, fire-resistance, safety, and accessibility.

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Choose your Perk

Eternal Gratitude

$1 USD
Every dollar counts, you'll receive our eternal gratitude for your contribution!
0 claimed

Wall of Fame

$5 USD
Five times the eternal gratitude of our first reward and Your name on the Wall of Fame at the Honeycomb Village inauguration. Pics of Inauguration available for download from the HV website.
0 claimed

Angel Bragging Rights

$10 USD
Angel Certificate and you'll be named in recognition of your contribution at the Honeycomb Village Inauguration and All subsequent HV appearances during the first year of production.
0 claimed

Bumper Crop

$39 USD
Honeycomb Village Bumper Sticker! Proudly show your support round town, at home or work! Plus Angel Certificate!
1 claimed
Ships worldwide.

Published Bragging Rights

$59 USD
Honeycomb Village Online magazine: Your Picture and Name (with your permission/submission) on the supporters page. The Magazine inaugural issue will be published in April, 2016.
0 claimed

Official- Honeycomb Tee

$99 USD
Honeycomb Village tee-shirt (see image). One size fits All! - Angel Certificate - Bumper Sticker - Magazine Picture and Name
0 claimed
Ships worldwide.

Podcast Interview

$599 USD
Honeycomb Village Podcast Fame! 1 on 1 interviews with members of the HV Team- 15 minutes remote from your town to India. Air dates to follow Peer-review and Report. - Angel Donor Recognition - Honeycomb Village Magazine (Half-page Angel Profile) - Honeycomb Village tee-shirt (See image on Story page)
0 claimed
Ships worldwide.

Pavilion Inscription

$3,999 USD
Pavilion inscribed in your Honor! The first pavilions with be dedicated in India with an inscription* of your choice. Inscription at entry doors to let Honeycombers see the dedication that went into making HV a reality. Remote attendance at Honeycomb Village Opening ceremony. One of each reward above *Considerations: - 50 character limit (additional character counts for creative/meaningful quotes) - Inscriptions subject to cultural considerations of propriety and appropriate language.
Estimated Shipping
March 2016
0 out of 20 of claimed
Ships worldwide.

Invite2India- Opening Ceremony

$9,999 USD
Attend Honeycomb Village Opening Ceremony! The first pavilions with be dedicated in India with your contribution and support*. You'll be invited to speak and give words of inspiration. You're presence will be witnessed by all present and attending remotely. Hotel accommodations in India (Taj Gateway- Nashik) for five days included. - One of each reward above *Considerations: - Opening date to be set following funding. - Travel, Visa, and all personal expenses responsibility of donor
Estimated Shipping
March 2016
0 claimed
Ships worldwide.
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