Open Source Ecology and Open Building Institute - Open Solar

Many countries are in a housing costs crisis, which is rightly viewed as a building and permitting crisis. In regions like Tokyo, housing costs have fallen to match building costs. Open Source Ecology and the Open Building Institute have designed modular eco-compatible housing tools, including software, cad libraries, and designs to make housing more affordable, accessible and eco-compatible (for off-grid or grid minimal living).

As they are transitioning to building in coded housing areas, they have designed a solar hybrid 3 bed/2 bath/6kW PV hybrid system home at a cost of approximately $110k for materials and labor. See their 2022 build here.

Likewise, with the decreasing cost of solar panels, the main cost of home solar is installation and design. We provided them with a small grant to produce code compliant open source solar designs for residential use, and incorporation into open housing designs and tools at Open Building Institute to fill a missing piece in this market.

Unlike many carbon ineffective solar deployments in places like Germany with limited sun, these designs are for communities where solar independence makes sense. See: Open Source Urban Housing for the Caribbean using Roman inspired design

Related grants and initiatives

We are also providing a Hylo - Tools for purpose driven communities onboarding grant, and supporting an architect to extend these tools to address Caribbean poverty through design

We are including OSE's latest Global Village Construction Kit (see TED Talk) designs in our The Archive - Digital Sovereignty Tools

See also our Geothermal Green House Prototype and Open Source Emergency Communication Satellite Launches in June 2025

For some background on their work: