The Design Indaba 10×10 Low-Cost Housing Project aims to stimulate alternative solutions to housing. Ten architectural teams, composed of handpicked South Africans paired with international alumni of previous conferences, were challenged with this pro bono project. The objective was to come up with affordable, attractive, and innovative responses to the urgent need to house the urban poor. Sustainable design, construction, and operation principles were encouraged.

The first qualifying solution came from Luyanda Mpahlwa of MMA Architects. MMA’s design for a single-family home leveraged the extremely tight budget by borrowing elements from indigenous mud-and-wattle building techniques. In September 2008, MMA’s design won the Curry Stone Design Prize, an international award that recognizes creative solutions with the power and potential to improve our lives and the world in which we live.