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Architect Alastair Parvin came to TED2013 with questions that challenge our preconceptions about building. How about we involve everyone in the architectural design process, not just professional architects building for the super-wealthy? What about a world in which cities are built by citizens?

Alastair Parvin: Architecture for the people by the people Parvin isn’t merely being rhetorical, as he shares in today’s talk. He and his London-based team have come up with a way to democratize both the design and the manufacturing of buildings. It’s called WikiHouse.

“The idea is to make it possible for anyone to go online and access a freely shared library of 3D models which they can download and adapt in Sketchup,” he says in today’s talk. “Almost at the click of a switch, they can generate a series of cutting files, which allow them in effect to print out the parts from a house using a CNC machine and a standard sheet material like plywood. The parts are all numbered, and basically what you end up with is a really big IKEA kit.”

Sounds intriguing… so how does it really work? We got Parvin to break it down, visually:

It’s still early days for the WikiHouse project (buildings take time to make, after all.) But here’s an intriguing timelapse video, filmed at the OUI Share Fest in Paris, which shows wiki-building at work.

Read much more about WikiHouse »