Sonia Prieto

"Half of the houses in Ecuador do not have access to basic services like electricity, running water and garbage removal services, according to the results of the latest census performed in 2010. This data reflects the large proportion of the population that inhabits irregular suburbs of sub-standard housing constructed by its residents with walls made of reeds and covered with zinc, cardboard or plastic.

The young innovator Sonia Prieto, aware of this situation, decided to focus her architecture studies at the University of Cuenca on the creation of a prototype of low-cost, social housing with a low environmental impact. Prieto achieves these benefits by thinning the concrete used to construct the housing. In addition to sand, cement and water, each cubic meter contains just over 50 kilograms of newspaper and recycled cardboard in equal measure.

To develop this combination, the award winner investigated the properties of various mixtures with different combinations until finding the ideal mixture that complies with the resistance standards for construction materials imposed by the Ecuadorian government. With the mixture defined, Prieto created three types of concrete panels to be used in the construction of a one family house, similar to those available commercially but at half the cost. The housing prototype developed by Prieto includes 73 of these panels at a total cost of 8,250 dollars, including the remaining construction materials."