# Building From Almost Nothing
### A Proposal for Ultra-Low-Cost Aircrete Housing Research
*Krin Whittlesey & Family — Houston, Texas*
---
## Project Summary
We are a Houston-based family requesting **$22,000** to research and prototype an ultra-low-cost building material by combining three proven aircrete technologies that have never been tested together. Our goal is to develop a recipe for lightweight, structurally reinforced aircrete panels whose materials cost less than **$8,000 for a 200-square-foot home** — more than ten times cheaper than conventional construction.
We will conduct structured material testing, build and validate modular panel prototypes, and construct a small proof-of-concept structure. Every recipe, test result, and build method we develop will be **published open-source**, free for anyone in the world to use: nonprofits, disaster relief organizations, communities, or families who simply need a safe place to sleep.
---
## The Problem
Over the years, we met a number of friends who were living on the edge. They didn't want a fancy apartment. They didn't need a place to put their stuff. All they needed was a bed, a place to stay warm or cool and protect them from the elements, a place they could plug in a stove and a small fridge. That's all they required — just something simple, a basic space to feel safe in that wasn't expensive. A place they could feel safe to sleep and then go about their lives.
The best we could offer was our couch. They took it. They used a couple of our stove burners. They didn't even use our fridge. They lived off the bare minimum, and that's all they needed.
Since then, our own family has gone through our own series of hardships and now we are without a home too. Our grandmother Estela had owned her home in Houston for nearly fifty years. We had spent fifteen years converting her garden into a food forest — layered with tropical edible plants, built on permaculture and regenerative agriculture principles. After an ex-husband sold the house and a series of events which made us face losing the house, we launched a fundraiser trying to raise $700,000 to save it. We knew nothing about fundraising. We raised about $2,000 — not even enough to cover the moving costs. Sixty years of family history, gone.
This is not just our story. In January 2024, HUD counted over **770,000 people experiencing homelessness** on a single night — the highest ever recorded, an 18% jump in one year. Families with children saw a 39% increase. Nearly 150,000 children were counted as homeless.
The math is simple and brutal. The median U.S. home price has risen 85% in a decade, to over $410,000. The median household income is about $83,700 — meaning the average home costs nearly five times a family's annual income. A retiree on Social Security receives roughly $1,976/month; the national average rent is $1,563. That leaves $413 for everything else. That number does not work.
And even ignoring land costs entirely, just the construction of a modest 500-square-foot structure — smaller than the average apartment in New York City — runs about $75,000 at today's rates.
The people who most need a place to exist are running out of places they can afford to.
---
## Our Solution: Aircrete
Aircrete is aerated concrete — Portland cement mixed with a specially generated foam that creates millions of tiny air bubbles throughout the material. It's been used in the construction industry for decades, primarily as insulation. It's fireproof, insect-proof, moisture-resistant, lightweight enough for one person to carry, and can be cut, drilled, and shaped with ordinary hand tools. Its insulation properties range from R-1.8 to R-6.3 per inch depending on the recipe.
What we discovered is that three separate groups had each solved a different piece of the same puzzle:
- **Domegaia** solved the foam quality problem with Mearlcrete — achieving up to 9× expansion and the lowest material cost (~$1,020 in concrete per structure).
- **NighthawkInLight (Ben)** solved the accessibility problem — proving you can make stable aircrete foam using nothing but cement, xanthan gum, dish soap, and water. Grocery store ingredients, no specialized equipment.
- **Abundance Building Concepts** solved the filler problem — using recycled styrofoam beads to add volume while cutting cement usage.
- **Researchers worldwide** have demonstrated that with metal mesh reinforcement and sufficient panel thickness, aircrete can be used structurally — not just as insulation.
Nobody has combined all four approaches. That's our project: take each of these proven methods and engineer them into a single system designed for the people who need it most.
### Cost Comparison (concrete/structural materials only)
| Method | Cost per 512 sqft Structure |
|---|---|
| Mearlcrete (Domegaia, 9× expansion) | ~$1,020 |
| 7× expansion method | ~$1,341 |
| Honey-do style (5.6× expansion) | ~$1,676 |
| Pure concrete (no expansion) | ~$6,994 |
| **Traditional construction** | **~$75,000** |
Our target range, including reinforcement, joinery, and all structural materials: **$5,000 to $8,000** for a 200-square-foot building. Almost ten times less than conventional methods.
Our panel-based approach also means **modularity**: if part of a structure is damaged, the affected panel can be removed and replaced. Structures can also be expanded over time as a family's needs grow.
## Our Vision
We spent so many years watching friends struggle to find even the simplest place to exist, people who were forced to sleep in their cars during those suffocating Houston summers where the heat just doesn't let up or huddling in the cold with nowhere to go, and all we could ever do was offer our couch and a couple of stove burners while we wished we could give them something more. We want to make that "something more" a reality. We envision a world where everyone has a space that is simple and basic but completely theirs, a place where they can close the door and feel a true sense of peace and security without the weight of an impossible mortgage or rent hanging over them.
In our minds, a home isn't just a box you put on top of the earth—it's an extension of the land itself. We want to move away from the typical approach where you build a house first and then try to fit a garden around it; instead, we want the house to be a part of the garden, a mark made by that symbiotic relationship between the artificial and the natural that you see in a well-tended food forest. We want to create these safe, permaculture-integrated spaces that protect people from the elements while providing them with fresh food grown in their own yards, teaching others how to build this same kind of food security even in the smallest urban spaces.
Right now, we are in the research and development stage of this dream. With your funding, you aren't just helping us buy bags of cement or a foam generator—you're helping us prove that we can take these "essential" parts of a home, the things that can't be bought with money, and make them accessible to anyone who needs a safe place to sleep.
---
## Work Plan
### Phase 1: Recipe Development & Material Testing — *$4,994*
Experiment with multiple variations of aircrete recipes, systematically varying foaming agents (Mearlcrete vs. xanthan-stabilized soap foam vs. hybrids), expansion ratios, styrofoam bead filler percentages, and curing methods. For each variation, measure and document density, R-value, compressive strength (lab-tested), workability, and cost per panel.
**Deliverable:** A documented, validated recipe for low-cost structural aircrete, published open-source.
### Phase 2: Panel Prototyping & Joinery Systems — *$963*
Cast 8ft × 4ft × 4in test panels with embedded ½-inch hardware cloth reinforcement. Conduct structural testing:
- **Bending force test** — panel across cinderblocks, progressively loaded to failure
- **Compression force test** — samples sent to a professional materials testing lab
- **Joinery torsion test** — bolt-and-plate joint design, vehicle-pull force measurement
- **Joinery fatigue test** — repeated low-angle bending cycles simulating real-world wear
**Deliverable:** A validated panel and joinery system with full test data including failure analysis, published open-source.
### Phase 3: Prototype Structure — *$2,758*
Manufacture a full set of panels and assemble a small 12ft x 16ft prototype shelter on donated land. Integrate passive cooling features including biomimetic ventilation channels and stack ventilation. Document the entire build process.
**Deliverable:** A standing, weatherproof prototype structure and a published build guide that any community could follow.
### Phase 4: Research & Development Period — *$12,000*
To facilitate the intensive 3-month testing and documentation cycle, we require **$4,000/month** to cover the core research team's living expenses. This ensures that the primary researchers can dedicate full-time attention to the material science, construction verification, and open-source documentation phases without distraction.
**Deliverable:** Completion of all testing phases and a fully documented open-source archive.
### Phase 5: Future Vision (Not Funded by This Grant)
These are the things we would like to do if we are successful:
- Architectural drawings and permitting for habitable structures under Houston ADU regulations
- Building a series of affordable homes for families in our community
- Incorporating food forests and edible gardens alongside the development of the homes to create food security for the residents
- Publishing educational materials for worldwide replication
---
## Who We Are
We are a family of three — Estela, our 86-year-old grandmother; Krin, age 50; and Eagle, age 19 — along with friends who bring construction experience and practical skills.
We are not a construction company or a research lab. That is the point. Every technology we plan to combine has been developed and demonstrated by others — Domegaia teaches hundred of people with no building experience to work with aircrete in their workshops. Our job is synthesis, not invention.
**What we bring:**
- **Workspace:** Land has been provided for experimentation (donated use, 3 months)
- **Tools:** Drills, mixing equipment, hand tools, and scrap wood for molds — already in hand
- **Research:** Years of study into aircrete methods, permaculture, and alternative construction
- **Community connections:** In active contact with Abundance Building Concepts and the aircrete maker community
- **Commitment:** All results published open-source. We believe the solution to a housing crisis cannot be proprietary.
---
## Budget Summary
| Phase | Subtotal |
|---|---|
| Phase 1: Recipe Development & Material Testing | $4,993.80 |
| Phase 2: Panel Prototyping & Joinery Systems | $963.00 |
| Phase 3: Prototype Structure | $2,758.00 |
| Phase 4: Living Expenses ($4,000/mo x 3) | $12,000.00 |
| Contingency (~15% on construction) | $1,307.22 |
| **Total Request** | **$22,022.02** |
*(Rounded for submission to **$22,000**)*
**In-kind contributions (not included):** ~$1,000+ in tools, workspace, scrap materials, and extensive research time already invested.
A detailed line-item budget breakdown is available in the attached Budget Appendix.
For funders who prefer milestone-based disbursement:
| Milestone | Amount | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|
| Project Launch | $5,500 | Equipment and initial materials purchased; experiments begin |
| Recipe Validated | $5,500 | Documented recipe with measured properties |
| Panels Validated | $5,500 | Structural test results and joinery system |
| Completion | $5,500 | Completed structure and published build guide |
---
## Evaluation Plan
We will know if this works through measured, documented results:
- **Density** — weight per cubic foot for each recipe variation
- **R-value** — insulation performance per inch
- **Compressive strength** — laboratory-tested on panel samples
- **Bending failure threshold** — load at which panels crack or fail
- **Joinery strength** — angular limits before joint damage, fatigue over repeated cycles
- **Cost per panel and per structure** — calculated from actual material usage
- **Workability** — can the panels be cut, drilled, and shaped with basic tools?
All data will be published openly so others can verify, replicate, and build upon our results.
---
## What Your Funding Creates
For $22,000, you are funding:
- **A validated, open-source recipe** for ultra-low-cost structural building material — free for anyone to use
- **Real engineering data** — lab-tested strength, R-values, and failure analysis
- **A modular building system** — panels anyone can manufacture with basic tools, joined and replaced individually
- **A standing proof of concept** — not a theory, a physical structure demonstrating this works
- **A complete build guide** — published freely so communities, churches, disaster relief orgs, and families can replicate what we build
- **A ripple effect** — one experiment, funded once, producing knowledge that could seed hundreds of affordable housing projects worldwide
The commercial value of this research, if contracted to a firm, would be $50,000 to $100,000 or more. We are asking for $22,000 because we will do the labor ourselves, on donated land, with donated tools, and publish every result for free.
---
## The Ask
A year ago, we tried to raise $700,000 to save our home. We fell short by $698,348. We lost everything.
We are not asking for $700,000.
We are asking for **$22,000** — enough to buy a foam generator, bags of cement, reinforcement mesh, and testing supplies, while supporting our team through three months of dedicated research and development ($4,000/month). We will provide the labor, the land, and the years of research we have already put in.
With that, we will try to prove that it is possible to build safe, insulated, structural housing for a fraction of what the world currently accepts as normal. If we are succesful, the recipe will be public, the build guide will be free, and anyone who needs a safe place to sleep will be able to use what we create.
We lost our home. We have not lost our family, our drive, or our belief that the problem of affordable housing has a solution hiding in plain sight. We have found the pieces. We just need the startup capital to put them together.
---
## Appendices
*Attached separately:*
- **Appendix A:** Detailed Budget Breakdown (line-item by phase)
- **Appendix B:** Aircrete Cost Comparison Data (spreadsheet)
- **Appendix C:** Material Testing Protocols (bending, compression, joinery, fatigue)
- **Appendix D:** References and Sources
- **Appendix E:** About the Team
- **Appendix F:** List of Figures & Data Visualizations
---
## References
1. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, *2024 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Part 1*. [huduser.gov](https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2024-AHAR-Part-1.pdf)
2. National Association of Realtors, Median Home Price Data (2015, 2025).
3. U.S. Census Bureau, *Income and Poverty in the United States: 2024*.
4. Social Security Administration, *Average Monthly Benefit for Retired Workers*, 2025.
5. Domegaia, *Aircrete 101: The Ultimate Guide*. [domegaia.com](https://domegaia.com/blogs/page/aircrete-101-the-ultimate-guide)
6. NighthawkInLight (Ben), *Perfect Aircrete from Kitchen Ingredients*. [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4_GxPHwqkA)
7. Abundance Building Concepts. [abundacrete.com](https://abundacrete.com)
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