Building block

  • There are three variants of the UniBricks: the basic brick, a “half-brick” and a “flat-brick”. The basic brick measures 200x100x133mm (LxWxH), the half-brick is 100x100x133mm and the flat-brick measures 200x100x100mm. The height of 133mm becomes 100mm when build into a wall since the “teeth create a shared space by two stacked bricks.

  • A standard Unibrick weighs ±2,75kg, a half-brick is ±1,4kg and a flat-brick weighs ±2,3kg.

  • By default we use PP and HDPE. LDPE can be used as well, but since this comes in foils, the amount will automatically be small. PP and HDPE together take up about 70-80% of the total plastic wast-streams. Other plastics have negative impact on quality of the Unibrick or health-safety during production so will be avoided.

  • The basic compound is a mixture of sand and plastic with the ratio of about 2:1. To this carbon black is added and, if wanted, specific colour pigment, both in small percentages.

  • Quick answer: no. Through VOC tests we’ve learned that what’s important here is whether toxic elements can and will evaporate from the material and reach toxic levels in the surroundings, both of them doesn’t happen. First of all, the elements in the plastic are not toxic by themselves and are designed to bind with the plastic. What could happen, however, is that materials that aren’t designed for the plastic production process get in the mix. Some these materials could reach their combustion temperature and that’s where possible harm can be. Examples of these materials are glue and paper, in other words the labels. This is something one can easily sort plastics on and simple cleaning processes can help getting rid of these materials.

  • We’re afraid not….at this moment humanity has created 5000Mt of plastic waste). This is in landfills, in nature or scattered around in our living environments and this amount is rapidly growing. We’ve calculated that if we would be able to make Unibricks out of it, we would be able to build about 1 billion houses, enough to kill the global housing deficit!

  • Unibrick (building block, system and company) brings in several unique selling points, obviously the relevance depends on your perspective:

    • We reuse local plastic, cleaning up or preventing the communities and environments of waste. This reduces health risks (plastic waste can, for instance, be a breathing ground for musquitos). It reduces damage to the environment and life within it. It reduces the pollution of soil (agriculture), air (smog) and (drinking)water (through pollution of surface and groundwater).

    • Constructing with UniBricks is very easy, the bricks can’t be put wrong and due to the building system it creates a strong and well integrated wall by itself.

    • Building with Unibricks is at least as cheap as the standard affordable alternative; Sandcrete. When building more than 1 layer, UniBrick will outrun its alternative on price (and ease and speed) since Sandcrete would need an additional concrete construction.

    • The UniBrick building system is developed in such a way that it automatically creates a solid, stable and safe construction with out the need of skilled labor or in other words: it’s DIY.

    • As a consequence of this building system creates smooth walls and sharp corners.

    • The construction speed, including preparations, will be about 5x quicker than the affordable alternative.

    • The plastic-sand compound is resistant against all weather influences and can even survive a flood (the wall will not be watertight).

    • The UniBrick building system is expected to be resistant against earthquakes. This needs official testing, but the strong assumption is based on the connecting principle. Technically, the blocks are not connected but interlocked, giving the construction a specific degree of freedom to absorb the energy of a earthquake (or any other hit).

    • The application of the UniBrick is basically only limited by ones own creativity making it valuable for many purposes next to buildings and all types of situations. This could interior or garden design, furniture, temporary constructions (like events), urban furniture, etc.

  • The Unibrick is made with recycled plastics (PP and PE), which could even be sourced from landfills. For the sand the specific grain size is important, when the soil contains that mixture the dug up sand to make space for the foundation could even be the source for the bricks.

    Used Unibricks can easily be reused in a new construction and broken Unibricks could be grinned and directly reused in the production of new Unibricks.

Building system

  • Obviously plastic burns, just like a lot of other materials we use in construction. So it’s more important how the material responds then whether it burns or not. For buildings, there are fire classes defined. These classes differ all over the world, yet we follow the Dutch class system which is considered one of the most strict on the planet. Important is how easy it actually catches fire when confronted with a heat source, to what extent does the fire grow from that point on and, relevant for plastic, do burning drops come loose from the material.You can understand the more these things occur, the quicker the fire can spread around and the less time people have to leave the building. For our type of construction material we would need class D, with a test round with the first generation constructive Unibricks, we missed that by a small margin. We are now collaborating with experts to bring that into the safe zone (and further).

  • First of all; what is considered regular is different everywhere, so let’s discuss the affordability of a house done in Unibricks vs that house done in a conventional “affordable materials”; sandcrete (a low quality concrete-sand brick not load-bearing). In general what is added to these walls (plaster, inside finishing etcetera, will be the same whether you build with UniBrick or standard bricks so this is left out of the “equation”.

    Looking at material and labor costs, Unibrick is comparable with these sandcrete-constructions or even a bit cheaper. More important Unibrick delivers a better quality construction.

    The big difference will come in when a construction is done in multiple layers. With sandcrete (not load-baring!) one needs a concrete structure that will be filled up with the sandcrete blocks. But since the UniBricks do make a load-baring wall, this is not needed and both materialists and labor costs will be less. This leads to a significant price difference of about 30% cheaper construction in Unibricks (and better quality, better looks and more flexibel over time).

  • The UniBricks are stacked without the use of mortar, glue or other binding agents. The shape automatically fixes the Unibricks in the right position. A internal tention bar connects everything together so that, together with the physical shape a rigid and flush wall is created. Depending on the foundation type, these internal bars can either be connected to the bottom (and top) UniBrick or poorer into the foundation.

  • The combination of the self-positioning shape and internals bars that work as a guiding system during construction, the building with UniBricks turns out to be highly intuitive and therefor completely DIY. No skilled labor is needed for the majority of the construction. To ensure the overall quality, we do define a couple of quality key-points (i.e. foundation, doors/windows, flooring and roofing) that should be either checked or done by a qualified constructor.

  • In July of 2025 we’ve finished our first pilot building on the test facility of the Delft University of Technology (The Green Village). This was a small building (about 4m tall), partly isolated and with secondhand windows and door to come as close as possible to a affordable house situation. Apart from different tests on detailing, this pilot also gave us proof of concept and trust that we can now grow further to market launch. At this stage we are working toward a first project “on the ground”. Any news on that will be published here as soon as possible.

  • When we compare a 10m2 wall made out of Sandcrete bricks with the same wall in Unibricks, we see that two men in a standard Ghanaian building project would do the Sandcrete wall in a 8 hour shift. In that same situation these two men could do a Unibrick-wall within 2 hours!

  • This is a crucial question, since building-height means density and density is the key to thriving community, facilities like shops and public transport. The current affordable building techniques practically bound buildings to 1 floor-height, lowering density and limiting the economic basis for community facilities. In our first tests we’ve found a compression strength of ±35MPa, this is significantly higher that the average of a clay brick (ranging from 5-24MPa) and much higher than the sandcrete bricks (2,5-3,5MPa, assuming the local producer actually meets these qualities).

    Based on these numbers we believe we can build at least 3 floors tall, yet officially there are still a couple of parameters to check in order to be sure that a structure will keep its structural integrity at these heights and over a long period. (Measurements on the first test-building do underpin our assumptions!)

    To stay safe we will keep the first generation buildings ground floor only.

Valuechain

  • The value chain 5 stages: (1) harvest of source materials, (2) compounding of the production mixture, (3) the production of the UniBricks, (4) the construction of the building and (5) the use of the building.

    For all stages we value the local connectedness for both operational and marketing reasons. As a consequence we focus on creating intrinsic connection on shared values, connecting to local needs (i.e. jobs, self-control and community development) and share succes with that supporting community (i.e. providing the needed knowledge and support to co-create their communities).

    As a consequence we seek collaboration with local developments, experts and needs at all stages of the value chain. For instance the harvest can often be done by local entrepreneurs that organise the informal waste picking. Not only does this provide us with the right qualities of materials, these organisations are also capable of improving the living standards of the workers and their families.

  • Yes we do, it is part of our strategy to build collaborations. Either to secure knowledge and expertise in our value chain, and/or to secure the local connectedness. Examples of this can be found in the collaboration with Great Plastic Bake Off, a Dutch party that has developed a production line that can handle the plastic-sand compound and is capable of further customising and upscaling of these machineries. Or like the Ghanaian parties Trashsmart (Kumasi) who are specialised in collecting local plastics or Washking (Accra and Kumasi) which runs a successful washroom construction program and would like to use the Unibricks as construction material in order to produce faster and secure their feedstock of materials.

Businessmodel

  • The value chain 5 stages: (1) harvest of source materials, (2) compounding of the production mixture, (3) the production of the UniBricks, (4) the construction of the building and (5) the use of the building.

    For all stages we value the local connectedness for both operational and marketing reasons. As a consequence we focus on creating intrinsic connection on shared values, connecting to local needs (i.e. jobs, self-control and community development) and share succes with that supporting community (i.e. providing the needed knowledge and support to co-create their communities).

    As a consequence we seek collaboration with local developments, experts and needs at all stages of the value chain. For instance the harvest can often be done by local entrepreneurs that organise the informal waste picking. Not only does this provide us with the right qualities of materials, these organisations are also capable of improving the living standards of the workers and their families.

  • Our vision is: A home for everyone - Our definition of a home starts at the basic need of a roof over your head, the simplest form of living. But a home also means: a safe place for your family, privacy, a space to feel well. Living and being part of a community and build, develop and thrive together in balance with the planet.

  • Our mission is: We help communities build sustainable homes together - Unibrick strives to be a platform that connects and empowers people to build and develop their community in a sustainable way and from the bottom up. By discarding the environment of plastic waste and producing bricks of that waste in order to realise affordable housing for everyone. For that we provide technology, service, knowledge and bricks too.

  • Apart from the overall test-program which is more of a continuous process of constantly improving, we have a test-building on The Green Village. This is a “free zone” on the campus of the Delft University of Technology, where all types of building innovations can be tested without the need of a permit.

    This means our first full-scale building, experience the process of construction and combine our measurements with the weather station of the Green Village to get a grip on the influence of the weather on the internal climate. After this test, we will find a new purpose for the building on a new location.

    Our next step will be to bring the Unibrick to a launching market, ideally including a production line. The fact that we have a test-building helps in this process. This market-pilot helps us optimise the production line, the value chain and fine-tune our businessmodel.

  • The UniBrick builds on a couple of strengths: reuse of plastic (cleaning up), easy and quick to build with, affordable building material, smooth results, resistant against floods and earthquakes. (these are described in more detail at the USP’s.) The Shape of constructions is limited to straight walls and 90-degree corners. With a “grid-size” of 20x10cm the connection with windows and doors can lead to a bigger gap to be filled up (with smaller clay bricks (gaps to be filled up are smaller on average). Due to the specific shape and material some details need special attention, think of connections of floors or roof to the walls. Yet it is good to note that these connections always need attention, even with conventional materials, the major difference is that, when you’re new to the Unibricks, it will need a bit of time to adapt.

  • Unibrick enters new markets with a new material, this creates specific challenges. The new material could meet conservative thoughts on how buildings and in particular houses, should look like. In that case “plastic” is not what people think of. This means a market entry plan is needed where we deliberately choose specific building types to start with that do have a big audience, but do not require people to live in it (i.e. shops, offices, doctors posts). Besides that we are looking into the possibilities to colour the bricks with pigment or paint and even possibilities to plaster a Unibrick wall to meet the aesthetic demands.

    Another challenge for us would be the remote production facilities. Although we believe that connecting to the local communities is key to succes, this long distance relation heavily relies on trust. When life doesn’t come easy, one seeks alternative opportunities that could be a problem for Unibrick. Wether this is not mixing the compound right, neglect maintenance to the machines, running shadow sales or even selling machines or parts. Next to selecting proper staff, we will need local agents that can help the local entrepreneurs with the business and keep them on track.These agents work as eyes on the ground for crucial developments in the society/economy as well.

  • The simplest description would be the market that combines a huge housing need and a mismanagement of plastic waste. Additionally some economic stability will help, just as a country where the quality building materials are scares and/or expensive. Roughly this makes us focus on the urban contexts in the global south. Here you see rapid urbanisation, so a huge housing demand but scarcity on building materials. The consequence is inferior quality, a density too low to run the needed facilities and often bad sanitation.

    Next to this we see a lot of potential in smaller applications of the material, like interior walls, outdoor furniture, fences, temporarily constructions (events, festivals), etc. These purposes also open up the western markets.

  • Since Africa has the highest population growth for the decades to come (many regions will flatten their growing curve or even start shrinking (if the didn’t start already). With this growth focussing on the cities and a widely mismanagement of plastic, the African continent is a logical focus area for us but obviously we have not limited us to Africa.

    Over the years we were able to visit the Ghana three times to help us develop Unibrick. This started more or less by coincidence being a fairly easy to entre economy with a good network through the Dutch governmental organisations (RVO), which it still has. Over the years we’ve created a good network. But it must be said that we did so in different countries (Kenia, Ivory Cost, Uganda to name a few), just like the possibilities in South America and Asia are mapped.

    At this stage we are working on the needed funds and network to bring our business to the market. It depend on how these elements come together, but the local situation is a heavy component in this as you can imagine.

  • We approach the market per community or “cell” if you wish. Per cell we need one production facility that can take the waste form the community and convert this into UniBricks. The scale of the cell is mainly defined by the minimum amount of plastic needed for a facility to run properly vs. the need of buildings in that cell. (running multiple production lines paralel helps adapting a cell to its market demands.)

    Growth therefor could be found in growth of the individual production plant, increasing its output, or in the number of production plants / cells. That growing network would first grow within the setting of its country (regulations stay the same) and than to new countries.

  • Given the vast amount of plastic that needs to be cleaned up, we don’t have the luxury to talk about competitors; we need them all to make a change. There are already a lot of parties working with waste materials to make building material or using reusable materials for that. Some do well others are still in development. The quality of a construction differs a lot through the field and most of the time the building materials need additional load baring constructions, therefor have less advantage over the existing affordable building materials.

    When looking at competitors as interfering with our line of work, than we would say that conservative or alternative affordable building methodes will be our competitors. For instance the widely used sandcrete building blocks deliver an inferior construction and doesn’t give a financial advantage either. But still the simple fact that this material has “always” been used to construct buildings with can easily get in the way of choosing for UniBricks. This is also the main reason why we are closely looking into the right market entry plan.

  • The UniBricks have qualities that can also be used for other purposes than housing. The robustness and ease of building make it perfect for outdoor furniture, gardening, small pavilions, interior decoration or temporary constructions for events or festivals, to name a couple.