Sustainably Built & Eco-Friendly
Ghifted is dedicated to eliminating (or at least buffering) climate change
Sustainably Built
& Eco-Friendly
Ghifted is dedicated to eliminating
(or at least buffering) climate change
















We constantly engage in research about ancient, traditional and cutting edge building techniques that produce a healthy, energy-efficient, low-cost building. We seek to attain a 5 star energy performance certificate from the Green Building Council of South Africa in addition to being compliant with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) guidelines.
That means a dedication to fiberglass windows and doors in place of UPBC, rejecting the use of common toxic building materials such as polycarbonate or acrylic, and attaining an AQI (Air Quality Index) score between 0-50, amongst other things like building with rammed earth instead of concrete and using the gifts of the site such as animal trails, solar energy and rainwater to design the project in such a way that the natural resources and ecosystems nearby can naturally take part of the design thus minimizing environmental pollution.
Rammed Earth: The most durable of the earth-building forms, rammed earth will be used to build Ghifted. More eco-friendly than concrete, rammed earth refers to a building technique in which layers of damp earth are compressed into formwork, resulting in a monolithic wall with the texture an appearance of sandstone. It is a a traditional building technique used to create beautiful and functional walls -each inherently one of a kind. An 18” wide wall creates a 12-hour thermal flywheel – outside temperatures take half a day to migrate through the wall to the inside face. This means a mass wall balances out diurnal temperature swings. An 18” wide wall creates a 12-hour thermal flywheel – outside temperatures take half a day to migrate through the wall to the inside face. This means a mass wall balances out diurnal temperature swings. Finally, the questions about whether rammed earth is healthier for the occupants or for the planet. Many people, especially in Europe, believe that clay in an interior wall works to maintain optimum indoor humidity, which in turn results in improved indoor air quality. Certainly, natural earth walls are more healthy than materials that may be off-gassing glues, paints, resins, or other chemicals.
A Nod to Traditional African Architecture
Rooted in native African architectural design














A common theme in traditional African architecture is the use of fractal scaling: small parts of the structure tend to look similar to larger parts, such as a circular village made of circular houses. African architecture uses a wide range of materials, including thatch, stick/wood, mud, mudbrick, rammed earth, and stone. These material preferences vary by region: North Africa for stone and rammed earth, the Horn of Africa for stone and mortar, West Africa for mud/adobe, Central Africa for thatch/wood and Southeast and Southern Africa for stone and thatch/wood.