An open-source home-building platform

A beautiful family home
a single parent can afford.
And build.

Affordable, beautiful, reversible, and off-grid, assembled from off-the-shelf parts with hand tools, in under two weeks, for under 50,000 euros in materials.

We did not invent anything. We noticed that Europe already produces around 500 million standardised timber pallets a year, that any builders merchant stocks the other few components, and that nobody had written down how to put them together into a home. So we wrote it down. And published it for free.

Read the manifesto → See how it works ↓
Hestia - Omnibus Domus Digna. A home worthy of everyone, carved in wood relief.
€50,000
complete materials
< 2 weeks
to weathertight
4 components
+ 2 tools
0 patents
CC BY-SA 4.0
IKEA, applied to housing. A defined set of standard parts. A clear assembly sequence. A result that looks nothing like the components it came from.
01 - The Manifesto

Housing stopped being about homes.

In the 1970s, two years of average salary bought a home in Sweden. Today it takes eight. In Portugal, where we are building, it takes nineteen years of gross income to pay for an average property on an average salary. The house has not changed. The system has.

1970s Sweden
2 years salary
One family. One income. One home.
→
2025 Sweden
8 years salary
Dual-income households still priced out.
19
years of gross income
Average salary to average property, Portugal 2025

Why housing keeps getting harder

In the 1970s, a typical worker in Sweden could pay off a home with two years of salary. Today it takes eight. In Portugal, where we are building, it takes nineteen. The house has not changed. The system has.

Across Europe, the average worker now needs ten years of full income to buy an average home. In the Netherlands it is twelve. In the UK it is eleven. In Spain it is nine. These are not extreme cases. They are the norm.

The problem is not materials. Wood, land, and labour are all available. The problem is access. Investment funds buy homes as assets, not as places to live. A family wants shelter. A fund wants 7% return. These are different goals, and the fund has more money.

When a house becomes an asset class, every efficiency in construction becomes profit, not savings. Every innovation becomes a patent, not a public good. Prices rise. Quality stays flat. The people who need shelter get priced out.

In Portugal today, a typical family pays €700 per month for thirty years. That is seventeen years of total income, handed to a bank, for the right to live under a roof. And in many European countries, two average salaries together no longer qualify for a mortgage on an average home. The system has priced out the people it was supposed to serve.

What we believe

I

Conventional is not optimal.

Concrete, rebar, and expert labour are too expensive to build a home. The traditional process needs an architect, an engineer, a project manager, a main contractor, and a dozen trades. Each layer adds cost. Each handoff adds risk. A process that anyone could follow would not support the fees. So the process stays complex, and the price stays high.

We believe a house can be a kit of standard parts, assembled by ordinary people in a defined sequence. The quality is higher because the difficulty has been designed out, not papered over.

II

Use off-the-shelf, certified parts.

Every component in Hestia is already mass-produced and certified. EPAL pallets, OSB boards, I-joists, ground screws, adhesive. Nothing is custom. Nothing is special order. You avoid cutting. You avoid measuring. You follow the protocol, and the geometry does the work.

You do not need premium materials to build a premium home. You need the right materials in the right places, assembled in the right order.

III

DIY beats factories.

If you can do it yourself, there are few reasons to outsource labour and manufacturing to a factory and pay a premium. A Hestia panel is built with a nail gun and a glue bottle. The skill required is attention, not apprenticeship. If you can learn to handle a nail gun and apply glue correctly, you are good to go.

The system scales the way an idea scales, not the way a factory scales. Anyone can pick it up. Anyone can teach it. The person who builds one home can help a neighbour build the next.

IV

Open source, not closed.

Bricks are open source. Nobody owns the brick. That is why the brick is everywhere, and why no single company can hold the world's builders hostage to its price.

Hestia is open source, like bricks. Every drawing, specification, and step of the protocol is published freely. Anyone can use it, adapt it, and improve it. A proprietary system has a customer. An open system has a community.

V

Shelter does not have to cost a fortune.

A single parent on a median salary, with €15,000 saved and a €30,000 loan, can afford a three-bedroom home. The total materials cost stays under €50,000. It is our job to make the numbers work.

A bank does not build a house. A family does. Yet the bank receives more years of a family's labour than the family receives years in their home. This is not charity. It is structural affordability, achieved by removing the intermediation that inflates cost.

Freedom

Everything is already in stock.

No factory order. No specialist contractor. No six-month lead time. Four standard components, two tools, and a protocol that fits in a PDF.

€300-550
Total tool investment
< 2 weeks
To weathertight shell
Any depot
All components in stock
Reversible
Plop in place. Remove later. Stay 100 years.

Four components. Two tools. Under two weeks.

You can take your car to any builders merchant today, buy everything you need for your home, and be weathertight within two weeks. No factory order. No specialist contractor. No six-month lead time. No concrete. No rebar. No curing. OSB, pallets, I-joists, and ground screws.

📦 EPAL Pallet
🪵 OSB3 Board
📐 I-Joist
⚓ Ground Screw
+ Nail gun + Circular saw = A home.
Explore the system → See the build protocol ↓
02 - The System

Five certified components. One complete home.

Every part is off-the-shelf. Nothing is custom. Nothing is scarce.

01

EPAL Euro Pallet

1200 × 800 × 145mm, ISPM 15, heat-treated

The ribbed structural core. Dimensionally exact. Certified. 500 million in circulation across Europe. Available from any logistics depot for €8-12.

02

OSB3 Board

2500 × 1250 × 15mm, EN 300, moisture resistant

The two structural skins bonded to the pallet core. The same material used in every SIP and timber frame wall already built. Any builders merchant.

03

Engineered I-Joist

STEICO SJ200 / SJ240 or equivalent

Roof and floor spanning members. Lighter than solid timber. Straighter. Longer spans. Used in 80%+ of new timber frame construction. Any timber merchant.

04

Helical Ground Screw

68mm diameter, 15-25 kN per screw

The foundation. No excavation. No concrete. No curing. Installed in three hours by two people with a handheld driver. Fully reversible. Any soil.

05

Structural PU Adhesive + Ring Shank Nails

EN 204 D4 class PU, 3.1 × 90mm nails

The bond that makes it composite. Continuous adhesive plus mechanical fastening creates true composite action. The OSB skins and timber core acting as one structural unit. Any builders merchant.

Full technical specification →
03 - Assembly

Under two weeks to weathertight.

Everything slow happens before assembly day. Assembly day is pure connection.

BEFORE

Prefabrication

Flexible, over weeks

Ground screws installed. Panels fabricated flat on a jig. Cladding pre-painted. Windows pre-fitted. Every panel finished and cured, stacked under cover, waiting.

→
DAY 0-1

Foundation + First Lift

3-4 hours

Sill beams on ground screws. Corner panels lifted and bolted. The shape of the house appears in an afternoon. No concrete. No curing. No weather delays.

→
DAY 1-2

Walls Complete

4-6 hours

Wall panels connected with M12 bolts at 400mm centres. Door and window openings framed. Shear diaphragm complete. The structure is rigid.

→
DAY 2-4

Roof + Weathertight

8-12 hours

I-joists drop into hangers. Steel roofing fixed. Guttering complete. The house is dry. Ready for insulation, electrics, and interior fit-out.

Full build protocol →
04 - Cost Transparency

Here is exactly where the money goes.

Hard rules. No hidden costs. No markup. Every line item published openly.

Structural Shell
€18,100 - €25,400

Pallets, OSB, I-joists, screws, windows, cladding, roofing. Everything that keeps wind and rain out.

Off-Grid Systems
€9,100 - €13,300

Solar PV, battery, hot water, composting toilets, water system, smart sensors. Optional for grid-connected builds.

Professional Services
€1,300 - €3,950

Structural engineer, electrician, plumber, insulation contractor. Short engagements, not long contracts.

One-Off Costs
€600 - €3,800

Permits, tools, transport. Can be rented for ~€50 instead of purchased.

Total Complete Home
~€50,000

84m². Off-grid. Weathertight. Owned outright. Materials only. No paid labour required.

Full cost breakdown →
05 - Research & Data

We publish what works. And what does not.

Serious builders talk about constraints. Scammy projects talk only about vision.

Lateral bracing
→ Active

Corner panels and shear walls provide bracing under our assumptions. The OSB-faced panels create shear diaphragms. Full diaphragm capacity will be verified with racking tests at LNEC.

Condensation risk
→ Active

The assembly is vapour-open. OSB is vapour-permeable. Rock wool is vapour-permeable. Interstitial condensation risk will be quantified with 12-month monitoring and WUFI modelling.

Code approval
→ Active

Portuguese building code allows engineered timber systems with stamped calculations. An RCP panel is not a standard product with an ETA. We need project-specific calculations and test evidence.

Ground screw capacity
→ Active

Helical ground screws are proven in Northern European soils. Algarve soils are variable: sandy near coast, rocky inland, clay in valleys. On-site pull-out tests before installation.

Fire rating
→ Active

Target: REI 30. Raw timber plus OSB plus rock wool provides natural fire protection through char layer formation. Full-scale panel burn test scheduled for Q3 2026.

Long-term creep
? Open

Wood creeps under sustained load. The magnitude of long-term deformation in an RCP panel is unknown. 12-month monitoring includes LVDT deflection sensors on critical joints.

Full research programme →

Build with us.

The prototype build happens in Algarve, Portugal, Q3 2026. We are looking for build team members, research partners, universities, municipalities, and anyone who believes housing should be a right, not a financial product.

GitHub → Get in touch ↓