A great variety of water, sanitation and building components can be simply manufactured using multilayers of wire mesh and reinforcing bars tied together with wire over which an appropriate mixture of cement, sand and water is applied. The components are then kept moist to ensure that the cement is cured.
Some of the many items that can be made from ferrocement:
The photos on this page illustrate some of the above items.
One of the organisations that has developed extensive use of this technology in India, is the Auroville Building Centre, part of the Centre for Scientific Research, Auroville International Township, Tamil Nadu, India.
Another example is the Doeguling Building Centre in a Tibetan refugee settlement in south India - below the Dalai Lama watches a ferrocement component being made on the occasion of the formal inauguration of the building centre.
The Doeguling Building Centre - now 20 years old and still going strong - will be profiled in an upcoming case study - watch News for availability.