The SodaBIB Project is "a prototype project to reuse plastic water bottles to form a thatch roof -- to help people to create shelter from discarded materials." The design of SodaBIB (Soda-Bottle Interface Bracket), developed by professors and students at New York Institute of Technology (
NYIT), consists of a custom shipping pallet that breaks down to serve as an armature for mounting empty water bottles. Therefore water bottles can be shipped to people and places in need, and then
everything can be reused for shelter.
The NYIT folks have already created a 5-foot-square prototype, but now they're aiming to build a barrel-vaulted mock-up on the Old Westbury campus. As is becoming the norm, Kickstarter is being used to help
fund the project. A short video on the project is below, but much more information on SodaBIB can be found on
its Kickstarter page.