Because Habitat does not give houses away, our homes should be affordable to the poor. At the same time, they should be decent and durable-they should last for a lifetime. These requirements compel us to constantly innovate both in how we build houses and how homepartners acquire these homes.

Innovations in House Construction
One way to keep house costs low is to use appropriate technology. Some of these are:

• Concrete Interlocking Blocks (CIB)
  Resembling Lego® blocks, they are more volunteer-friendly than the usual concrete hollow blocks (CHB). While CIB are more expensive per piece than CHB, they use less cement, and therefore a house built with them also costs less than one built with CHB. The houses in San Pedro, Laguna that Habitat built for the Muntinlupa Development Foundation cost PhP2,475 per square meter, or PhP 60,000 per unit.

  Making CIB from a mold

  Finished product

  House made with CIB



• Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB)
  Where soil conditions allow, houses can also be made with compressed earth blocks. Although CEB houses cost roughly the same as CIB, they look prettier.


• Steel Frames
  Piloted in BASECO, a project of the city of Manila, these are light-alloy steel frames that are pre-cut by computer-guided equipment, assembled on-site and bolted on to a concrete slab. Walls are fiber-cement boards and the roof is made of GalvalumeT. Volunteer-friendly, a row of eight units can be finished in fifteen days. These houses cost PhP 2,200 per square meter or PhP 40,000 per unit.

  Bolting the frames

  Putting the fiber-cement boards

  Finished house in Baseco



• Medium-Rise Buildings (MRB)
  This project in Taguig.is a showcase of appropriate building technologies. These three-storey buildings, with eighteen units in each building, were built at a cost of PhP2.2 million, or around PhP 3,613 per square meter.>

  MRB in Taguig

  Inside an MRB unit

  Another MRB in Taguig

Other appropriate building technologies are being explored by the Habitat Building and Resource Center.

Building in Stages

Another way of making Habitat houses affordable to the poor is Building in Stages. Instead of a full house, homepartners can opt to have a house made partly with durable materials, partly with a light material like sawali. When the homepartner can afford it, the sawali can be replaced with a durable material like CIB or CEB.