Better construction for low-income environments
Imagine not having a safe place to call home, or being forced to rebuild it several times a year because it keeps getting destroyed by natural disasters. Or imagine taking decades to build an adequate home for your family because your instable financial situation doesn’t allow for anything else.
The Affordable Housing & Technology focus area is about changing the way low-income families build and live. Here, our work is based on three initiatives: spreading bamboo construction, creating an inclusive housing industry, and building coalitions of impact.
Scaling Bamboo Construction
What started back in 2012 with testing a building technology that uses bamboo as its sole structural element, has evolved massively over the past years. The BASE Bahay Foundation, initiated by the Hilti Foundation in 2014, is establishing itself at the center of a global bamboo movement. The Innovation Center in the Philippines runs partnerships with 24 universities and enterprises across the globe, including lead partners like ARUP, ETH Zurich, Coventry University, and the University of the Philippines. Together, they conduct fundamental research on bamboo, continuously improve the Cement Bamboo Frame Technology (CBFT), and, since 2022, the Bamboo Academy offers training on bamboo as a building material for developers, contractors, builders, architects, and others.
Besides government financed social housing projects, BASE works with developers in re-location projects for vulnerable families, builds staff housing for larger industries, and supports the government in integrating minorities into society through housing. Additionally, they have started to build larger structures using CBFT, including market halls, schools, and a weaving center. While creating impact for vulnerable families, they raise awareness for the power of bamboo as a building material at the same time.
Opportunities also emerge from first cautious steps into additional “for-profit models” using the CBFT. Together with Habitat’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter (TCIS), we support local treatment centers in turning their businesses into full-scale providers of bamboo housing solutions. We also developed a “CBFT starter house”, so low-income families with a basic salary can purchase a disaster-resilient house with a quality core structure from bamboo.
Inclusive Housing Industries
Over the years, the Hilti Foundation has supported Habitat’s TCIS in testing innovative housing products and technologies that address the specific needs of low-income families. In 2017, the Shelter Venture Labs were launched as experimental hubs to test market-based interventions to make better low-cost housing products and services available and empower families to make smarter self-directed, incremental housing improvement decisions. Unique to the sector, only interventions that rely on the marketplace rather than on grants or donations, have been developed. Shelter Tech Accelerators identify and support startups with innovative solutions offered through the market. In this way, more than 80 solutions have been initiated and tested in the past 5 years.
Starting in three geographies – Chennai (India), Lima (Peru), and Cebu (Philippines) – we will select key industries that represent the biggest challenges in construction for low-income families. Our objective is to make these key industries more inclusive by integrating the specific needs and challenges of low-income families (affordability, accessibility, appropriateness) and providing new and extended market opportunities for enterprises at the same time. Although these markets are difficult to access due to trust issues, they offer massive opportunities simply because of their sheer size.
Forming Coalitions of Impact
Changing the way entire ecosystems function and aligning them with the needs and requests of low-income families is very complex. It is not enough to create a sustainable financing mechanism, improved housing technology, or access to quality labor services. To transform the way low-income families build and live, we have to connect these efforts and do all at once. So, in 2023, we are bringing together ten of the region’s leading housing organizations in a single district of Lima to demonstrate that. By connecting their instruments, engaging in joined advocacy with public administration, and reaching out to families together, we can bring about holistic change. Similar initiatives have been started in South-East Asia as well as East Africa.
Cement Bamboo Frame Technology (CBFT)
CBFT was developed by the Hilti Foundation. This disaster-resilient and environmentally friendly construction technology for social housing uses bamboo as the only structural element. More than 1,000 homes for families in need have been built with CBFT in the Philippines and in Nepal so far. Our aim is, together with Habitat for Humanity, to take construction to a larger, if not industrial, scale. CBFT has also helped local farmers build a strong business as they contribute to the supply chain for treated bamboo poles.
Affordable Housing & Technology
Adequate housing is a human right, and a safe home a prerequisite for social and economic development. Experts predict 3 billion people worldwide will be living in substandard housing by 2030. This has a significant impact not only on their safety and health, but also on their economic opportunities and social inclusion. By developing innovative technologies and sustainable building concepts, the Hilti Foundation is helping to create safe and affordable housing that can serve as a starting point for a better life for people in need.
Substandard Housing & Incremental Construction
Demographic change and rapid urbanization make people move from rural areas towards larger cities. They often end up in substandard housing, unsuitable for human habitation and threatening the health or safety of the residents. Such informal structures have been built incrementally over years, without any access to planning services, quality materials, or skilled labor. Families invest in improving their homes whenever some money is available. In cities like Lima (Peru) or Manila (Philippines), an estimated 60% of the population live under these conditions.