In January 2021, the BASE Bahay Foundation opened its BASE Innovation Center (BIC), a research and testing center for bamboo construction and other alternative building materials in Manila, Philippines.

Marissa, 47, is one of the so-called urban poor who are most strongly affected by the pandemic and its economic consequences. Marissa works as a garbage collector in Payatas, a neighborhood in Metro Manila, Philippines which is home to the country’s largest waste site.

During a global pandemic, the world largely concentrates on those places that have been hit the hardest in terms of number of infections and deaths. Other global megacities have been subject to a more silent, yet possibly more fatal, surge in infections.