House construction starts with leveling and clearing the ground of debris. “Homepartners” (Habitat’s preferred term for its beneficiaries) build the wooden mold for the concrete slab. Gravel is carried in sacks and laid on the building site.

After the steel mesh is laid on the gravel bed, cement-mixer trucks pour premixed concrete cement into the prepared site. The resulting slab is allowed to dry and cure under the sun for about a week.

While the slab is being cured, homepartners and volunteers assemble the steel frames, which are riveted together by hand. The segments making up the steel frames have been precut, holes for rivets predrilled by computer-guided equipment, and segments making up each component frame are numbered and bundled together.

Homepartners and volunteers simply lay out on the ground in the correct order the steel-frame segments from these bundles and begin riveting.

The completed steel-frame segments are carried into position and screwed to the concrete slab and to each other. The segments can be connected to one another only if they are correctly aligned, ensuring accuracy and sound construction from the start.

Fiber-cement boards are installed on the steel frames for the walls. The roofing material is Galvalume, which reflects heat and keeps the house cool under the tropical sun. The roof is steeply pitched to allow the construction of a sleeping loft underneath.

Volunteers help paint the houses, using paint donated by the Paint Manufacturers Association of the Philippines. Doors and windows are made of palochina (used in packing crates).

The finished Habitat row house.