Low-Income Housing in Santa Rosa, Philippines :

Santa Rosa, in the province of Laguna, Philippines, is one of the Nexus partner cities within the
“Integrated Resource Management in Asian Cities: The Urban Nexus” project, financed by the German
Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH’. The City of Santa Rosa has requested
design assistance from GIZ Urban Nexus Project to conduct a study on the design for a low-income
housing project for the accommodation of government employees, and informal settlers. With
understanding attained, two alternative design were proposed for deliberation and discussion with
project stakeholders about environmental concerns such as and cost efficiency. Based on suggestions
and comments made. The final design suggests that environmental improvement can be achieved when
considering building orientation, shading, natural ventilation, and flooding hazard protection. Regarding
economic measures, cost efficiency can be improved by focusing on design simplification, locally
practiced construction techniques and use of commonly available building materials.

POPULATION

According to Philippine Statistics Authority, the city’s population record stated 353,767 inhabitants in
2015. The population of Santa Rosa is fast-growing, over the last 25 years its growth rates were between
2.4-7.3%. Santa Rosa’s population density averaged of 1,749 and 3,351 persons per square kilometer of
land area in the year 1990 and 2000 respectively8 . In 2012, Santa Rosa had a population density of
5,226 persons per square kilometer of land area, reaching a population density comparable to Bangkok
with around 5,300/km2.
LOW COST HOUSING PROJECT

It is assumed that the evolving status of Santa Rosa as the location of middle to high-class developments
will further add to the increase in population continuously increases, the competition for the demand of
commodities like land will increase as well.

A present aim of the city is thus to ensure sufficient affordable housing possibilities for citizens with
lower incomes, particularly in respect to the number of low-income government employees in Santa
Rosa currently in need for proper accommodations

The city is considering to support the realization of ‘multi-story apartment-style’ residences for informal
settlers and government employees.

EXPECTED RESULT

It is expected that the collaborative study is leading to the development of an architectural design
solution to improves the addressed environmental and economic design measures progressively by
creating:

A. Well developed, yet affordable housing units to their future owners

B. Sustainable building construction solution considering material use, as well as appropriate

construction technique

C. An environmentally responsive design solution considering the climatic context of the site.

D. Pleasant yet functional outdoor environment.

 Visualization site view

BUILDING LAYOUT AND ORIENTATION

 Facilities

 Garbage station
 Parking
 Court
 Playground
 Access road
 Housing for informal settlers 272 units
 Housing for government settlers 288 units
Scheme A is designed to accommodate up to 288 (12x6x4) units sized 33 sqm, and 272 (17x4x4) units
sized 24 sqm. For each apartment type, separate buildings have been foreseen. Altogether, six buildings
are allocated for the government employees to the North of the property, and the four buildings for the
informal dwellers to the South of the property. Between the two building types a green area for multi-
purpose use that is accessible from both sides, as well as the service building for the vacuum sewage
pumps is allocated.
 \

FIRST LEVEL FLOOR PLAN

2ND TO 4TH LEVEL FLOOR PLAN

 ELEVATION NORTH

ELEVATION SECTION NORTH

SECTION THRU NORTH FACE
 In India type and number of homes available is not adequate as per the
estimation reported by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty
Alleviation, Government of India. With an annual population growth rate of
1.64% as compared to world population growth rate of 1.23% during the last
decade there would be a great demand to fulfill housing needs in coming
years. the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Prime Minister Housing for All
Mission, 2015), envisages to provide housing to all by 15th August 2022. Their
mission is to build 20 million housing units for the poor and make Indian
cities slum free by the slum rehabilitation projects and affordable housing
projects for Economically Weaker Section.
They think low cost houses is a new concept which deals with effective
budgeting and use of techniques which help in reducing the cost of
construction by the use of locally available materials along with improved
skills and technology without compromising the strength, performance and
life of the structure. There is a huge misconception that low cost housing is
suitable for only substandard works and they are constructed by utilizing
cheap building materials of low quality. The fact is that Low cost housing is
done by proper management of resources. Reducing cost of structure is also
achieved by postponing finishing works or implementing them in phases.
Seeing the past constructions one can see the use of natural materials
like straw, bamboo, fibers (jute, coir), earth etc. as an old practice in India.
These materials apart from being locally available have easy workability and
speedy construction hence reducing costs. After analyzing various industrial
wastes, it had been observed that fly ash and rice husk do possess pozzolanic
properties which can act as an excellent substitute material. Thus, there is an
urgent need to look out for cheaper yet sustainable low-cost housing
technologies.
Analysis and discussion
After analyzing the use of various sustainable materials which are
environment friendly, cheaper and easily available following conclusions are
made:

• Filler slab is much more economical than traditional slab as it saves 16%,
44%, 17% of cement, steel and cost in two way slabs and 33%, 46%, 25% in
one way slab respectively.

•Brick panel saves 19% per m3 and Rs 418 in cement, 19% per m3 and Rs 21 in
sand, 19% per m3 and Rs 127 in aggregate, and 38% per m3 and Rs 536 in steel.
 LOW COST BUILDING MATERIALS

INDUSTRIAL AND
EARTHEN MATERIALS NATURAL FIBERS RECYCLED WASTE

MUD BRICKS BAMBOO FLY ASH

OTHER OTHER WASTE

NATURAL MATERIALS
FIBERS