With the typhoon Haiyan destroying the Philippines’s built environment in November 2013, the first ideas for helping the country with disaster resilient housing originated. This idea took shape when the Finch Buildings team was expanded in early 2014. In September 2014 a concrete plan developed to start Finch Philippines.

There are mainly two significant problems with housing in the Philippines. First, there is a huge housing backlog in the Philippines, in particular in the urban areas. Due to the fact that houses and land are not affordable for a significant part of the population the backlog is growing. This means there is a high demand for affordable housing that can raise the quality of living and make better use of available land. The second problem is the exposure to several severe natural disasters. Disasters, like typhoons, earthquakes and floods cause vast damage to the existing housing, therefore the need for disaster resilient houses is great.  .

 It can be concluded there is a high demand for affordable disaster-resilient homes. Herein lies the opportunity to design homes that feature several other aspects represented by Finch Buildings, like flexibility, circularity and healthy living. Finch aims to help the Philippines with their housing problems and thereby design a modular building that improves the housing quality in the Philippines significantly.

In order to design a suitable home research will take place in the Philippines. Therefore Finch Philippines, represented by Pieter Ham and Joran van Schaik, will go to Hagonoy near Metro Manila from the 1st of June till the 31st of August 2015. During this period questions concerning location, people’s wishes, materials and the concept will be investigated, which will result in a conceptual design.

After completion of the research phase, the design will be further engineered. Resulting in a completely functioning, affordable and sustainable modular design. This design will be the first step of Finch Philippines in realizing a better building environment in the Philippines.