New Construction

Rebuilding Safer, New Housing

The housing sector is often hit hardest by earthquakes and windstorms. Build Change and partners have rebuilt over 87,000 permanent, resilient homes after disasters in Indonesia, China, Haiti, the Philippines, Nepal, and Dominica.

Keep reading for examples, and contact us for your post-disaster new housing reconstruction needs.

New construction in Indonesia

New Construction Areas of Focus

From the start, Build Change has adopted a homeowner-driven approach with the underlying principle that homeowners should have decision equity, not sweat equity in the reconstruction of their home. Homeowners are involved in developing the designs of their houses, trained to manage the purchase of good quality construction materials and to oversee construction, and are linked to financing options to support rebuilding their homes.

New construction in Nepal

In designing disaster-resilient buildings, Build Change makes small, low-cost improvements to existing ways of building. We work with local builders, engineers, materials producers, and governments to improve the traditional building techniques already employed in the area. The resulting houses are culturally appropriate and the techniques can be implemented sustainably in the future.

Our team of technical experts then trains local builders, engineers, homeowners, and government officials to build them. The changes are widely adopted by local communities because they are simple, affordable, and use locally-available materials.

Public education and awareness-raising is a key component to spreading the build-back better message as well.

Post-Disaster Housing Reconstruction Expertise

Housing subsector studies, including damage assessments, reconnaissance and post-disaster needs assessments, construction market studies, and reporting.
Developing simple design rules and construction details for disaster- and climate-resilience, and construction quality supervision tools for scaled housing reconstruction.
Providing technical assistance to homeowners, governments and implementing partners. Read more about our post-disaster housing reconstruction work in Haiti, the Philippines and Nepal.
Training and workforce development for local builders, engineers, homeowners, and government officials in the homeowner-driven approach as well as disaster- and climate-resilient construction practices to support post-disaster housing reconstruction.
Providing expert design reviews to others working on post-disaster housing reconstruction.