House building activities of the informal sector constitutes the acquisition, consolidation and use of building materials and labor that may contravene existing standards, but affords them a coping mechanism to a dynamic urban environment. Studies show that the informal housing sector is largely responsible for most of the housing stock catering for the low-income families. / The research aims at understanding the house building activities of the informal sector and is limited to identifying and describing the building materials and building methods employed, together with its underlying networks. / The case study in the informal community of Sitio Pugad Lawin, Las Pinas City, Philippines, found that, the houses were built by its owners with friends and relatives or by small contractors. They used simple timber framing methods, and combinations of indigenous, conventional and non-conventional building materials for the housing elements.

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A crucial factor to enable low-income families to participate in the gradual development of their homes is to find a link between their building activities and those of the large-scale building sector. Amidst technological development and increasing demand for housing, the large-scale sector, such as government and private groups, resorted to industrialised housing to replace traditional and conventional building materials and methods. Industrialisation, however, resulted not only in expensive and inappropriate dwellings but also eliminated homeowners from the building process and management of their homes. To bring back the homeowners in the building process, the shift was towards the production of small components and partial prefabrication. / Following the same thrust, there have been numerous innovative building systems for housing developed in the Philippines in the last two decades. Private entrepreneurs develop these building systems either promoting locally invented systems or adapting imported versions. Seeing their potentials, government and private groups are trying to employ them in housing. Despite the growing number of the innovative building systems and the interest to use them, their integration in low-income housing is still limited. / Focusing on Metro Manila, the capital region of the Philippines, the thesis aims to develop a selection model for the effective integration of innovative building systems in low-income housing. The process of integration is not simply using the building systems for mass production of houses but also enabling homeowners to utilise, maintain and sustain them. The proposed model involves sets of selection parameters essential at each stage of the housing delivery based on the homeowners' progressive building process and their criteria for choosing building materials for their homes. To facilitate progressive building and enhance the homeowners' initiative to build, the model also includes design strategies when employing new building systems and suggests the necessary channels to ensure the availability of the building systems, technical assistance and information.

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