As part of the “Urban Nexus Student Exchange Programme”, architecture students of King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) and Bicol State College of Applied Sciences and Technology collaborated within the framework of GIZ’s Integrated Resource Management in Asian Cities: Urban Nexus project. The training institutes aim to present architectural design solutions for low-cost housing using project proposals from the 30-year Sustainable Urban Development Plan of Naga City, Philippines and to provide a design solution that could be adopted by selected NGOs in housing projects.

The collaboration is the answer to one of the agendas of the world’s Sustainable Development Goals – Quality Education.

The two institutes attended two workshops. The first workshop “Micro-architecture” was hosted by the KMUTT School of Architecture + Design in Bangkok, Thailand on 19-25 January 2019. The workshop featured Space Components, Requirements for Low-income housing, Climate Change Resilient Pilot House (CCRPH) and relevant Nexus components. The students visited Thailand National Housing Authority (NHA)’s Din Daeng Low-Cost Housing Complex and cultural buildings in Nang Lerng. Community Architecture and community livelihoods lectures aimed to help the students understand community architecture and urban development. At the end of the workshop, they designed and produced commendable models of sustainable low-cost housing in the context of the Din Daeng housing complex.

On 6-15 May 2019, the second workshop addressing “Sustainable Living in Low-Cost Housing Communities” was hosted by the Bicol State College of Applied Sciences and Technology in Naga City, the Philippines. The topics of Climate Change Resilient Pilot House of BISCAST, Sustainable Energy Sources and its application for housing were discussed. The students visited the settlement community in Naga City and the low-cost housing community of Gawad Kalinga organisation and Guinobatan, Albay to examine the Base Bahay prototype houses. These are typhoon-resilient bamboo composite housing prototypes at the Base Bahay housing site in Sorsogon city. Each group of students came up with final proposals for a masterplan, two building/housing designs, a utility plan for water supply and treatment, and energy supply, all of them interconnected.

The outputs of the Micro-architecture and Sustainable Living in Low-Cost Housing Communities workshop were presented at the 9th Regional Workshop on Integrated Resource Management in Asian Cities in Bangkok on 22 – 23 May 2019.