The BASE Innovation Center
A research and testing center for safe, affordable and green housing technologies.
In January 2021, the BASE Bahay Foundation opened its BASE Innovation Center (BIC), a research and testing center for bamboo construction and other alternative building materials in Manila, Philippines.
BIC is run by a dedicated team of researchers and engineers and is equipped with a universal testing machine, a reaction frame and other advanced tools to examine materials, components and their mechanical properties. It offers unique opportunities for developers of housing products and technologies that target the specific needs of informal environments and low-income families.
“Obviously, cost is an important aspect of products that serve low-income families improving their housing situation,” says Johann Baar, a member of the Executive Board of the Hilti Foundation. “Aspects such as durability, disaster-resistance and how they are applied are, however, just as important: all products should be simple enough that unskilled workers and self-managed builders can use them.”
Access to BIC will be open for developers from the region who share the same passion for green technologies for low-cost housing. A priority of the BIC continues to be bamboo. “For its Cement Bamboo Frame technology, BASE will always put emphasis on research”, says Maricen Jalandoni, President of the Base Bahay Foundation. “It is the only way we can ensure that the technology is safe, durable and of very high quality.”
And indeed, research and development are considered an important basis to increase the overall application of the Cement Bamboo Frame technology to a larger, perhaps even industrial scale. Founded in 2014, the BASE Bahay Foundation has so far completed more than 800 disaster-resistant bamboo homes for families in need. As it continues to provide cutting-edge technology, BASE plans to enter ambitious new partnerships with developers, governments, international organizations and independent builders in the Philippines and the wider Asian continent to build a large number of homes for families in need.
BIC is open to working with leading research institutes and universities across the globe. It offers fellowships for researchers and architects and collaborates with organizations of all backgrounds in applied projects for better and safer housing. Other important sectors with which BIC plans to collaborate are government and advocacy organizations. The aim is to make the bamboo building technology become part of the national building code in the Philippines and, eventually, other Asian countries.
An example of this collaboration has already been realized with Habitat for Humanity – a leading international housing NGO – with whom BASE build 10,000 homes in the Negros Occidental province of the Philippines.
The Base Bahay Foundation is an organization founded and funded by the Hilti Foundation. With the help of intensive and cutting-edge research, it aims to accelerate affordable housing solutions to deliver social impact at a large scale – in the Philippines and across Asia.