BASE: A decade in bamboo infrastructure

BASE Bahay Foundation Inc. (BASE) marks its 10th year of building resilient bamboo infrastructure for the Philippines. It is committed to its vision of using local and sustainable materials to help address the growing housing gap and reduce the effect of climate change.

Engr. Luis Felipe Lopez, BASE general manager, said, «The 2023 UN-Habitat PH Country Report estimates that the Philippines will be saddled with a 22-million housing backlog by 2040.» They have positioned their BASE Cement-Bamboo Framework to «scale as a holistic solution» to the challenges above.

The BASE Innovation Center in Makati City's inauguration in 2021 paved the way for more international and local research collaboration. It has run more than 5,000 tests, which have provided important data for the publication of over 20 papers in scientific journals. The information gathered supports the inclusion of bamboo in the National Structural Code of the Philippines (NSCP).

BASE projects in Bacolod CCONTRIBUTED PHOONTRIBUTED PHOTTOO

Through the organization's education outreach in sustainable construction, BASE has conducted 15 online and in-person professional development programs and trained over 2,000 workers and professional builders. Six bamboo supply and treatment partners enable ongoing builds and provide livelihoods to communities, with two more facilities scheduled for completion within the year.

Supported by all these initiatives, BASE and their partners have built homes in over 20 communities across the Philippines, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and Nicaragua, sheltering around 10,500 individuals.

In 2019, it started the Negros Occidental Impact 2025 in partnership with Habitat for Humanity Philippines, which is its biggest housing project to date. BASE has built 14 special structures, including a children's home, an office, a weaving center, community centers, and school buildings accredited by the Department of Education (DepEd).

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In 2023, BASE started integrating into its projects the Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE), a green building certification system and a sustainability platform developed by the International Finance Corp. It has an average of 35,000