346: Developing a Low Cost, Sustainable Housing Prototype Using Recycled Waste Materials in Tijuana

This paper describes the development of a low cost, energy efficient prototype house designed for informal settlements of Tijuana constructed from a variety of local manufacturing waste materials. The 35 m2 prototype demonstrates construction techniques using waste car tires and gabion rock cages as a retaining wall system, wood pallets as a roof truss system, waste newspaper blended with Portland cement as a “papercrete ” wall system, waste rice sacks integrated into a vegetated roof system, windows made of sewer pipes and dinner plates, and a simple radiant floor heating system using agricultural irrigation tubing. The prototype was built by a team of students and faculty at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies, Cal Poly Pomona and is a follow up to P La Roche’s “A Very Low Cost Sustainable Housing Prototype for Tijuana, Mexico, ” that was presented at the PLEA conference in 2006. While the 2006 paper presented computer-simulated performance of the dwelling, addressing the need for low cost, sustainable housing for residents of informal settlements in Tijuana, Mexico, this paper will describe the thermal performance of the structure as an integration of passive and low tech active heating systems for winter application. Results indicate that heating comfort can be achieved passively within a structure constructed of a variety of waste materials available in Tijuana. This project is extremely relevant given the increasing number of worldwide urban dwellers with inadequate housing, depleting natural resources for building materials, and greenhouse gas contributions associated with energy intensive building materials travelling great distances. We hope the knowledge attained from this project will ultimately be disseminated into other communities with similar needs