A low-cost home that can be built in five days from recycled material only and equipped to use solar energy and rainwater is a social and environmental solution that is gaining ground in Brazil. The prototype of this “ecological house”, created by the governmental Housing and Urban Development Company of Sao Paulo, was presented at a technology fair in Brasilia earlier this month. It does not use brick, but rather cardboard-reinforced plaster, cemented plates and refurbished PVC (polyvinyl chloride).

“Sustainable housing projects usually are aimed at the middle and upper classes, so it's important to create models of popular ecological housing,” Rubens Born, director of the non-governmental organization Vitae Civilis, told Tierramérica.

More than half of the low-income housing in Brazil is built by the families themselves “with the cheapest materials and are generally less efficient,” he added.