Development of Economical & Environmentally-Sound Domestic Systems - UBC

 Builders Without Borders Foundation is working with the University of British Columbia-based Civil and Materials Team under UBC Sustaingineering, a multidisciplinary student engineering design team working alongside Indigenous stakeholders to design and implement sustainable “net-zero” innovations, addressing the needs and challenges of Indigenous rural communities in British Columbia.

The project is initially aimed to design a network of water management innovations for those communities with aims to reduce environmental impact and encourage self-reliance and autonomy over utilities.

 IT is proposed to develop an integrated network of single component innovations which will address drinking water, waste-water generation, food systems and alternative energy. This network will consist of rainwater catchment, atmospheric water generation, water filtration, grey-water recycling, irrigation systems, and solar power generation, all working in lieu of each other.

BWBF / BCIT HAND-HELD CONCRETE BLOCK TESTER

 After observing the extremely low quality of concrete blocks in Haiti, arguably a major contributor to the extensive deaths in the 2010 earthquake, the Builders Without Borders Foundation worked with the British Columbia Institute of Technology on development of a hand-held strength-testing device for use in developing countries where concrete blocks are widely used in house construction.

In 2019 a prototype tester was completed. The further development is being undertaken by a breakaway company – NDART-N – who are currently working on a commercially available product. 

BWBF is currently working on obtaining field data on local concrete blocks in Haiti and Honduras.