Reall’s partner BillionBricks awarded for sustainable affordable housing

Reall are proud to announce our partner, BillionBricks, has won the Holcim Awards Acknowledgement prize, Asia Pacific, and a Global Holcim Awards Commendation, for their solar homes project – Empowering the Homeless in the Philippines.

The prize, presented at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice, was awarded by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. The awards raise awareness of the role that architecture, engineering, urban planning, and construction have in achieving a sustainable built future.

Prasoon Kumar, BillionBricks CEO, said: “BillionBricks is on a difficult mission to solve the housing and climate crisis in a single solution. This prize is a validation that we are moving in the right direction. We know we can’t achieve this alone, and this award allows us to start collaborating and partnering with a lot more like-minded people, like Reall, from across the world.”

Robert Verrijt, Chief Design Officer, BillionBricks (left), Prasoon Kumar, CEO, BillionBricks (right)

A sustainable model

Reall have partnered with BillionBricks because of their innovative affordable housing model which tackles two urgent issues: homelessness and access to renewable energy.

• Their solution combines social housing and a solar power plant that generates 4 times more power than the residents need. The revenue from the surplus energy is used to finance construction of the buildings
• BillionBricks’ concept prioritises female ownership for homes, providing a transgenerational asset in their own name
• Housing sites include a school, health centre, parks, shop and other infrastructure to promote sustainable living
• The green features of their designs include rainwater harvesting, reed bed waste-water treatment and agricultural zones

Cutting edge collaboration

Reall and BillionBricks share a joint mission to transform the lives of people on low incomes though clean green affordable homes, creating resilience, jobs, gender equality, green assets, climate mitigation and pathways to net-zero. Read more about our new partnership.

Emma Ahmed, Head of Operations Asia at Reall, says: “BillionBricks are breaking ground in the affordable housing sector, with a revolutionary, self-financing, solar homes model. Their approach is truly innovative in the affordable housing space and proves homes that are both affordable and climate-smart can also be a financially viable business proposition.”

Read the full BillionBricks partner profile (2 pages, PDF, 459KB)

Read more

• Read our Climate Resilience and Mitigation paper
• Learn about our innovative partner network
• Find out about Reall’s affordable housing projects on our Data Dashboard
• Sign up for Reall Talk – our digital newsletter