Architects plan low-cost residences for all kinds of reasons, whether rehousing victims of natural disasters or creating affordable homes for people with low incomes. We've collected eight of the best examples, from a prefabricated home in Sweden to a bamboo dwelling in Vietnam (+ slideshow). More
More than 900 bamboo poles were used to construct this home, designed by architect Enrique Mora Alvarado for a site in a remote Ecuadorian rainforest (+ slideshow). More
Vo Trong Nghia Architects has revealed its second-phase prototype for an affordable and low-maintenance dwelling for Vietnam, as part of a project aimed at solving the country's housing crisis (+ slideshow). More
Swedish architect Tommy Carlsson has completed an affordable prefabricated home near Stockholm that is clad in corrugated iron and resembles a cube with some of its corners cut off (+ slideshow). More
Hong Kong studio Affect-T has come up with a proposed solution for the city's housing crisis – a series of bamboo micro homes that could be installed inside abandoned factory buildings. More
Design strategy collective Urban-Think Tank has designed and built a prototypical house as part of an initiative to improve housing conditions for slum dwellers in some of the 2700 informal settlements across South Africa (+ movie). More
Japanese architect Shigeru Ban developed these timber and earth houses for the rehabilitation of a Sri Lankan fishing village that was swept away during the 2004 tsunami (+ slideshow). More
Japanese studio General Design constructed this two-storey house in Tokyo as the prototype for a series of urban housing templates that can be replicated in any Japanese city (+ slideshow). More
Vietnamese studio Vo Trong Nghia Architects plans to address the housing crisis in Vietnam by introducing modular homes that use cheap local materials and are easy to assemble. More
Hackney studio Levitt Bernstein has won a housing design competition with a proposal to turn disused parking garages into tiny pop-up homes. More
Architect Frank Gehry has completed his first building for Make It Right, the charity founded by Brad Pitt to rehouse families made homeless in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. More
This prefabricated house in Portugal costs about the same price to manufacture as a family car (photographs by José Campos). More
American architects Morphosis have completed a floating house for Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans, in collaboration with graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles. More
Los Angeles architects Atelier Hitoshi Abe have sent images of their duplex home to be built in New Orleans for actor Brad Pitt's charity Make it Right. More
American architects Pugh + Scarpa have sent images of their duplex home design for actor Brad Pitt's Make it Right charity. More
Frank Gehry is one of 14 architects to have designed duplexes for Make it Right, the charity founded by actor Brad Pitt to develop new housing typologies for a hurricane-devastated district of New Orleans. More
