World Housing Encyclopedia

The World Housing Encyclopedia (WHE) is a collection of resources related to housing construction practices in the seismically active areas of the world. The mission is to share experiences with different construction types and encourage the use of earthquake-resistant technologies worldwide.

To learn more, check out the Construction Intros section for basic information about major building methods. To view profiles of housing types, explore our Housing Reports database, with over 170 housing profiles from more than 45 countries, all written by architects or engineers. Consult our Tutorials section for step-by-step guides for building earthquake-resistant dwellings. Also, get the latest publications of the Confined Masonry Design Guide, the Stone Masonry Tutorial and the newest reports or check out the building reports collected as part of the GEM Building Taxonomy Testing.

All of the content on this site has been contributed by volunteers. If you are interested in writing a housing report, tutorial, or have any other ideas for content, please write to us.

Introduction to Major Construction Types
The site has a feature called Construction Intros. Here you can find brief descriptions of the major construction types found around the world and typically used for housing. These descriptions have been prepared by project participants.

Housing Reports
If you are looking specifically for Housing Reports, click on Housing Reports in the Main Menu and then select Find Report. You will be given a choice of searching by Country or by Construction Type. (To use a multi-criteria search, select Search function in the menu listing.) Once you get a list of reports by country or by construction type, you have the choice of viewing/printing the report in html format or viewing/printing a .pdf version. You can also click on any figure inside the html report and it will open as a larger file in a new window.

Tutorials
The WHE tutorials are accessible from the pulldown menu across the top. Click here to go directly to the completed tutorials (adobe, confined masonry, reinforced concrete construction and stone masonry). Most of the tutorial pages also contain additional material on the construction technology, including videos of tests and additional resource material.

WHE Collaborations

WHE-PAGER: a collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey’s PAGER project, where engineers and housing experts are providing their best estimates/judgments of major construction types and vulnerabilities in their countries.

The Confined Masonry Network: a collaboration focused on promoting confined masonry construction technology worldwide.

The GEM Building Taxonomy project assessing the viability of GEM Building Taxonomy on the global scale