As part of our ongoing commitment to doing our bit for charity we decided it would be good to send some of our team off to spend a day on a building site.

Nothing unusual there you might say, architects are surely on site all of the time..? Well, in this instance, we put down our pens and picked up some hard hats, safety boots and high visibility jackets and actually mucked in with the builders.

The day was arranged with the Habitat for Humanity, a charity with the aim of eliminating poverty housing worldwide. Check out their website for more details of what the campaign is all about, but did you know…

• There are over 1.1 billion people living in inadequate housing conditions in urban areas (UN Centre for Human Settlements) and that includes the United Kingdom
• In cities of the developing world, one in four households lives in poverty
• Forty percent of African urban households are living below the locally defined poverty line
• An estimated 21 million new housing units are required each year, in developing countries, to accommodate growth in the number of households between 2000 and 2010. 14 million additional units would be required each year for the next 20 years if the current housing deficit is to be replaced by 2020 (UNHCS)
• About 100 million people worldwide are homeless. (UNHCS)

It turns out our team had a really enjoyable, if hard working, day onsite and learned a few things along the way!