Low-cost, self-built housing continues to be a resource solution for the poor in many parts of the world. This type of building does not guarantee adequate indoor comfort conditions and is particularly vulnerable to climate change and consequent heat waves. The test laboratory for low-cost housing thermal insulation systems consists of a set of outdoor test chambers located on the solar campus. These primitive chambers can be configured with various roofing and interior thermal insulation solutions. Currently this facility is being used to test insulation solutions based on recycled materials with great installation simplicity.

Recently, this test laboratory has evolved to a more sophisticated experimental setup with two test chambers. One of the test chambers was kept unaltered, while the other was used to test different solutions to improve the indoor conditions, namely two low-cost DIY strategies for roof insulation and two easy to implement natural ventilation devices. This test cell combination allows for a direct comparison of the thermal performance of both test cells.