Slum-improvement strategies are a result of conclusions drawn from the most successful projects that have addressed city-center squatter communities. While the factors that need to preside in successfully addressing the needs of the residents of these settlements are complex and necessarily mutable depending on location and overall purpose of the project, it has been recognized by a wide range of organizations that the upgrading, as opposed to physical removal, of slums is a better long-term solution. The creation of mechanisms, financial, political and institutional, that provide a well-conceived 'package' of service infrastructure and the establishment of land tenure are the most important first steps in alleviating the health risks and economic hardships that the residents endure. Later, the sustainability of these improvements should lead to an increased desire to upgrade the physical quality of the dwelling units themselves. This project proposes the identification of locally sustainable methods of construction for dwelling upgrade as a strategy for catalyzing the development of viable income producing activities within and adjacent to the confines of the slum itself. This promotion is in the service of establishing a sustainable process of continual slum-improvement after the work of this project has been completed. The identification of construction methods and the consideration of innovative materials and assembly systems will contribute to a realistic proposal for a set of building components to be used in the upgrade of dwelling units. The location of the project is to be determined.