Developing housing prototype using recycled waste materials. This paper describes the development of a low cost, energy efficient prototype house designed for informal settlements of Tijuana constructed from a variety of local manufacturing waste materials. The prototype demonstrates construction techniques using waste car tires and gabion rock cages as a retaining wall system, wood pallets as a roof truss system, waste newspaper blended with Portland cement as a “papercrete” wall system, waste rice sacks integrated into a vegetated roof system, windows made of sewer pipes and dinner plates, and a simple radiant floor heating system using agricultural irrigation tubing.