This manual is designed to assist Peace Corps field workers who have little or no construction experience in helping communities or families to construct one-story buildings. Discussed in a chapter on basic planning and design are site and position; size, shape, and floor plan; and construction materials. The next chapter is a detailed examination of the process of planning for construction that includes information dealing with planning foundations, floors, walls, windows, doors, and roofs. Outlined next are procedures for setting or laying out foundations and for constructing foundation floors, floors, walls, windows, doors, and roofs. The remaining three chapters describe techniques for construction with bamboo, erection of lattices, and construction in earthquake areas. Appended to the manual are instructions for verifying the stability of a proposed site, drawing floor plans, and estimating amounts of concrete and building materials as well as reference tables for concrete construction, a chart of metric measurements, sources of further information, and directions for thinking in terms of "human measuring pieces" (human proportions) to design room sizes and floor plans. (MN)