This Initiative reCOVER project focuses on the design, fabrication and testing of a disaster recovery housing prototype. It is part of an established multi-year partnership with multiple nonprofit organizations involved in humanitarian efforts to assist disaster victims. The project contextualizes a set of instructive, full-scale design-build exercises for architecture and engineering students to address functionality and sustainability criteria. Lessons in conventional constructional methods and new digital fabrication technologies and techniques are synthesized to teach students sound foundational principles and skill sets of design.