The Shelter Cluster assessments, following TC Winston, indicated that much of the housing damage was experienced by low-income households and came from the limited use of appropriate structural design principles. Reasons for this include lack of access to appropriate building technologies, materials and skills, compounded with the complex logistics required to transport materials and tools to affected island communities. Furthermore, the National Building Code (which requires structures to withstand the design wind speeds of a Cat 3 storm) is not enforced in rural and informal communities, nor does it represent affordable or localized construction methods. These factors restricting the disaster responses of the Shelter sector and community resilience, disproportionately affect remote and island communities. To tackle these issues, Habitat for Humanity Fiji began the four-year ‘Stand Strong’ project in 2018 to improve the level of resilience of Fijian communities to disasters through improved shelter conditions. Funded through New Zealand’s Partnership for International Development Fund and supported by Habitat for Humanity New Zealand, the research component of the project aims to outline the current best practice for supporting remote communities in Fiji in reconstruction and construction efforts.