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LEARN ABOUT THE PEOPLE AND PRACTICES WHO USE DESIGN AS A TOOL FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Design Tools for a growing world Antonio Scarponi Are you ready to co-opt mass consumerism? Dr. Antonio Scarponi is an architect, designer, educator, and the founder of Conceptual Devices, a Zurich-based office with the mission to develop design strategies with social, economic, and poetic impact. Are you ready to co-opt mass consumerism? Children running in front of Klay Poe Klo Primary School. Klay Poe Klo Primary school is the first project designed for Gyaw Gyaw by Jae-Young Lee. The first phase contains of two classrooms and a library. It is a timber building with bamboo walls. The design is based on traditional Karen techniques and materials but strengthened and given a functional and climate adjusted design for better use over time. Photograph by Vincenzo Floramo Gyaw Gyaw Can architecture help stateless people put down roots? Gyaw Gyaw is a community development non-profit that works with the Karen people at the border between Myanmar and Thailand. The organization combines low-cost, sustainable building techniques with community input to ensure designs are appropriate to the customs and culture of each village. Can architecture help stateless people put down roots? Poster for mapping in a public space, Mexico City, 2015 Iconoclasistas Can maps promote equality and strategies of resistance? Iconoclasistas is a Buenos Aires-based design duo led by University of Buenos Aires professor Julia Risler and graphic designer and comic strip author Pablo Ares. The mission is to use cartography (maps) and other graphic art forms to create new visions of historic representation, societal growth, and participation. Can maps promote equality and strategies of resistance? Image Credit: Emilio P. Doiztua Ecosistema Urbano Can urban biodiversity be designed? Ecosistema Urbano is a Madrid-based architecture and design firm founded in 2005 by Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo. Can urban biodiversity be designed? Amacario. Gestural Collective Architecture to inhabit, suspended, uncertain spaces. Image Credit: Stalker Archive Stalker Does design create politics or vice versa? Stalker Lab is an experimental collective of architects and researchers. Founded in Rome by a group of university students, artists, scientists, and planners, all later joined. Now, it operates as a laboratory for urban art and spatial exploration. Their international exhibitions and conferences look at different ways to transform space. Does design create politics or vice versa?
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Prize Winners

Learn about our Prize Winners, Grantees, and Design Circle.

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Podcasts

Social Design Insights podcast. Conversations with the leading voices of the social design movement.

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Videos

Short, inspiring films about social design pioneers around the globe.

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Initiatives

Supporting inspiring work around the world

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CSF’s Mission is to empower the practice of community-driven social design

The Curry Stone Design Foundation supports groups and individuals using design to build healthier, more vital communities. Over time, this support has taken the form of an annual prize, a podcast, grants, and an honorary circle.

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Social Design Insights is a weekly podcast of conversations with leading designers who discuss innovative projects and practices that use design to address pressing social justice issues.

Hosted by Eric Cesal, Produced by Baruch Zeichner.

Listen to the latest episode of Social Design Insights here.

IN MEMORIAM

Jockin Arputham dedicated his life to working with slum dwellers to build representative organizations into powerful partnerships with governments and international agencies for the betterment of urban living.

Mr. Jockin Arputham

We are saddened to learn of the passing of our dear friend, colleague and incredible humanitarian Mr. Jockin Arputham.

Jockin dedicated his life to working with slum dwellers to build representative organizations into powerful partnerships with governments and international agencies for the betterment of urban living. Arputham was the president of the National Slum Dwellers Federation which he founded in the 70s and of Slum Dwellers International which is now a network of slum and shack dweller organizations and federations from over twenty countries across the world.

The National Slum Dwellers Federation works closely with Mahila Milan, a collective of savings groups formed by homeless women and women living in slums across India, and with SPARC, a Mumbai-based NGO that was awarded the Curry Stone Design Prize for their instrumental work in supporting tens of thousands of the urban poor access housing and sanitation throughout India.