Transforming desolate corners into thriving social spaces, in a neighbourhood that lacks usable common areas, shows the potential of placemaking tools and community-led initiatives in this public housing colony

Many residents of Natwar Parekh Colony came from slums where open, common spaces used for play, leisure and other common activities were available. In contrast, in NPC, such spaces make up less than 18% of the area, and most of what does exist is encroached by water tanks, parking spots or makeshift commercial setups. By focusing only on physical structures and amenities, the residents’ quality of living and their social bonds deteriorate. The lack of common spaces has a profound impact on the community – both social and infrastructural. Through design interventions led by the community, CDA is attempting to demonstrate the potential in such spaces that will help the people recreate their sense of collective ownership.

Working with the youth of NPC, CDA’s team identified desolate spaces that could be activated through art and design-based interventions. What was formerly a dimly lit corner for illicit activities was transformed into a bustling public space with a vibrant mural, plants and benches. The space is kept clean, hasn’t been vandalized, and with the addition of lights has become safe and accessible at night. This has become a prime example of how collective ownership and maintenance of commons can be nurtured through low-cost, people-led placemaking initiatives.

Kitaab Mahal is a children's library at Natwar Parekh Colony, designed and built by Community Design Agency in collaboration with the residents.

During the pandemic, at least a 3,000 children below the age of 14 at Natwar Parekh weren’t able to continue with their education. The lack of space in their 225 square feet homes, and lack of access to smart devices and internet to attend online classes has only widened the existing gap in learning resources between low and high income communities. The library initiative is community owned and led, and will help create a space where children can interact with each other and learn together again.

CDA ran design workshops with a selected group to design the library. The implementation of the library design was carried out with full participation and supervision of the community. Few selected members of the community, including the youth, are being trained as library educators, who are conducting workshops, organising arts and crafts based activities and read-aloud sessions with the children.

Social Entrepreneur Ken Banks developed a method to turn a laptop or desktop computer into an offline hub for two-way text messaging to groups via a software that is installed on a low-cost laptop, and acts as a management service for text messages. This simple innovation empowered villagers, aid agencies, and news services to easily exchange information among groups.

In Africa, less than eighteen percent of the population has internet access, but more than eighty percent have mobile phones. Text messaging is one of the most common means of communication. The ubiquity of mobile technology makes it a critical tool for human welfare. 

In 2005, Social Entrepreneur Ken Banks founded FrontlineSMS, the first platform to leverage the ubiquity of mobile phones and familiarity with text messaging to turn an offline laptop into a communication hub and a way to broadcast to large groups. Free and open-source, the platform does not require internet access. By attaching a mobile phone to the laptop with a cable, the software communicates directly through the mobile network. Even with just one bar of signal, it allows a user to run a communication system. A user can store phone numbers and names, and sort them into groups to create a network and exchange information. 

FrontlineSMS entered the global spotlight in 2007 when Nigerian citizens used the technology to monitor national elections. Volunteers submitted observations via FrontlineSMS from local polling stations, preventing voter fraud and gathering data for the country’s future democratic process.

Today FrontlineSMS is a powerful engine for bottom-up social change, from promoting literacy in Niger, to assisting family farmers in Laos, to training rural medics in Ecuador. It has expanded its reach by developing several sector-specific projects, including FrontlineSMS:Credit, a platform for mobile money management; FrontlineSMS:Legal, which helps legal services providers aid clients and compile records; and FrontlineSMS:Medic, which provides tools for community health coordinators.

We were fortunate to have Ken on our podcast, Social Design Insights, where he guided us through a discussion about social applications of technology. Have a listen at the link below.

Design for the Common Good is a ‘network of networks’ that joins together practitioners and educators from around the globe in a shared belief that we can create better environmental, economic and social outcomes for all through the power of design. Sergio Palleroni and Jane Anderson offer a history of the collective effort to establish a global network of social design teachers and practitioners.

Design for the Common Good was originally formed by a union between the SEED Network, the Designbuild Xchange and the Live Projects Network, bringing their respective members together to stimulate discussion and exchange best practices for educators, researchers and practitioners. The Pacific Rim network will be joining later this year.

The group fills a critical gap by creating a global framework by which practitioners can learn from each other and share strategies. It provides technological and digital resources that professors and practitioners can share with each other. Additionally, the group meets regularly at conferences across the globe to advance the mission of public interest design and support each other’s work.

The founding steering committee is composed of Sergio Palleroni, Bryan Bell, Sue Thering, Eric Field, Simon Colwill, Peter Fattinger, Ursula Hartig, Nina Pawlicki, Jane Anderson.

We were able to speak with four of the group’s founders on Social Design Insights. Sergio Palleroni and Jane Anderson (co-founder of the Live Projects Network), Bryan Bell (co-founder of the SEED network) and Ursula Hartig (co-Founder of the Designbuild exchange) all joined us to talk about how this remarkable effort came together, and the kinds of resources that the group has made available to all those interested in social design. Listen to the episode below.

Lorenzo Romito is a founding member of Stalker, a laboratory of urban art and research, that focuses on the relations between art, architecture, social history, and environmental studies. Over the past two decades Romito’s work has been crucial in terms of investigating the boundaries between our urban environments and citizen’s social engagement. Listen to the episode below.

El Equipo Mazzanti is a Colombian design studio specializing in socially driven architectural design and academic research.

Founded by the internationally distinguished architect Giancarlo Mazzanti, El Equipo Mazzanti operates under the belief that architecture is one of the keys to the construction of a more competitive and sustainable society. The team takes steps to contribute toward social transformation and well-being through contextual research and the involvement of local actors in the design process. The studio’s work is characterized by open, collective, and non-hierarchical working processes which bring together architects, urban planners, sociologists, artists, and other professionals. 

Initially, the studio rose to international prominence as a part of the vanguard behind “Medellin Miracle,” a program and period of extensive urban renewal in Medellin, Colombia between 2002-2007. The program championed a unique approach: put the best buildings in the worst neighborhoods, then tie the city together with culture and infrastructure. The movement transformed the city away from its violent and segmented past into a model for contemporary urban development.

One of Mazzanti’s most famous buildings is the Medellin “Parque Biblioteca Espana.” Situated on a hilltop in what was once the most violent and stigmatized part of the city, the library/park offers a gathering space and community resource and is a symbol of pride for the neighborhood. Open 24 hours, the building includes a theater, library, and learning workshops. This ‘multiplication of use’ principle is found throughout Mazzanti’s portfolio; the more functions one can draw out of a building, the more diverse the building’s appeal. If all different segments of a community or city are using the building, it gives rise to social cohesion and cooperation.

Recent projects include the Torres Atrio Complex Convention Center, which is a point of reference in the city of Bogotá. Another project, the Control and Operations Center building, links a rural community with infrastructure. Located in the area of La Pintada, the building contains a covered plaza where events can take place, providing visibility to the small community. 

Founder Mazzanti now gives seminars and classes at universities across Europe, sharing his vision of architecture as social action. We had an opportunity to speak with Giancarlo Mazzanti about his thoughts on transforming Medellin on our podcast, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

Dr. Wesley Janz is a Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Ball State University, Indiana and the founder of OneSmallProject. Currently, he is working to draw attention to the issues central to the U.S. prison system.

In 2005, Janz founded OneSmallProject, a collection of local initiatives from around the world that highlights the lives of people considered by many to be in need or at-risk. His initial practice and teachings focused primarily on the transformative potential of “leftover spaces:” the informal settlements and refugee camps that house one billion of the world’s poor. Houses made from timber pallets in Chihuahua, Mexico, for example, inspired Janz to use the uncommon material when constructing a garage on his property. The structure may have been the first permanent timber-pallet building to secure a building permit in the US. 

Much of Janz’s work explores the “fourth world,” or “third world conditions in the first world.” His 2013 research project “Deconstructing Flint” sought to create a practical manifesto for tearing down thousands of abandoned houses in the declining Rust Belt city of Flint, Michigan, in ways that reduce landfill waste and salvage as much building material as possible.

In the past decade, Janz has directed his attention toward America’s prison systems, focusing on the issue of mass incarceration in the country. He lives eighty miles from the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, IN, the site of the country’s only federal death row and execution chamber. In the last months of the Trump presidency, thirteen people were put to death at the penitentiary, an event unprecedented in United States history.

 In the summer of 2020, unable to find obituaries for the first five people executed, Janz began work on “critical obituaries” in the hope that the writings would reveal both the broken life trajectories of the people executed and the brokenness of the U.S. legal system that demanded their ultimate sacrifice. Each obituary, ranging from 3500 to 8500 words, situates the worst decisions and deaths of the executed person’s life from their birth, childhood, and youth, to their crimes and (mis)treatment within the criminal justice system. Currently, he is working on the completion of the collection of obituaries and looking for a publisher. 

The Transition Network is an organization whose role is to inspire, encourage, connect, support, and train communities as they create initiatives that rebuild resilience and reduce CO2 emissions.

The Transition Network, founded in 2005 by Rob Hopkins, is a community-led response to climate change. The concept first emerged from an ecological design course taught by Hopkins at a college in Ireland. In practice, transition groups use participatory methods to develop the changes needed, setting up renewable energy projects, re-localizing food systems, and creating community and green spaces. They spark entrepreneurship, working with municipalities, building community connection and care, repairing, and re-skilling. 

Transition groups begin each project by asking what the future would look like if everyone “got it right,” then work backward to figure out how to realize that vision. They work towards a low-carbon, socially just future with resilient communities, more active participation in society, and a more caring culture focused on the support of the other.

The community level of scale championed by the Transition Network has the potential to influence change and is a crucial part of developing and guiding social and economic systems toward sustainability, social justice, and equity. The Transition movement is purposefully open-source and decentralized, with each community taking autonomous action while linked to each other through networks and the online exchange of ideas. 

The first Transition Town was developed in 2006 in Totnes, England, where local residents joined together to grow more local food in community gardens, plan more pedestrian and bike-friendly streets, lower their energy use, and encourage spending in their local community. This first experiment has led to many new businesses, the community becoming its own developer and energy company, and much more. 

Since then, Transition’s approach has spread now to over 48 countries in thousands of communities of towns, villages, cities, universities, and schools. Around the world, there are 23 Transition Hubs that support and connect Transition groups in their country/region and internationally.

Recently, in addition to his work with Transition, Hopkins has focused on writing and podcasting. He published his book, From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want, and runs a podcast series, “From What If to What Next.”

Himanshu Parikh, a UK based Indian engineer, was the first to develop the concept of “slum networking.” He is best known for the redevelopment of Indore, India, where slum networking was first deployed at scale. Today, it has been replicated throughout India.

“Slum networking” stems from the traditional tendency of city infrastructure to coincide with natural features, such as topography and gravity. Prior to modern technology, gravity was the only thing that could bring water in and carry waste away. For example, in old, developed cities like Paris and London, civil systems parallel the natural flow of rivers, estuaries, and topographies. With the advent of modern technology, however, many civil systems in the developing world (often designed by western engineers) ceased to rely on gravity and instead relied on mechanization: pumps, roads, trucks, etc. If these systems work, cities are independent of their natural topography. Unfortunately, in the developing world, the systems often do not work, leaving communities deprived of basic services like water and sewer.

Prior to Parikh’s improvements in Indore, nearly 30 percent of the slum houses were unfit for human habitation. Additionally, the city’s sewer system, installed in 1936, only served five percent of the population and ten percent of the city. All city sewage and solid waste were discharged into the Khan and Saraswati rivers, and most of the slum communities were organized on the banks of these two rivers. Parikh proposed a new infrastructure path for services like sewage, storm drainage, and water supply utilizing the natural river course. The program involved building gravity-based systems of sewage and storm drainage, the planting of gardens, and the surfacing of roads. In addition, 120 community halls were constructed for health, educational, and training activities. In structures such as these community halls, Parikh advocates for “mindful buildings,” based on simplicity, frugality, and multiplicity. The provision of these basic services had a profound effect on the city. Incidences of illness decreased noticeably, and incomes climbed by a third.

Through this work, Parikh has shown a reliable and relatively simple method for improving life in slums. Currently, Parikh spends most of his time in India on developmental work, teaching intermittently. 

We had a chance to speak with Himanshu on our podcast, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

Sergio Fajardo, former Mayor of Medellín, Colombia, and Alejandro Echeverri, former Director of Urban Projects, implemented a bold and ambitious public works program that transformed what was “the world’s deadliest city” into a vibrant, more livable place. Beginning in 2004, Echeverri and Fajardo led teams of local architects, training them to build striking libraries, schools, parks, and science and cultural centers in some of Medellín’s most impoverished neighborhoods. Each project was built in consultation with neighborhood residents, and paired with sweeping social programs, including micro-lending schemes to encourage small businesses.

Their work contributed to a reduction in crime and the emergence of a nascent tourism industry while helping link Medellín’s disenfranchised to the city’s cultural and economic fabric.

A number of these regenerative projects have become landmarks. One of Medellín’s most-visited attractions is the iconic Parque Biblioteca España, perched in the hilltops of Santo Domingo, a barrio once notorious for drug violence. Echeverri and Farjardo also helped extend the city’s modern railway by building a cable car system that connects some of Medellín’s poorest and most isolated neighborhoods to the rest of the city. Today, residents from the sprawling informal settlements on the hillside have more opportunities to take advantage of schools and the growing construction, textile, and tourism economies of the city.

These architectural and urban projects have “changed the skin of the city,” in Farjardo’s words. A guiding principle of these public works projects was “el efecto demostrativo,” or using the “power of example”—in this case, the dramatic symbolism of modern architecture—to instill a sense of pride and possibility in the minds of local residents and beyond.