Civic Empowerment

Should designers be outlaws? Arquitectura Expandida discusses its approach to working in informal communities alongside (and sometimes around) government.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

05 | Flirting with Illegality

Should designers be outlaws? Santiago Cirugeda - Spain’s 'Guerrilla Architect’ - explains how he challenges urban authority and makes neighborhoods work for everyone.

Advocacy
Community Development

08 | Growth, Equity & Asian Cities

Is the right to housing real? The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights is a large broad-based coalition of like-minded groups fighting for housing advocacy throughout Asia; they share with us their strategies.

Advocacy
Housing

13 | How to Design a School for $200

Can design challenge inequality? David Barragán of Al Borde discusses how design can empower a community to become their own designers & builders.

Community Development

16 | Design, Development and Disaster Mitigation in Pakistan

Can design prevent disaster? Yasmeen Lari details the growth of resilient architecture and sustainable development in Pakistan.

Conflict and Disaster

19-20 | The Trajectory of Social Design, Part 1 & 2

Can we design community engagement? Sergio Palleroni discusses his thirty year career in Social Impact Design

Community Development
Environment
Housing

21-22 | Building Community a Block at a Time, Part 1 & 2

Can we design community engagement? Brent Brown of bcWORKSHOP tells us how they serve marginalized communities in the Rio Grande Valley.

Community Development
Housing

23 | How do we make life into art, and vice versa?

Can we design community engagement? Project Row Houses is a neighborhood based nonprofit art and cultural organization working on grassroots development in Houston’s 3rd ward.

Advocacy
Community Development

26 | Making Public Space Productive

Can design reclaim public space? Chelina Odbert and Jennifer Toy of the Kounkuey Design Initiative share their thoughts on how to engage community.

Community Development
Environment

27-28 | How All Space Becomes Public Space, Part 1 & 2

Can design reclaim public space? EXYZT and Basurama detail new ways to think about public space.

Urban Strategies

31 | Clothing, Currency and Community

Can we design a slum-friendly city? Anshu Gupta of Goonj discusses his unique methodology for community development: clothes as currency.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

38-39 | The Architecture of Stateless Nations, Part 1 & 2

What can design do to promote peace? Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal introduce their work on statelessness and human rights.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

40 | Activating Community Voices

What can design do to promote peace? Isella Ramirez of Hester Street discusses their strategies for making communities be heard.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

45 | Finding Nature Beneath our Feet

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Nance Klehm shares her experiences as a ‘radical ecologist’ and her strategies for helping cities connect with nature.

Environment

46 | Gardening as Urban Action

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Marco Clausen of Prinzessinnengärten discusses how they came to pioneer a form of mobile gardening, and the positive impacts it has had on their city.

Community Development
Environment

47 | Using Design to Bring Down Crime

Does design create politics or vice versa? Kathryn Ewing and Don Shay of VPUU outline how community-based planning can make real results in crime prevention.

Community Development
Housing

48 | Nurturing Collective Imagination in Rome

Does design create politics or vice versa? Lorenzo Romito of Stalker discusses the ‘territory’ of architecture and how it can be expanded.

Advocacy
Environment
Urban Strategies

49 | Designing the Politics of the City

Does design create politics or vice versa? Vera and Ruedi Baur of Civic City discuss how graphic design can be a tool of political change.

Advocacy

51 | Collective Mapping as a Tool for Social Change

Does design create politics or vice versa? Iconoclasistas discusses the practice of collective mapping and how it can be mobilized to achieve social justice.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

53 | Designing After Revolution

How do we democratize design? Omar Nagati and Beth Stryker share their thoughts on CLUSTER Cairo, and the design of urban activism.

Urban Strategies

54 | Designing a Post-Industrial Future

How do we democratize design? John Fetterman of Braddock, PA, shares his thoughts on how to imagine a new future in a post-industrial landscape.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

62 | Finding Empathy, Making Art

How do we design resistance? Suzanne Lacy talks to us about the role of art in the pursuit of social justice, and how to navigate the lines between art, activism, design and space.

Advocacy

79-80 | Inciting Radical Communities, Part 1 & 2

How can cities be reimagined by their citizens? Two central figures in public art and community building unveil how they help communities take control of their own futures.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

83 | Human-powered Resilience in Action

Is Resilience Still Relevant? Architect Hsieh Ying-Chun joins host Eric Cesal to talk about how people can power rebuilding after disaster.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Housing
Resilience
Urban Strategies

84-85 | Architecture, Wake Up, It’s a New Day, Part 1 & 2

Is Resilience Still Relevant? Mario and Nuno do Rosario discuss the history of design in Mozambique from Independence to the present-day.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Resilience
Urban Strategies

Adbusters

Does Design Create Politics or Vice Versa? Adbusters Media Foundation has launched numerous international campaigns, including Buy Nothing Day, TV Turnoff Week, and Occupy Wall Street, and is known for their "subvertisements" that spoof popular advertisements. Additionally, it publishes the reader-supported, advertising-free Adbusters, an activist magazine devoted to challenging consumerism.

Advocacy

Al Borde

How does constraint lead to creativity? Al Borde is a collaborative and experimental architecture studio that uses participatory processes and research to work within extreme constraints.

Community Development

Alliance of Community Trainers

Can design increase civic engagement? The Alliance of Community Trainers works with communities to create a shared vision and to empower communities with tools for problem solving, conflict resolution, alternative technology, environmental sustainability and more.

Advocacy
Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Environment
Resilience
Urban Strategies

Anna Heringer

2009 Prize Winner

Is sustainability about working within scarcity or finding natural abundance? Anna Heringer is an award-winning leader in architecture who utilizes the skills of the communities she works in as well as low-tech, sustainable materials like mud and bamboo.

Advocacy
Community Development

Arquitectura Expandida

Should designers be outlaws? Founded in 2010, Arquitectura Expandida (AXP) is a design collective based in Bogota, Colombia focused on building structures for and with communities that cannot afford to go through official channels for design and construction.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Arquitecturas Colectivas

How can global practices and individuals share ways to effect change within the built environment? Arquitecturas Colectivas is a massive, open-source network interested in the participatory construction of the built environment. The common thread is a willingness to manipulate the fabric of the built environment.

Advocacy
Community Development

Asian Coalition for Housing Rights

Is the Right to Housing Real? The Asian Coalition is a broad coalition of grassroots organizations, NGOs, architects and engineers currently working in 215 cities across Asia.

Advocacy
Housing

Asiye eTafuleni

Can design reclaim public space? Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) is a South African non-profit focused on promoting inclusive urban planning and design to support the livelihoods of informal workers operating in public spaces not officially allotted to them.

Community Development

Auroville Earth Institute

Can traditional building techniques serve modern needs? Auroville Earth Institute (AVEI) is a pioneering organization that has led in research and implementation of earth-based & sustainable building.

Community Development
Environment

Bait al Karama

How can a women-led culinary school promote peace and understanding? Bait al Karama, Palestinian Nablus’ first women’s center, combines a culinary social enterprise with cultural activities. Translated as “House of Dignity,” it is located in an area devastated by conflict.

Advocacy
Community Development

bcWORKSHOP

Can architects build community as well as buildings? bcWORKSHOP works in neighborhoods lacking access to designers. Its programs are committed to building community and begin by acknowledging that social structure is the best guide to designing physical structures.

Community Development
Housing

Blue Star Integrative Studio

How can design support community development? Blue Star Integrative Studio (BSIS) is a Tribally Owned, Indigenous American professional services firm in Tulsa, Oklahoma offering feasibility studies, planning, and design services. It illuminates opportunities through collaboration to support the sustainability of people, places, and the planet.

Advocacy
Environment
Housing

BuildX Studio (formerly Orkidstudio)

How do we design with scarcity? BuildX Studio (formerly Orkidstudio) is a Nairobi-based architectural, engineering, and construction company creating real estate projects for positive social and environmental impact.

Advocacy
Environment

Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)

Can design increase civic participation? The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) collaborates with designers, educators, advocates, students, and communities to make educational tools that demystify complex policy and planning issues.

Advocacy
Community Development

City Repair Project

How can public space be reclaimed to forge stronger communities? Portland, Oregon-based City Repair Project (CRP) seeks to address America’s lack of community gathering spaces by empowering neighborhoods to reclaim public spaces and creatively repurpose them to bring people together.

Community Development
Environment

Civic City

Can graphic arts be an agent of political change? The team of Vera & Ruedi Baur / Civic City are widely credited with launching a wave of political activism within the fields of graphic design and its allied professions.

Advocacy

CLUSTER Cairo

How do we democratize design? Founded in Egypt in response to the Arab Spring, Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research (CLUSTER) is an interdisciplinary platform for urban design and research working to establish a critical space for urban discourse by engaging questions of public space and specifically, urban informality.

Urban Strategies

Communitere

Should disaster victims be empowered to create their own recovery? Communitere is an international disaster nonprofit operating that creates dynamic, collaborative hubs in communities affected by disaster, empowering residents to take an active role in their own recovery.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Conflictorium

Can a museum help people face and resolve conflict? The Conflictorium is a participatory museum that addresses the theme of conflict. It uses art and interactive exhibits to neutrally address how conflicts begin and how they can be resolved.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Ctrl+Z

Is architecture more about community participation than materials? Ctrl+Z Architecture practices collaborative, participatory, self-construction initiatives throughout the world. It believes that at its heart, architecture is more about interaction with communities than specific materials or approaches.

Community Development
Environment
Urban Strategies

Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency

How can design address colonization and displacement? Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency (DAAR) is an architectural studio, collective of architects, and a residency program based in Beit Sahour, Palestine.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Detroit Collaborative Design Center

Can Design Challenge Inequality? The Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), formerly the School of Architecture + Community Design, is a multidisciplinary nonprofit design center bringing high-quality, community-based design to all neighborhoods in Detroit.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Echeverri & Fajardo

2009 Prize Winner

Can improving the built environment in impoverished neighborhoods transform a city? Fajardo and Echeverri implemented a bold program in Medellín. By training architects to build parks and public buildings in impoverished neighborhoods, Medellin was transformed from “world’s deadliest city” into a vibrant, livable place.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

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.

Urban Strategies

El Equipo Mazzanti

Why is all architecture social? El Equipo Mazzanti is a Colombian design studio specializing in socially driven architectural design and academic research.

Advocacy
Community Development

EXYZT

Can Design Reclaim Public Space? EXYZT was a European multidisciplinary design collective that broke extraordinary ground in challenging traditional notions of how public space can be organized.

Urban Strategies

Fallen Fruit

What if our cities become places that grow natural resources for anyone to share? The art collective Fallen Fruit plants fruit trees in public spaces for everyone to share. They invite citizens to re-imagine public participation, urban space and the meaning of community.

Community Development
Environment

Farm Cultural Park

Can rejuvenation through art transform a forgotten town? Farm Cultural Park (FCP) is an art gallery and exhibition space, located in Favara, Sicily. The aim of the project is to give the city, previously known mostly for its general decrepitude and for having one of Italy's highest unemployment rates, a new life through art.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

FrontlineSMS

2011 Prize Winner

Can SMS technology be harnessed as a powerful information dissemination tool? Frontline SMS is software that acts as an information dissemination service for text messages. It uses cell service, not internet access, to create communication networks and exchange information.

Advocacy
Community Development

Goonj

How can donated clothing be translated into community renewal? Goonj is a non-governmental organization based in Delhi since 1998 which undertakes poverty alleviation work, using the city's discard as material to fuel widespread development work across village India.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

Can post disaster housing be sustainable and respectful of local vernacular? The Heritage Foundation of Pakistan is one of the world’s most successful providers of sustainable, resilient disaster relief structures. They are also involved in historic conservation projects in Pakistani villages.

Conflict and Disaster

Hester Street Collaborative

How can neighborhoods be shaped by the people who live in them? Hester Street works to ensure neighborhoods are shaped by the people who live in them. They offer planning, design and community development assistance to community-based organizations, government and other agencies.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Hsieh Ying-Chun

2011 Prize Winner

How can a community contribute to a post-disaster rebuilding process? Hsieh Ying-Chun is a Taiwanese architect who works throughout Asia training villagers to build locally-appropriate dwellings in response to earthquake devastation.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Environment

Hunnarshala

2013 Prize Winner

How can artisans build a resilient community? Hunnarshala works with artisans to combine traditional building techniques with innovation. They are also engaged in training and empowering artisan entrepreneurs, bringing them into the mainstream of construction.

Conflict and Disaster
Environment
Housing

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.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Inteligencias Colectivas

What happens when traditional and modern design techniques are blended? Inteligencias Colectivas focuses on the ‘fringe’ of construction practice. Between highly mechanized construction and ancient methods are blended practices with their own wisdom. Inteligencias Colectivas¬ collects, collates and shares these.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Ishinomaki 2.0

How can a disaster be a catalyst for new visions? After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami destroyed their home, the founders of Ishinomaki 2.0 came together with the goal of rebuilding humble Ishinomaki into the ‘most interesting city in the world’.

Advocacy
Urban Strategies

Jeanne van Heeswijk

Can art mend neighborhoods? Jeanne van Heeswijk is an artist who facilitates the creation of dynamic and diversified public spaces. Her long-scale community projects question art’s autonomy by combining performative actions, discussions, and other forms of organizing and pedagogy to assist communities to take control of their futures.

Advocacy
Urban Strategies

John Fetterman

How can a town decimated by globalization be revitalized? John Fetterman is an American politician who, as Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, led the urban rejuvenation of a post-industrial city.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Kounkuey Design Initiative

How can conversation with residents and deep engagement lead to community empowerment? The non-profit Kounkuey Design Initiative is based in Los Angeles, CA and Nairobi, Kenya. Using extensive community engagement, it reveals systemic needs and enlists the community in constructing solutions.

Community Development
Environment

Kraftwerk1

Can high quality, affordable housing be created in fringe areas of a city? With diverse and flexible housing types, participatory planning processes, and energy-efficient designs, Kraftwerk1 has proven that it’s possible to create high-quality affordable housing schemes in fringe areas of a city.

Community Development
Housing

Liter of Light

Can a plastic bottle bring light where electricity is scarce? Philippines based Liter of light is a global, open-source, grassroots movement committed to providing affordable, sustainable light to people with limited or no access to electricity.

Community Development

Marjetica Potrč

2008 Prize Winner

Can participatory design inspire sustainable prosperity? Marjetica Potrč is an artist and architect who works on community-based projects characterized by participatory design and a concern for sustainability.

Community Development
Environment

Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz

Can a former salami factory be a home, gallery, film set and a commentary on eviction? Simultaneously a gallery, film project, home for two hundred displaced people (including fifty children) and a profound social and political commentary on an all too common problem: eviction, the Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz (MAAM), “Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere” is a space unlike any other.

Advocacy
Community Development

MVD

How do we democratize design? MVD is an Austrian collective that works to bring a political view to how public space is utilized.

Housing
Urban Strategies

Nance Klehm

Can a city work as an ecosystem? “Radical ecologist” Nance Klehm fosters awareness of how plants and animals coexist. She is an ecological systems designer, landscaper, horticultural consultant and permacultural grower focused on soil, ecology and community.

Environment

Open Architecture Collaborative

Can design increase civic engagement? The Open Architecture Collaborative (OAC), formerly known as the Architecture for Humanity Network, is a global community mobilizing architects, designers, and a diverse range of professionals who shape the built environment with the skills to work with communities experiencing systemic racism and marginalization.

Advocacy
Community Development

PICO Colectivo

Is design about the process or the result? PICO focuses on interventions in gathering spaces. They believe that architecture is not an end it in itself. The process of understanding the interaction of life and space is vital.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Plan Selva

How can design address the problem of education for internally neglected communities? Plan Selva is the Peruvian Education Ministry’s plan to bring quality education to remote regions. The result self-empowers indigenous people to cultivate their knowledge and live productively in the Amazon.

Community Development
Environment

Prinzessinnengärten

Why should citizens and activists reclaim public space? Prinzessinnengärten is a bottom-up community garden in Berlin notable for both its scale and its ingenuity in starting a public conversation about the democratic use of public space.

Community Development
Environment

Project Row Houses

Can artists create solutions instead of just social commentary? Located in Houston’s Northern Third Ward, Project Row Houses believes artists can catalyze social change and that art community are integrally linked– neither is viable without the other.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Public Works

How can neighborhood residents reassert control over their own futures? Public Works is a London-based critical design nonprofit straddling architecture, art, performance and activism. It addresses the challenges of urbanism, seeking ways that communities can reassert control over their futures.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Recetas Urbanas

How can citizens take planning into their own hands? Santiago Cirugeda is the founder and principal of Recetas Urbanas (Urban Recipes), a design & advocacy collective of architects, lawyers and social workers based in Seville, Spain.

Advocacy
Community Development

Refugee Academy

Can refugees be a national asset? Berlin’s The Refugee Academy responds to the influx of refugees into Germany. Their work is about designing new ways to think about migration.

Advocacy
Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

RIWAQ

Can restoration work in Palestine reinforce cultural identity? Founded in 1991 by Dr. Suad Amiry and a group of fellow architects and intellectuals, RIWAQ is a Ramallah-based non-profit organization that protects and develops architectural heritage in Palestine.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Sergio Palleroni

Can social impact design be taught? Sergio Palleroni is a leader, practitioner and educator in social impact design. In 1995, Palleroni founded the BASIC Initiative, a program that moved students from the design studio into communities.

Community Development
Environment

SPARC

2016 Prize Winner

Vision Award Recipient

What can slum dwellers teach design professionals? SPARC organizes, legitimizes and advocates for India’s urban poor, seeking improved living conditions and advancements in rights. SPARC believes that with structural support, the urban poor can make their destinies.

Advocacy
Community Development

Stalker

Does design create politics or vice versa? Stalker is a collective of artists, architects, activists and others whose work focuses on the margins of the city.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment
Urban Strategies

STEALTH.unlimited

What are the limits of architectural practice? STEALTH.unlimited challenges notions about architectural practice by connecting arts, urban research, cultural activism and interventions. They have a particular focus on ‘common’ spaces shared by both the private and the public.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

studioBASAR

Can design reconcile the legacy of brutal authoritarianism and the new forces of the market? studioBASAR is an architectural office and a “Search and Rescue” team conducting urban observation and intervention. It searches for overlooked urban conditions. Then the ‘rescue’ encompasses architectural interventions.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Suzanne Lacy

What is the role of art in engaging the public in social justice issues? American artist and activist Suzanne Lacy tackles gender violence, segregation and other social justice issues. Her work evokes discussion and debate and often engages audiences directly, outside of institutional structures.

Advocacy

The Association La Voûte Nubienne

Prize Winner

Can resurrecting building techniques from antiquity solve a West African housing crisis? West Africans face unique challenges in sourcing materials for sustainable, cost-efficient housing. In response, The Association la Voûte Nubienne (“AVN”) is bringing back an ages old technique: mud brick.

Housing

Theaster Gates

Can we design community engagement? Based in the South Side of Chicago, Theaster Gates is an artist, professor, social innovator, and founder of Rebuild Foundation, which reimagines the potential of vacancy and abandonment through the power of arts, culture, and creative empowerment by building a constellation of spaces that unearth the value and beauty in Black space.

Advocacy
Community Development

Transition Network

2009 Prize Winner

Can your neighborhood become a self-sufficient community? 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.

Community Development
Environment

Turquoise Mountain

Can revitalizing traditional crafts bring economic stability to areas of conflict? Turquoise Mountain is a nonprofit focused on regenerating urban areas and furthering the renaissance of the traditional craft industry in the Middle East.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Urbz

How can slum dwellers be protected against profit-minded developers? Urbz is an experimental action and research collective specialized in participatory planning and design. They work with citizens, associations, local governments, and private clients in Mumbai, Bogotá, and Geneva.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading