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What is Social Impact Design?
- Overview
- Most Urgent Questions
About the Foundation
Social Design Insights Podcast

What is Social Impact Design?
- Overview
- Most Urgent Questions
About the Foundation
Social Design Insights Podcast

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Community Engagement

Al Borde

Social Design Circle Honoree

How does constraint lead to creativity? Al Borde is a collaborative studio that engages people on the margins of society. Their work is known for extreme affordability and elegantly illustrates how constraint leads to creativity.

Community Development

Anna Heringer

2009 Prize Winner

Is sustainability about working within scarcity or finding natural abundance? Studio Anna Heringer is a leader in architecture using low-tech, natural materials, often in collaboration with local community craftspeople. The resulting structures are beautiful, resilient and sustainable.

Advocacy
Community Development

Architecture for Humanity

2013 Prize Winner

Vision Award Recipient

What is the role of architects in communities in need? Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, recipients of the first Curry Stone Design Prize Vision Award, have been committed to social impact design since co-founding Architecture for Humanity in 1999.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Arquitectura Expandida

Social Design Circle Honoree

Should designers be outlaws? Arquitectura Expandida is a design collective based in Bogota, Colombia that builds structures of public assembly for communities which cannot afford to go through official channels for design and construction.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Assemble

Social Design Circle Honoree

What is the antidote to luxury apartments no one will live in? Assemble is a UK-based collective which critically examines the relationship between design, public space and public life.

Urban Strategies

Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée

2011 Prize Winner

Can a new urban future grow out of a vacant lot? Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée is a collective of architects that transforms urban spaces. It is recognized as an engine for engaging citizens in shaping their own cities through experimentation and renewal.

Urban Strategies

Bait al Karama

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

City Repair Project

Social Design Circle Honoree

How can public space be reclaimed to forge stronger communities? The City Repair Project addresses America’s lack of outdoor community hubs by supporting neighborhoods in creatively re-purposing public areas such as road intersections into gathering spaces.

Community Development
Environment

Coloco

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Coloco believes landscape is an opportunity for collective thought and action. Coloco seeks to create places that can bring communities together and create new ideas among diverse populations.

Community Development
Environment
Urban Strategies

Communitere

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Ctrl+Z

Social Design Circle Honoree

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.

Environment

Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency

Social Design Circle Honoree

How can design address colonization and displacement? Palestine based Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency (DAAR) is an architectural studio and residency program that combines spatial interventions, theoretical writings and collective learning to address colonization, conflict and displacement.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Detroit Collaborative Design Center

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can Design Challenge Inequality? The Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) is a multi-disciplinary non-profit architecture and urban design firm. Its mission is to help revive the urban landscape of Detroit through innovative design and collaborative community practices.

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

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Elemental

2010 Prize Winner

Can public housing be designed to encourage resident ownership? Elemental is a Chilean architectural firm that rose to prominence by building low income urban dwellers “half a good house,” that residents could complete on their own.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Episode 12 | Why All Architecture is Social

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can design challenge inequality? Giancarlo Mazzanti shares his thoughts on transforming Medellin and how great architecture can bring neighborhoods together.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Episode 13 | How to Design a School for $200

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Community Development

Episode 17 | Mitigating Climate-Based Disaster Before it Strikes

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can design prevent disaster? Mohammed Rezwan of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha details his designs for floating communities.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

Episode 19 | The Trajectory of Social Design, Pt. I

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Community Development
Environment
Housing

Episode 20 | The Trajectory of Social Design, Pt. II

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can we design community engagement? Sergio Palleroni outlines the lessons of his practice at a project scale.

Community Development
Environment
Housing

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

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Episode 24 | Tools for Urban Action, Pt. I

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can design reclaim public space? Ecosistema Urbano & Interboro share their stories about how they shaped a practice around public space.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Episode 25 | Tools for Urban Action, Pt. II

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can design reclaim public space? Interboro and Ecosistema Urbano get tactical and walk our hosts through the nuts and bolts of how they do their work.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Episode 26 | Making Public Space Productive

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Episode 27 | How All Space Becomes Public Space, Pt. I

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Urban Strategies

Episode 28 | How All Space Becomes Public Space, Pt. II

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can design reclaim public space? EXYZT and Basurama tell us strategies for how to take over public space.

Urban Strategies

Episode 3 | The Street As a Revolution

Social Design Circle Honoree

Should designers be outlaws? Mark Lakeman of the City Repair Project discusses motives and methods for igniting neighborhood change, street by street.

Community Development
Environment

Episode 38 | The Architecture of Stateless Nations, Pt. I

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Episode 39 | The Architecture of Stateless Nations, Pt. II

Social Design Circle Honoree

What can design do to promote peace? Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal discuss the details of how they work between the temporary and the permanent.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

Episode 4 | Engaging Community, Engaging Practice

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Episode 46 | Gardening as Urban Action

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Episode 47 | Using Design to Bring Down Crime

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Episode 48 | Nurturing Collective Imagination in Rome

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Episode 51 | Collective Mapping as a Tool for Social Change

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Episode 55 | Designing for the Future, Pt. 1

Social Design Circle Honoree

How do we democratize design? Diébédo Francis Kéré discusses the origins of his practice, and how good design builds community.

Community Development
Environment

Episode 56 | Designing for the Future, Pt. 2

Social Design Circle Honoree

How do we democratize design? Diébédo Francis Kéré discusses offers lessons for young designers about how to design the future.

Community Development
Environment

EXYZT

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can rejuvenation through art transform a forgotten town? Farm Cultural Park is an organically conceived art-driven revitalization of the formerly abandoned center of Favara, Sicily. Visitors explore galleries, shops and cafes. Building exteriors are canvases for artists.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Foldit

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can an online puzzle game crowdsource solutions to preventing and curing disease? Foldit is an online game where players contribute to scientific research via an addictive puzzle game. Crowdsourcing is Foldit’s success: the creative problem-solving of thousands of people refines complex computations.

Advocacy
Healthcare

Francis Kéré

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can an architect truly straddle both first world success and community development in the developing world? Diébédo Francis Kéré is a Burkinabe architect based in Berlin, Germany, whose work straddles community development in the developing world and award-winning architecture in the first world.

Community Development
Environment

Goonj

Social Design Circle Honoree

How can donated clothing be translated into community renewal? Goonj is a non-governmental organization based in Delhi. It barters clothing and other donated items to pay laborers from the community to carry out development projects in poorer areas.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

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

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can maps promote equality and strategies of resistance? Iconoclasistas is a Buenos Aires-based design duo. Their mission is to use cartography (maps) and other graphic arts to create new visions of historic representation, societal growth and participation.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Inteligencias Colectivas

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Interboro

Social Design Circle Honoree

How can designers create a more inclusive space? Interboro is an architecture, urban design, and planning firm based in Brooklyn, New York. Interboro works across scales and take a participatory, place-specific approach that builds consensus around complex projects.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Interbreeding Field

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can Design Reclaim Public Space? Interbreeding Field is a Taiwanese educational program that creates installations in and about public space. Interbreeding Field’s work makes provocative commentary on how a space should or could be used.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Ishinomaki 2.0

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Isla Urbana

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can DIY harvesting of rainwater solve a water crisis? Isla Urbana has engaged the ongoing water crisis in Mexico City by developing rainwater harvesting kits that are affordable and easy to install.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Jeanne van Heeswijk

2012 Prize Winner

Can art mend neighborhoods? Artist Jeanne van Heeswijk’s work centers on the relationship between public space and urban renewal. She embeds herself in communities, working with them to improve neighborhoods and design their futures.

Advocacy
Urban Strategies

Kounkuey Design Initiative

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Marjetica Potrc

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

MASS Design Group

2012 Prize Winner

Why invest in architecture in resource-limited settings? MASS Designs has worked in over a dozen countries, bringing the value—and power, of architecture to resource-limited communities.

Conflict and Disaster
Healthcare

Mohammed Rezwan

Social Design Circle Honoree

How can design help flood prone communities to function when facilities and resources are under water? Mohammaed Rezwan and his organization Shindulai Swanivar Sangsthata operates a fleet of floating schools, libraries and health clinics that help people overcome the challenges of living in flood-prone northwest Bangladesh.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can a former salami factory be a home, gallery, film set and a commentary on eviction? Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz is simultaneously a gallery, film project, home for 200 displaced people and a profound social and political commentary on a common problem: eviction.

Advocacy
Community Development

Orkidstudio

Social Design Circle Honoree

How do we design with scarcity? Orkidstudio is a nonprofit active throughout Africa. They advocate design/build as economic development: The choices of what and how you build dramatically effect jobs, local earnings, and micro-economies.

Advocacy
Environment

PICO Colectivo

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Social Design Circle Honoree

Why should citizens and activists reclaim public space? Prinzessinnengärten is a community garden initiative that is leading conversations about public space. Its belief is that as cities grow, they must develop sustainable ways of eating, living and moving.

Community Development
Environment

Project Row Houses

Social Design Circle Honoree

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 Architecture

Social Design Circle Honoree

How can standard design firms be supported in pro-bono work? San Francisco based Public Architecture formalizes pro bono service within architecture, interiors and landscape design. Their flagship program, 1+, supports firms in donating 1% of their time to pro-bono work.

Community Development

Public Works

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Raumlabor Berlin

Social Design Circle Honoree

If utopia eluded us, what’s next? Raumlabor Berlin practices “research-based design.” Their practice intersects city planning, architecture, art and urban intervention. Central to their work are projects that disrupt a community’s notions about space.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Repair Café

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can anyone repair everyday objects? The Repair Café is both an organization and a global network of cafés that emphasize the repair of everyday objects in order to promote a culture of sustainability and reuse.

Community Development

RIWAQ

2012 Prize Winner

Can restoration work in Palestine reinforce cultural identity? RIWAQ Centre for Architectural Conservation documents Palestinian heritage through restoration of the built environment. For Riwaq, conservation and historic restoration are tools for advancement; creating spaces where contemporary communities thrive.

Advocacy
Conflict and Disaster

RootStudio

Social Design Circle Honoree

How do we design with scarcity? Oaxaca City Mexico based Root Studio is a multidisciplinary design studio that uses locally sourced materials and techniques to create structures and housing for communities in need.

Community Development
Housing

Rural Studio

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can we design community engagement? The Rural Studio is a groundbreaking off-campus designbuild program of Auburn University. Founded in 1993 by D.K. Ruth and Samuel Mockbee, the program established a new breed of community-based design education.

Community Development
Housing

Rural Urban Framework (RUF)

2015 Prize Winner

Can design address China’s rural to urban migration? Imbalances caused by rural to urban migrations is an urgent geopolitical issue. In China, the issue is accelerating. Rural Urban Framework (RUF) works to stabilize and rebuild depopulated Chinese villages.

Community Development
Housing

Semillas para el Desarrollo Sostenible

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can schools address development challenges? Semillas para el Desarrollo Sostenible “Seeds for Sustainable Development” is a Peruvian nonprofit confronting development challenges, especially a lack of schools, in the Peruvian Amazon.

Advocacy
Community Development

Sergio Palleroni

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Stalker

Social Design Circle Honoree

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
Environment
Urban Strategies

studioBASAR

Social Design Circle Honoree

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

Studios Kabako

2014 Prize Winner

Can art transform a nation torn apart by conflict and strife? Studios Kabako addresses post-war social memory, fear, and hope. It creates a network for artistic expression at home in the Congolese city of Kisangani and through international commissions.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

TAMassociati/Emergency

2013 Prize Winner

How can architecture bring dignity in war-torn regions? Studio TAMassociati is a nonprofit architecture firm recognized for designing healthcare facilities in war-torn areas [...] in partnership with Emergency, an Italian NGO, that provides medical treatment to war victims.

Community Development
Environment

Theaster Gates

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can we design community engagement? Theaster Gates is an artist, curator, urbanist and facilitator. His projects catalyze social engagement and political change. Gates’ studio practice works in tandem with urban interventions integrating art and community regeneration.

Advocacy
Community Development

thinkpublic

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can better human services be co-designed? London-based Thinkpublic is a social design agency helping improve services of public sector and nonprofit organizations. Thinkpublic’s collborative “co-design” approach identifies and addresses problems which may not have been apparent.

Advocacy
Community Development

Transition Network

2009 Prize Winner

Can your neighborhood become a self-sufficient community? The Transition Network is a global network of communities responding to global warming and declining oil with local self-sufficiency in food, energy and more.

Community Development
Environment

Urbz

Social Design Circle Honoree

How can slum dwellers be protected against profit-minded developers? Mumbai based Urbz confronts a daunting problem: a slum’s real estate value. It fights against city planners and developers who execute a common form of slum rehabilitation-- level & relocate.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can urban upgrading reduce crime? In Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township, Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) uses urban planning to fight crime, developing interventions in high-crime spots. They create decent, livable communities through local planning.

Community Development
Housing

YA + K

Social Design Circle Honoree

Can design free the public from hierarchical constraints in society? YA + K is a French collective that seeks new ways of understanding and defining public space. Their projects focus on low-tech innovation and the creation of new economies.

Community Development
Environment

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The Curry Stone Foundation (CSF) is the brainchild of architect, urban planner and developer Clifford Curry, FAIA, and the historical archeologist Dr. Delight Stone, RPA. It was inspired by a shared conviction that design thinking and design actions can—and should, serve those wishing to contribute to community vitality and human dignity. Most of all, we believe that design should be available to those most in need.

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