Innovation

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

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

35 | Big Problems, Simple Solutions

How do we design with scarcity? Ashok Gadgil speaks to us about simple, low cost solutions to global public health.

Advocacy

42-43 | A Green Vision for the Future of Cities Part 1 & 2

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Gail Vittori and Pliny Fisk introduce our hosts to their work, thinking at multiple scales about how to live & work ecologically.

Advocacy
Environment

44 | The Blue Economy of the Future

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Jan Jongert of Superuse Studios shares experiences in designing new forms of ecology within the city.

Community Development
Environment

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

52 | A Vision for the Future

How do we democratize design? Dr. Silver of the Centre for Vision in the Developing World shares how his groundbreaking design for self-adjusting glasses can address a serious lack of optometrists in the developing world.

Healthcare

65 | Data, Design and Social Practice

How do we design resistance? Laura Kurgan of the Center for Spatial Research joins us to talk about how data and the design of data systems can be applied to social justice.

Advocacy

90 | Building Coalitions the Right Way

Who Designs the Designers? Jason Schupbach is the director of The Design School at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. There, he’s undertaking an ambitious effort to ‘redesign design school,’ looking for ways to create a design school for the 21st century.

Advocacy
Community Development

91 | Designing with Love

Who Designs the Designers? Swenson is currently undertaking a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she studies the role of love as an animus for design – asking how our cities and neighborhoods might look if we accepted love as the primary motivator of design.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment
Healthcare
Housing

96 | Knowing the Business of Social Design

Who Designs the Designers? Katie Crepeau joins us to talk about the challenges of starting and growing a social design practice.

Advocacy
Community Development

Antonio Scarponi

Are you ready to co-opt mass consumerism? Antonio Scarponi uses elements from architecture, multimedia arts, and design to “jam” the conventional social order.

Environment

Ashok Gadgil

Can low cost, simple designs be implemented at scale? Engineer Ashok Gadgil designs low-cost technologies for the vulnerable. Whether they eliminate arsenic from ground water or make cooking safer for refugees, Gadgil’s solutions are simple and broadly implementable.

Advocacy

Barefoot College

Can the rural poor attain self-sufficiency through design? The Barefoot College is a groundbreaking Indian social organization with an international reach. It supports the rural poor, especially women, in attaining self-sufficiency by tapping their wisdom, skills and resourcefulness.

Community Development

Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems

How is consideration of the full life cycle of products a means to achieve sustainability? The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems designs systems that identify and utilize the full life cycle of products, buildings and regions resulting in smarter and more sustainable practices.

Advocacy
Environment

Center for Spatial Research

Can big data be used in the service of social justice? The Center for Spatial Research links design, architecture, urbanism and humanities with data science. Data is used in the service of justice; creating visualizations to understand cities, conflict and inequality.

Urban Strategies

Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)

2012 Prize Winner

Can design increase civic participation? The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) uses design and art to increase civic engagement. Collaborating with artist /designers, community advocates and policymakers, CUP creates simple, accessible visual explanations for civic issues.

Advocacy
Community Development

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

D-Rev

Can high quality, low cost medical equipment be broadly available to the world’s poorest? D-Rev, a San Francisco based nonprofit product development company designs and distributes radically affordable, world-class medical products to some of the world’s poorest citizens.

Advocacy
Healthcare

Design for Extreme Affordability

Can social change be taught? Design for Extreme Affordability is a graduate course offered by Stanford University where students are asked to design products and services which will change the lives of the world’s poorest citizens.

Advocacy
Healthcare

Foldit

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

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

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

Institute of Play

Can video games form the basis of a school curriculum? Founded by game designers in New York City, Institute of Play pioneers new models of learning and engagement rooted in the principles of game design.

Advocacy

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

Isla Urbana

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

Lacaton & Vassal

Is it better to refurbish and reuse than rebuild? Paris-based Lacaton & Vassal is known for restoring and rehabilitating post-war affordable housing blocks that were threatened with demolition in Paris, Saint-Nazarre and Bordeaux.

Housing

Luyanda Mpahlwa

Can a community be built with sand? Luyanda Mpahlwa is part of a vanguard re-envisioning South Africa’s post-apartheid architectural landscape. Mpahlwa pioneered a new style of architecture, integrating and elevating African-inspired design in rural and urban settings.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Marjetica Potrc

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

Maya Pedal

2010 Prize Winner

Can bicycles power essential tasks and support microbusinesses? In rural Guatemala, energy sources are scarce. Maya Pedal repurposes donated bicycles into pedal-powered machines that can blend food, grind corn and lift water from wells, without requiring electricity.

Community Development

Mohammed Rezwan

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

Open Source Ecology

What are the fifty machines essential to modern life—and can their designs be open-sourced? Open Source Ecology is dedicated to an open-source economy. At their core are plans for fifty fundamental machines; what is required to create a small, modern civilization.

Environment

Proximity Designs

2013 Prize Winner

Can design help raise the income of small hold farmers in Myanmar? Proximity Designs is a sustainable development group that works to improve the lives of the rural poor in Myanmar.

Community Development

Public Architecture

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

Shawn Frayne

Can wind energy be harnessed with a handheld device? Shawn Frayne invented a nonturbine wind-powered generator that [could] help people in poor communities power lamps, keep small vaccine refrigerators cool and charge cell phones for relatively little cost.

Environment

Slow/d

Can the product-to-consumer supply chain be made more equitable? Slow/d is an Italian organization seeking to disrupt traditional supply chains in design by connecting designers, consumers & artisans directly.

Advocacy
Community Development

Superuse Studios

Can a “blue” economy be created where one business' waste is raw materials for another? Rotterdam based Superuse Studios is at the leading edge of ecological thought. Their work pioneers ideas around an economy where the waste of one business becomes raw materials for another.

Environment

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

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