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  • What is Social Impact Design?
    • Overview
    • Most Urgent Questions
  • About the Foundation
    • Overview
    • Initiatives
      • Community Design Agency
    • People
    • Awards
      • Overview
      • Grantees
      • Curry Stone Design Prize Winners
      • Social Design Circle Honorees
    • News
    • Connect with Us
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  • Advocacy

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  • Environment

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Innovation

09 | Add, Transform, and Reuse!

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Is the right to housing real? Lacaton & Vassal Deconstructs Their Widely Acclaimed methods for the Readaptation of Modernist housing blocks in France.
  • Housing

115 | Designing for Women & Girls

Podcast
Engaging + Reframing the 'Refugee' Crisis Anna Meddaugh is an American designer who developed a personal, reusable urinal designed for women and girls in refugee camps to use at night when it is too dangerous to go to the communal toilets. She named her design “The Night Loo.”
  • Conflict and Disaster

17 | Mitigating Climate-Based Disaster Before it Strikes

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Podcast
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

Podcast
Who Designs the Designers? Building upon an expansive career aiding in the education and support of designers, Jason Schupbach is the Dean of the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

91 | Designing with Love

Podcast
Who Designs the Designers? Katie Swenson is a nationally recognized design leader, researcher, writer, and educator. Her work explores how critical design practice can and should promote economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Environment
  • Healthcare
  • Housing

96 | Knowing the Business of Social Design

Podcast
Who Designs the Designers? Katie Crepeau is a consultant whose work helps social impact designers grow their organizations.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

Antonio Scarponi

2008 Prize Winner
Video
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.
  • Environment

Ashok Gadgil

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can low cost, simple designs be implemented at scale? For over twenty years, US engineer Dr. Ashok Gadgil’s work has focused on designing low-cost technologies that help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.
  • Advocacy

Barefoot College

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can the rural poor attain self-sufficiency through design? Barefoot College is an Indian organization that encourages the rural poor to attain self-sufficiency by providing training in education, technology, and work skills.
  • Community Development

Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
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

Social Design Circle Honoree
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
Video
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

Civic City

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
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

Design for Extreme Affordability

Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Equalize Health (Formerly D-Rev)

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can high quality, low cost medical equipment be broadly available to the world’s poorest? Equalize Health (formerly D-Rev) is a not-for-profit medical technology company working to prevent people lacking access to treatment from suffering treatable conditions.
  • Advocacy
  • Healthcare

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

FrontlineSMS

2011 Prize Winner
Video
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
Video
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

Social Design Circle Honoree
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

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

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 is a project dedicated to contributing to water sustainability in Mexico through rainwater harvesting.
  • Community Development
  • Urban Strategies

Lacaton & Vassal

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Is it better to refurbish and reuse than rebuild? Run by the duo it is named for, Lacaton & Vassal is an award-winning architecture firm using innovative design to promote social justice, sustainability, and the repurposing of materials.
  • Housing

Luyanda Mpahlwa

2008 Prize Winner
Video
Can a community be built with sand? Luyanda Mpahlwa is part of a vanguard of designers reshaping and re-envisioning South Africa’s post-apartheid architectural landscape.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Housing

Marjetica Potrč

2008 Prize Winner
Video
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
Video
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

Means of Exchange (MOE)

CSF Grantee
How can we democratize currency? Means of Exchange is working on the reinvention of exchange currencies using local community currencies, shared resource platforms, crowdfunding and more.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

Mohammed Rezwan

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How can design help flood prone communities to function when facilities and resources are under water? Founded by Mohammed Rezwan, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha is a nonprofit that works to support the environment and people affected by climate change-induced flooding in Bangladesh by transforming waterways into pathways for education, information, and technology.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Open Source Ecology

Social Design Circle Honoree
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
CSF Grantee
Video
Can design help raise the income of small hold farmers in Myanmar? Proximity Designs is a not-for-profit social enterprise working to reduce poverty for rural families in Myanmar.
  • Community Development

Public Architecture

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
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

Qigong Sensory Training Institute

CSF Grantee
What is the role of parent education in the healthcare of autistic children? Qigong Sensory Therapy is a revolutionary approach to treating autism developed by integrating Western and Chinese medicine.
  • Advocacy
  • Healthcare

Shawn Frayne

2008 Prize Winner
Video
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

Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
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
Video
How can architecture bring dignity in war-torn regions? Studio TAMassociati is a nonprofit architecture firm that specializes in designing healthcare facilities in war-torn areas, highlighting the connection between the built environment and the basic needs of life.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

thinkpublic

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can better human services be co-designed? Founded in 2004 as the first of its kind, Thinkpublic is a London-based social design agency that works with public sector and nonprofit organizations to improve the quality of the services they provide.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

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      Curry Stone Foundation - Home

      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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      REQUESTS FOR FUNDING

      We are struggling to comprehend the magnitude and horror during this period of Covid-19.

      The deaths, the illnesses, millions unemployed, millions in quarantine, borders closed and the disruption of normalcy.

      Curry Stone Foundation is receiving numerous unsolicited requests for support in light of this crisis. Many of these have significant merit, and we understand the need is great.

      Prior the Pandemic, our budget for 2020 and 2021 was committed to projects still in process, in India and elsewhere. Now, as a direct result of the crisis, we anticipate that these will need supplemental funds to reach completion. As these projects impact fragile, marginalized populations, we need to reserve emergency funds for that purpose.

      For these reasons, we will not be able to assist financially with any immediate requests for funds.

      Appreciatively,

      Curry Stone Foundation

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