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Rural Projects

14 | Combining Ancient Traditions and Contemporary Social Design

Podcast
Can design challenge inequality? Active Social Architecture is a Kigali-based architecture practice that designs and builds contemporary re-elaborations of vernacular Rwandan architecture.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

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

32 | Slum Networking, Explained.

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can we design a slum-friendly city? Himanshu Parikh discusses the evolution of cities and slums, and how a historicist read can lead us to new engineering innovations.
  • Environment
  • Healthcare
  • Housing

33-34 | Finding Plenty in a World of Scarcity, Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we design with scarcity? Line Ramstad discusses the origin of Gyaw Gyaw and introduces their methods.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

83 | Human-powered Resilience in Action

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Podcast
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

Active Social Architecture

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Does school design have value beyond creating a place to educate children? Kigali based Active Social Architecture (ASA) builds schools. Its designs contribute to the child’s growth and stimulation and the schools are conspicuously situated, providing symbolic value for the entire community.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

Anna Heringer

2009 Prize Winner
Video
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

Barefoot College

Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Gyaw Gyaw

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can architecture help stateless people put down roots? Gyaw Gyaw works with the vulnerable Karen people at the Myanmar/Thai border. It reduces their dependence on foreign aid via resilient, low cost, architectural projects built with community input.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Himanshu Parikh

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
What happens when gravity replaces modern technology as a tool to design urban infrastructure? Himanshu Parikh is an Indian engineer who developed of the concept of ‘slum networking,’ which stems from how the traditional organization of cities was based on natural features such as topography and gravity.
  • Environment
  • Healthcare
  • Housing

Hsieh Ying-Chun

2011 Prize Winner
Video
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

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

Mohammed Rezwan

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
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

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

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

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
Video
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

Connect With Us currystonefdn

  • Curry Stone Design Prize winner Liter of Light (@literoflight) has been awarded the Asia Pacific Social Innovation and Partnership Award (APSIPA) for its “Light it Forward” campaign, that challenges people to hand-build solar lamps for donation to electricity-deprived communities while paying tribute to frontliners of the COVID-19 pandemic. Inspired by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, the Light it Forward campaign gives Filipinos a chance to build solar lamps (swipe left to see @ria perform the challenge!) which takes less than 30 minutes, challenge their friends and family, and help communities living without electricity in the midst of this global health
  • Recipient of the 2020 Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (@lacma) annual Art + Technology Grant, artistic duo Rael San Fratello are exploring the potential of Indigenous mud-based building materials through 3D printing to create large scale architectural work. Conceptualised and being executed by architect and #SocialDesignInsights #podcast guest Ronald Rael (@rrael) and architect Virginia San Fratello (@vasfsf), along with their team at Emerging Objects, the project titled “Casa Covida” seeks to elevate “traditional clay craft at the scale of architecture and pottery. The end goal of this endeavor is to demonstrate that low-cost and low-labor construction that is accessible,
  • Sandhya Naidu Janardhan (@sandhyajnaidu), Managing Director of our Mumbai based design studio, Curry Stone Design Collaborative (CSDC), recently shared her insights on using design for inclusive community building in the Melbourne Microfinance Institute
  • Catch Sandhya Naidu Janardhan (@sandhyajnaidu), Managing Director of our Mumbai based design studio Curry Stone Design Collaborative, at the Inclusive Urbanism Series webinar discussing the importance of community based participatory design, making design accessible and establishing value systems that will transform urban development. Links to the Facebook and YouTube live stream are in the bio. The Inclusive Urbanism Series is being organised by The Urban Vision (@theurbanvision), The Red Dot Foundation and Stanford CDDRL Leadership Network for Change. This live webinar series with thought leaders explores ideas for urbanism and programming to support marginalized communities. @prathimamanohar @pinthecreep @_theurbanvision_ #CSF #CurryStone #Webinar #InclusiveCities #InclusiveUrbanism
  • (Link in the bio) “I want girls, who have big dreams and ideas, to have zero barriers to access the tools they need to be successful. That tool might be a hammer, a little extra confidence to try something new, or the ability to see yourself in the world of STEM.” - @emilypilloton Congratulations to Emily Pilloton on the release of her much-awaited book, Girls Garage- a 300 page compendium for young girls, which covers all the essential tools and skills one needs to learn how to build, several how-to projects and profiles of inspiring girls and women. Formerly known
  • (Link in the bio) “For nearly every injustice in the world, there is an architecture that has been planned and designed to perpetuate it.” Read this powerful piece by Bryan C. Lee Jr. (@bcleejr), co-founder of design justice practice and Social Design Circle Honoree, Colloqate (@colloqate), where he critiques the role of architecture and design and its complicity in perpetuating a culture of racial discrimination in the United States. He is also one of the organisers of Design as Protest, which is hosting its Day of Action today (next image for details), June 5 at 12 PM CST/1PM EST Catch

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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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