Rural Projects

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

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

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

32 | Slum Networking, Explained.

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

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

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

Active Social Architecture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rural Studio

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