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Scarcity

84. | Architecture, Wake Up, It’s a New Day, Pt I

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

85. | Architecture, Wake Up, It’s a New Day, Pt II

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
  • Environment
  • Housing

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

Al Borde

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
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
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

Aprovecho Research Center

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Are open source, global standards for clean, efficient cook stoves possible? Cooking with wood and charcoal causes health and climate challenges. US based Aprovecho pioneers designs for clean, efficient stoves and develops open source technology and testing used around the globe.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

Ashok Gadgil

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
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

Auroville Earth Institute

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can traditional building techniques serve modern needs? Auroville Earth Institute leads in the research and implementation of earth-based & sustainable building. Their work inspires groups all over the world to take up the practice of sustainable building.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Basurama

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can waste be a resource for urban transformation? Best known for creating colorful playgrounds from common landfill waste, Basurama is a collective of Spanish artists whose projects provide cultural amenities while facilitating wider conversations about waste as a resource.
  • Urban Strategies

D-Rev

Social Design Circle Honoree
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

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

Episode 13 | How to Design a School for $200

Podcast
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 14 | Combining Ancient Traditions and Contemporary Social Design

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
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

Episode 16 | Design, Development and Disaster Mitigation in Pakistan

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can design prevent disaster? Yasmeen Lari details the growth of resilient architecture and sustainable development in Pakistan.
  • Conflict and Disaster

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

Podcast
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

Podcast
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 29 | The New Informal City Pt. I

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can we design a slum-friendly city? Urban­-Think Tank discusses their urban strategy and how they work against structural inequality in cities.
  • Community Development
  • Urban Strategies

Episode 30 | The New Informal City Pt. II

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can we design a slum-friendly city? Urban-Think Tank shares their ideas on how to make the formal informal, and vice versa.
  • Community Development
  • Urban Strategies

Episode 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

Episode 33 | Finding Plenty in a World of Scarcity, Pt. I

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

Episode 34 | Finding Plenty in a World of Scarcity, Pt. II

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

Episode 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

Episode 36 | Changing the Way We Make Fire

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we design with scarcity? Dean Still of Aprovecho talks to us about the history of Aprovecho and their work to improve cookstove technology.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

Episode 37 | Finding Holistic Design Through History

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we design with scarcity? Yatin Pandya discusses his philosophy of ‘holistic design’ and how he seeks new solutions for India’s future.
  • Environment
  • Housing

Episode 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

Episode 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

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

Goonj

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
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

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

Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can post disaster housing be sustainable and respectful of local vernacular? The Heritage Foundation of Pakistan is one of the world’s most successful providers of sustainable, resilient disaster relief structures. They are also involved in historic conservation projects in Pakistani villages.
  • Conflict and Disaster

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

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

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

Liter of Light

2012 Prize Winner
Video
Can a plastic bottle bring light where electricity is scarce? Philippines based Liter of light is a global, open-source, grassroots movement committed to providing affordable, sustainable light to people with limited or no access to electricity.
  • Community Development

Luyanda Mpahlwa

2008 Prize Winner
Video
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

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

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

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

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

Proximity Designs

2013 Prize Winner
Video
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

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

Sanergy

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can waste management create jobs and improve hygiene? Launched in Nairobi’s slums, Sanergy is a business and sanitation initiative. Low-cost pay toilets are run by locals as a business. Waste is processed into fertilizer and sold to commercial farms.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

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

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

SPARC

2016 Prize Winner
Vision Award Recipient
Video
What can slum dwellers teach design professionals? SPARC organizes, legitimizes and advocates for India’s urban poor, seeking improved living conditions and advancements in rights. SPARC believes that with structural support, the urban poor can make their destinies.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

Sustainable Health Enterprises {SHE}

2010 Prize Winner
Video
Can menstrual pads contribute to economic opportunities for women? 18% of women and girls in Rwanda miss school and work because they cannot afford menstrual pads. SHE developed affordable, locally produced pads that provide sanitary protection and business opportunities.
  • Healthcare

The Association La Voûte Nubienne

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can resurrecting building techniques from antiquity solve a West African housing crisis? West Africans face unique challenges in sourcing materials for sustainable, cost-efficient housing. In response, The Association la Voûte Nubienne (“AVN”) is bringing back an ages old technique: mud brick.
  • Housing

Urban-Think Tank

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How can urban dwellers participate in the construction of their own built environment? Urban-Think Tank (UTT) is an interdisciplinary design studio dedicated to high ­level research and design at a variety of scales, principally concerned with contemporary architecture and urbanism.
  • Community Development
  • Urban Strategies

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

USINA CTAH

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can the built environment escape a profit-driven motive? USINA Centro de Trabalhos para o Ambiente Habitado is a Brazilian group that works across disciplines to assist working people in planning and developing of their own communities.
  • Housing
  • Urban Strategies

Wes Janz

2008 Prize Winner
Video
How can designers address poverty in American cities? Architect Wes Janz focuses on the potential of informal settlements and camps housing 1 billion of the world’s poor. He sees these as a utilitarian beauty wrought of necessity.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment
  • Housing
  • Urban Strategies

Yatin Pandya

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How do we design with scarcity? Yatin Pandya is the founder and executive director of Footprints E.A.R.T.H. (Environment, Architecture, Research, Technology, Housing), an Indian professional services organization focused on research, design and the promotion of more sustainable urban futures.
  • Environment
  • Housing

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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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