Rural Urban Frameworks (RUF) is a research and design collaborative working to help recover and rebuild villages across China that have been affected by the massive rural-to-urban migrations.

Joshua Bolchover and John Lin set up Rural Urban Framework as a design and research lab at the University of Hong Kong. Over the past 10 years, RUF has focused on sites impacted by the dynamics between the urban and rural transformation. Conducted as a non-profit organization providing design services to charities and NGOs working in China, RUF has built or is currently engaged in over 15 projects in various villages in China. As a result of this active engagement, RUF has been able to research the links between social, economic, and political processes and the physical transformation of each village.

Thirty years ago, the majority of people in China were farmers. By 2005, however, the Chinese government announced its plan to urbanize half of the remaining 700 million rural citizens by 2030. Between the previously financially homogenous upper-division of society and the population’s major proportion of farmers emerged a middle class. This new societal structure has resulted in a new spatial logic whereby the binary relationship between rural and urban is no longer valid either socially or in the context of the physical and material world. 

In many places, built form, density, and population levels that one would typically attribute to urban areas are still legally defined as rural land. Additionally, in areas quickly becoming developed, there are no clear systems to maintain the environment and prepare it for the shift to urbanization. For example, as a high volume of waste is mainly an urban issue, many rural communities do not have prepared, clear systems of garbage collection. In Chingeltei, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, RUF set out to create a demonstration project that could facilitate the hygienic collection of rubbish. The project engaged neighborhood participation and outreach to improve the scheduling of trucks and influence policy from the Mayor’s office to alter how they administered city-wide waste collection.

Currently the work of RUF continues to focus on both the impact of urbanization in rural China, and the impact of rural nomads settling in the city of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The projects include schools, community centers, hospitals, village houses, bridges, and incremental planning strategies and integrate local and traditional construction practices with contemporary technologies. 

Maya Pedal is a Guatemalan NGO based in San Andrés Itzapa. They accept bikes donated from the USA and Canada and either repair them to sell or use the components to build a range of “Bicimaquinas” (pedal powered machines).

In rural Guatemalan towns, traditional energy sources are scarce or nonexistent, making essential tasks like washing clothes and irrigating crops labor-intensive. Founded in 1997 in collaboration with a group of Canadians from the organization PEDAL, the NGO became constituted under local control as Asociación Maya Pedal in 2001. 

Following a vision for sustainable development in Guatemala, Maya Pedal repurposes donated bicycles into “bicimáquinas,” pedal-powered machines that are sturdy enough to perform tasks like grinding or blending food and lifting water from wells without requiring electricity. 

Pedal power can be harnessed for countless applications which would otherwise require electricity (which may not be available) or hand power (which is far more effort). Bicimaquinas are easy and enjoyable to use. They can be built using locally available materials and can be easily adapted to suit the needs of local people. They free the user from rising energy costs, can be used anywhere, are easy to maintain, produce no pollution and provide healthy exercise.

In San Andrés, a womens’ collective makes organic aloe shampoo with the help of the “bicycle blender,” using the proceeds to support their families and fund reforestation projects. A local group in nearby Chimaltenango uses a mill/corn degrainer design to produce organic animal feed for its farm.

The workshop in San Andrés Itzapa is staffed by local staff and international volunteers. Each machine is hand-made to order, using donated, used bicycles and salvaged concrete, wood, metal, and other locally available materials. The range of designs includes: water pumps, grinders, threshers, tile-makers, nut-shellers, blenders, and more. As well as building Bicimaquinas, Maya Pedal offers a bike repair service and sells used bikes in the surrounding area.

Maya Pedal’s designs are open source, with plans available on their website so anyone can access them. They also work with a number of local partners, NGO’s, agricultural cooperatives and organic producers.

Filipino entrepreneur and activist Illac Diaz created Liter of Light to provide informal settlements with a cheap daytime lighting source that can be produced and distributed locally.

Worldwide, hundreds of millions of people live in informal settlements lacking adequate light. Residents often resort to kerosene, candles, or inventive wiring for light, risking health and safety in the process. “Liter of light” is a clear plastic soda bottle filled with water and bleach, installed in the roof as a skylight. The water refracts sunlight as it streams through the bottle, dispersing the rays 360º and illuminating the entire room. 

Recipients of the solar bottle bulbs, who pay about $1 for the bulb and installation, save money on electricity and upgrade to hand-built solar lighting systems that reduce the use of kerosene, candles, and other fuels responsible for indoor air pollution and fire hazards. Each of the hand-built solar lights reduces carbon emissions by 1,000 kg over five years. The organization provides initial supplies and volunteers to generate interest, but its focus is on teaching communities how to locally manufacture parts and install the lights, with the end goal of creating green micro-businesses and empowering grassroots entrepreneurs at every step. 

Liter of Light has spread beyond Southeast Asia to 32 countries in South America, the Middle East, and Africa to produce easily repairable solar battery kits for reading lanterns, mobile chargers, and streetlights. There are small adaptations to the design along the way; for example, in Nepal, they put antifreeze into the liquid solution, so it doesn’t expand and contract. 

During the COVID pandemic, Liter of Light launched the “Light It Forward” campaign, asking people to build a light, post it on social media, and challenge friends to do the same. Once an abundance of lights was built, they were turned into artwork, taking over parks, rooftops, streets, and public areas all over the world. The organization shared images on social media platforms to reach the decision-makers tasked with making meaningful progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The campaign attracted 30 million viewers and empowered 75,000 people in communities devastated by loss in revenues from travel and tourism. 

Before the climate change conferences in 2022-23, the organization is planning a road trip through the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe to invite people to build lights for large-scale solar messages commemorating the 10th anniversary of the super-typhoon Haiyan.

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.

Founded in 2001, CUP’s work addresses the needs of communities struggling to understand the complex public policies and decision-making processes that impact their lives, from affordable housing to labor rights. By collaborating with the people most impacted by public policies and systems, CUP creates easy-to-understand, culturally relevant visual materials that help marginalized communities access services, claim their rights, and fight for change. 

Their core programs include “Making Policy Public,” a production series that joins an organization with a designer to create a visual explanation of a critical policy issue in the form of a pamphlet that folds out into a large-format color poster; “Public Access Design,” a series of short, intensive collaborations resulting in a booklet for a community organization working to break down a complex policy affecting its constituents; and “Envisioning Development Toolkits,” a set of interactive tools and workshops designed to demystify urban planning and empower local community members to participate in discussions around new development proposals. Additionally, CUP organizes youth education programs to get high school students out of the classroom to explore fundamental questions about how New York City works. 

All of CUP’s visual tools are designed to be used by constituencies that can most benefit from the information. One recent initiative was  “Here to Stay!,” a trilingual guide about Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a form of humanitarian immigration relief for youth under 21.

Other visual tools created by CUP are “Reclaim Your Worker Rights,” a guide for workers who have been wrongly classified as contractors by their employers; “Hey, that’s not okay,” a guide for young queer people of color about fighting gender-based violence in NYC schools; and “Your Truth Your Rights,” a booklet to explain Transgender, Gender Nonconforming, Intersex, and Nonbinary folks’ rights to safe housing in New York City jails and New York State prisons. 

In 2021, CUP released “Can You See My Screen?” a booklet designed by students at KAPPA International High School about how digital equity impacts remote learning, with a focus on the 16 million K-12 students in the U.S. who did not have internet access when schools across the country closed due to COVID-19.

Civic City is an institute for critical research in design that assembles a network of designers and thinkers to create a platform for the exchange of knowledge.

Founded in Zurich in 2011 by Ruedi and Vera Baur and Imke Plinta, Civic City works as an independent association, assembling a network of professionals such as designers, architects, sociologists, political scientists, geographers, urban planners, and more. As a principle, the institute advocates against design processes that are not context-specific or embedded in the social reality of the community it seeks to serve. Instead, it focuses on design that encompasses the environment it is being used for. The organization arranges courses in design, develops research and projects in different domains connected with the city, and works on publications. 

Over several decades, the work of Civic City has been applied to nearly every discipline of design. They have worked on community-based signage for the Paris Metro, examined the visual identities of international aid organizations, and authored a breadth of theoretical work. The team at the institute is widely credited with launching a wave of political activism within the fields of graphic design and its allied professions.

Recently, Vera and Ruedi published Our City to Change, a book that seeks to graphically explain contemporary issues of economics, finance, ecology, nutrition, and immigration. The book positions itself as a ‘visual deciphering’ of the contemporary problems of the world. By partnering with data providers, many of the pressing issues of the day can be rendered more intelligible and therefore more solvable.

We had a chance to speak with Ruedi and Vera Baur on our podcast, Social Design Insights, where we discussed the evolving possibilities of graphic design in the public space, and how the graphic arts can be an agent of political change. Listen to the episode below.

Breaking Ground, formerly known as Common Ground, creates residences that are integrated into their host neighborhoods by transforming under-utilized land into property assets that benefit all of New York City.

Breaking Ground was an early pioneer in social housing in New York City, and has since grown to become the largest provider in the city. Calling its model “supportive housing,” Breaking Ground re-purposes older buildings and constructs new ones that combine dignified, permanent, affordable housing with services that support residents in breaking their cycle of homelessness.

With a traditional shelter model, moving residents out as soon as possible is frequently a priority. The resident might be ‘back on their feet’ for a period of time and then suffer a setback which sees them lose their housing again. Because shelter is only one part of the equation, a shelter-only approach has proven insufficient at actually combatting homelessness. By understanding homelessness as a multi-layered condition, Breaking Ground has made substantial progress in moving individuals and families away from recurring instability.

Breaking Ground offers its clients a complete suite of services to address concerns typically faced by homeless populations. For example, residents are provided with access to job training, substance use counseling, social support, and public benefits. The constellation of services works to address many of the root causes of chronic homelessness. Moreover, Breaking Ground’s clients are provided homes without obligation to complete a drug rehabilitation program, obtain sobriety or to meet most any other precondition.

Opened in 2022, its Betances Residence in the South Bronx is one of only a handful of supportive residences to embrace the Passive House standard, which aims to reduce energy use and push further toward net-zero emissions in new construction. In Summer of 2022, Breaking Ground opened their first passive house for homeless and low-income seniors using ground up new construction designed by COOKFOX Architects. This building will be the second largest supportive residence in the nation, converting a 29 story building in DUMBO, Brooklyn to this use. 

We had an opportunity to speak with Jonathan Kirschenfeld and Brenda Rosen on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episodes below.

Adbusters Media Foundation has launched numerous international campaigns, including Buy Nothing Day, TV Turnoff Week, and Occupy Wall Street, and is known for their "subvertisements" that spoof popular advertisements. Additionally, it publishes the reader-supported, advertising-free Adbusters, an activist magazine devoted to challenging consumerism.

Adbusters is a Canadian nonprofit media group and activist hub founded by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in 1989. ​The foundation was born out of their belief that citizens do not have the same access to the information flows as corporations. One of the foundation’s key campaigns continues to be the Media Carta, a “movement to enshrine The Right to Communicate in the constitutions of all free nations, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” In addition to their advertising work, the group publishes a high-quality, full-color magazine that is often a launching pad for campaigns. 

Adbusters has been an early adopter in using social media and digital tools, such as memes, to spread its message. It mobilizes its large “culture jammers network” by sending out calls to action over e-mail and on its Twitter and Facebook feeds, with the intent of countering the message saturation orchestrated by corporate and commercial forces. Through the creation of memes and “mind bombs,” Adbusters has inspired and popularized international protests like Buy Nothing Day and Digital Detox Week. In a world saturated by consumerism, advertising, and political messaging, their work stands out as at once subtle, powerful, and necessary.

In mid-2011, Adbusters proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, a growing disparity in wealth, and the absence of legal repercussions behind the recent global financial crisis. They promoted the protest with a poster featuring a dancer atop Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull. On 13 July 2011, it was the staff at the magazine that created the #OCCUPYWALLSTREET hashtag on Twitter.

Having come about in protest of corporate dishonesty and ecological delinquency, today Adbusters treats everything from politics to pranks, consumerism to cosmology, aesthetics to activism as within its purview. Its uncompromising approach and distinct visual flair have made it known among designers as well as activists around the world. Currently, the team is attempting to wield their influence and experience to stave off extinction. 

We had an opportunity to speak with Kalle Lasn about ‘culture-jamming’ and political resistance on our podcast, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS Design) is a Boston-based architectural practice focusing on advocacy, the education of the next generation of architects, and the impacts of architecture on human lives.

MASS works primarily in resource-limited settings. Each project begins with an immersive research period that identifies the broader needs of the community being served. This initial step ensures that the buildings MASS designs aren’t just beautiful and functional, but also that they amplify the needs of the community as well as the mission of the client. The driving belief behind MASS Design’s work is that architecture is not neutral; it either helps or hurts.  To acknowledge that architecture has this kind of agency and power is to acknowledge that buildings, and the industry that erects them, are as accountable for social injustices as they are capable of preventing them. 

MASS Design uses a sustainable nonprofit business model; by fundraising to cover costs, MASS has found a way to provide services outside of a traditional design practice, such as job training and research, while also helping small NGOs afford high-quality design.

The practice’s first project, the Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, began when MASS co-founders Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks met Partners in Health executive director, Paul Farmer. He commissioned MASS to design the hospital, and they consulted with local healthcare workers, Partners in Health, and the Harvard Medical School faculty to ensure that their design layout optimized patient and staff flow while implementing standard infection-control strategies. The result opened in 2011. MASS continues to develop the site, adding a housing complex for doctors and a training center, among other buildings. MASS has also consulted with the Rwandan government to improve current regulations for health care structures.

At the international level, MASS has collaborated with the World Health Organization and USAID to create an online assessment tool and database to assist architects and healthcare professionals working in high-risk areas. In Rwanda, MASS has partnered with the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology to aid them in creating the country’s first professional school of architecture.

Today, MASS has worked in over a dozen countries on projects ranging from schools to community centers to the Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, which memorializes African American victims of lynching. Practice leaders have fostered public awareness of the way architecture can heal through lectures and talks.