Based in Spain, but with members and projects all over the world, Inteligencias Colectivas focuses on what it calls the ‘fringe’ of construction practice. Between the highly mechanized construction of the developed world and ancient methods used in less developed societies, there exists an infinite array of blended practices that have their own wisdom. Through its online platform, Inteligencias Colectivas collects, collates and shares these practices.

Through this information sharing, the group seeks to create a learning system where practitioners across the world can learn from improvisations being conducted by their peers in other contexts.

Inteligencias Colectivas’ work operates at all scales. Depending on the context, the group works with furniture, installations, public infrastructure, and architectural projects. These are usually self-initiated­ by collective members, ensuring that each project is rooted in a local context. The use of found objects and waste streams is heavily emphasized as a budgetary consideration and as a formative ethos of the group.

The projects are then featured on the collective website, with plans, instructions, narratives and diagrams, so that the strategies involved can be recycled into new projects in other contexts. Their work is perfectly captured by their name: their efforts are done to capture the collective intelligence of a world full of social designers, all working at the grassroots level.

Founded by a group of game designers in New York City, Institute of Play pioneers new models of learning and engagement. As an interdisciplinary team, the Institute creates learning experiences rooted in the principles of game design. It strives to introduce “21st century skills,” such as systems thinking, risk-taking analysis, critical reflection, collaboration, and creative problem-solving into the U.S. grade-school curricula.

The Institute has supported innovative public, private and charter school design projects for over 10 years. Its first success was the design of the New York City public middle and high school “Quest to Learn,” which opened in 2009.

Quest to Learn emphasizes “situated learning” where students are asked to take on the identities and behaviors of designers, inventors, writers, historians, mathematicians, and scientists in contexts that are real or meaningful to them.

Quest to Learn fulfills all state and federal mandates for teaching, but it uses the internal architecture of games—rules, components, core mechanics, goals, conflict, choice, and space—to guide the design of learning experiences. Thus, throughout the Q2L curriculum, game design is used as a learning strategy for students. The core of the school is the Mission Lab, which is an onsite game design studio staffed by designers and curriculum developers who work closely with teachers and kids to design learning activities.

The Quest to Learn approach strives to present creative and engaging learning strategies to address children’s interest in digital media and video games. The Institute of Play is demonstrating that the classroom can adapt to reflect the realities of the information age without sacrificing learning.

In addition to school design, the Institute also designs training programs for educators, consults on curriculums and conducts corporate training.

Iconoclasistas is a Buenos Aires-based design duo led by University of Buenos Aires professor Julia Risler and graphic designer and comic strip author Pablo Ares. The mission is to use cartography (maps) and other graphic art forms to create new visions of historic representation, societal growth, and participation.

Building on longstanding social justice work, Risler and Ares founded Iconoclasistas in 2006 out of a desire to create graphic resources that could be circulated among their network of activists. Maps were chosen as a medium because they are broadly understood and easily amended, using icons that transcend language and educational barriers. The resulting maps range from the local and literal (e.g., an overlay of a street grid peppered with icons designed to illustrate issues like safety, gentrification, etc.) to the political (a map of mining-related destruction in Argentina’s heartland).  

Iconoclasistas’ maps question dominant symbolism and ideologies to help community organizers build strategies of resistance. They are used as tools to lend legitimacy to complaints to local governments and industries. The work of Iconoclasistas falls into three different categories: artistic (production poetics and graphic devices), political (territorial activism and institutional drifts), and academic (critical pedagogies and participatory research). 

A major focus of Iconoclasistas is to inspire and enable others to use their strategies in their own communities. In 2013, the duo published the “Collective Mapping Manual. Critical cartographic resources for territorial processes of collaborative creation,” in which they systematize and share methodologies, resources, and dynamics for the self-organization of workshops, exercises, tables, and interventions of collective mapping and the development of collaborative research processes in the territories.

Iconoclasistas also holds collective mapping workshops and collaborative research in various countries and social, community, cultural and educational institutions. They organize training sessions with mapping tools focused on topics such as gender violence, the plundering of natural resources, urban gentrification, agroecological alternatives, fair trade, and environmental justice. These workshops are carried out with urban, peasant, and indigenous communities.

We had an opportunity to speak with Julia and Pablo about this process on our podcast, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

Hsieh Ying-Chun is a Taiwanese architect who works throughout Asia, training villagers to build locally appropriate dwellings in response to earthquake devastation.

In 1999, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Nantou County in rural Taiwan, destroying more than 50,000 buildings, killing nearly 2,500 people, and threatening to dismantle the tribal home of Taiwan’s smallest aboriginal group, the Thao. In response, Taiwan native Hsieh moved his conventional architectural firm to the affected site in Sun Moon Lake. There, he took a leading role in redefining rural design construction with community engagement as a guiding principle. 

Through Hsieh’s hands-on education process, villagers reconstructed their community knowing they would live in buildings with greater safety, structural integrity, and sustainability. While in many disaster scenarios, the technical and financial burden of reconstruction renders the affected community powerless and dependent on NGOs to deploy basic aid, thanks to Hsieh Ying-Chun, the Thao’s story is a tale of self-reliance and community empowerment.

In his projects, Hsieh establishes a cooperative network of designers, local contractors, and residents that supports and sustains local needs. He develops simplified building techniques based on earthquake-safe steel-frame structures, which can be adapted to specific circumstances, traditions, skills, and availability of materials. Hsieh’s flexible designs prescribe only the fixed support features, leaving floor plans and aesthetic details to the residents’ discretion. Native materials such as straw, clay, and stone give a uniquely local identity to the buildings. Additionally, renewable materials and community labor keep Hsieh’s costs extremely low—up to 50 percent below the development standard—which is key to the success and sustainability of his model. Hsieh structures his projects to employ villagers during agriculturally idle periods, to avoid conflicting with farming cycles.

In the years since his first humanitarian efforts, Hsieh has demonstrated the scalability and adaptability of his designs in other parts of Asia. In 2008, he was called to central China where nearly 70,000 people had been killed by the Sichuan earthquake, and most buildings had been destroyed. He worked with villagers to construct 500 homes, as well as compost toilets. In 2010 his team completed the reconstruction project of 700 homes for 13 different tribal communities affected by the severe mudslides caused by Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan.

Hsieh continues to travel where rural communities need him most. In 2012 Hsieh received a National Award for the Arts, Taiwan’s highest honor for artists.

Listen to the episode below.

Founded in the wake of the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, India, Hunnarshala engages in both community and artisan empowerment. It works with a network of artisans to combine traditional techniques with innovation resulting in buildings, including in post disaster situations, that are at once eco-friendly, resilient and in keeping with local vernacular. They also train and empower artisan entrepreneurs, bringing them into the mainstream of construction and participate in community-led reconstruction and planning.

The devastating 2001 earthquake brought together a group of architects, engineers, and environmental advocates who had been working in the region for years on the idea that people can be empowered by shaping their own habitats. The earthquake presented an opportunity for the cofounders to test this belief. In Kutch, Hunnarshala met with citizens, local builders, and artisans to devise reconstruction strategies that expanded upon local knowledge and the principle that homeowners were capable of replicating and updating structures for greater resilience. One conversation led to the revival of the bhunga, a traditional dwelling with a rounded shape that makes it naturally more quake-resistant than a boxy concrete buildings. Hunnarshala worked with artisans to further reinforce the bhunga’s rammed-earth construction by adding steel rings at various levels.

This community-driven process has become the cornerstone of Hunarashala’s approach. They constantly find new hybrid solutions to elevate vernacular architecture with innovation. For example, experiments have led to the use industrial waste, such as adding levigated clay (waste from porcelain factories that clog river systems) in rammed-earth construction and joining thin strips of waste wood from shipwrecks to make structural flooring, doors, and window frames.

All new materials and techniques are extensively tested in Hunnarshala’s lab in Bhuj, and the organization works with local governments to develop technical guidelines, which are added to regional manuals for new construction.

Hunnarshala has worked on disaster rehabilitation in India (Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, and Bihar), Iran, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. It has helped build more than 30,000 interim shelters and about 12,000 permanent reconstructions. The organization consulted on a program to design bamboo homes in the state of Bihar, in the foothills of the Himalayas, where 20,000 homes have been constructed using a traditional system that lashes bamboo poles together without hardware. Hunnarshala is working with the Uttaranchal government to design a social housing program in response to the floods of 2013, this time looking at ways to use local stone.

An example of Hunnarshala’s holistic approach to redevelopment work can be found in its home city of Bhuj. After the 2001 earthquake, Hunnarshala collaborated with the city government on several relocation and social housing projects, including a master plan for the sustainable, culturally sensitive relocation of 500 displaced families. On the outskirts of Bhuj, about 300 homes have been built reusing industrial waste materials; the homes can be expanded by their owners, not a typical perk of post-disaster housing. The residents are being relocated from a dense urban core, so creating public spaces throughout the town is a focus. To address water-shortage issues, partner organizations are creating an urban watershed with a decentralized wastewater treatment system. Helophyte plants filter water for use in irrigation, which stimulates agrarian activities as well as greater community self-sufficiency. The maintenance of these new elements has created jobs: Hunnarshala has trained residents to maintain the solar panels that power the water pumps in the biofilter plant.

Hunnarshala has built a network of artisans during its many reconstruction projects and this has been an ongoing source of expertise as the organization has continued work in Kutch and other disaster regions. Hunnarshala also contracts some of its artisans to work on international historical restoration projects. They also run a training program to help rural artisans understand urban business practices and how to apply their skills in an urban context. Participants get a two-year education in entrepreneurship during which Hunnarshala diverts business to them as they learn how to manage their own enterprises. Today, two hundred Hunnarshala-trained artisans are using their own knowledge systems to help build cities.

Hunnarshala demonstrates that communities given the power to make their own decisions create the best solutions. Hunnarshala understands how to revive local artisanal knowledge and skills to deliver high-quality housing that is sustainable and disaster-safe. Hunnarshala has started an ongoing conversation with artisans that continues to generate new knowledge.

 

Hester Street is a New York City-based nonprofit that devotes urban planning, design, and development expertise to support community-led change for socially, racially, and economically just cities, towns, and regions.

Hester Street provides technical assistance and capacity-building support to community-based organizations (CBOs) and government agencies to advance participatory planning, transformative policy, and equitable community development. They focus on low-income communities and communities of color – people and places historically excluded from civic decision-making. Their team is made up of designers, architects, planners, community developers, and organizers who pair technical expertise with a deep understanding that the most successful projects and plans are grounded in local needs and informed by community priorities. 

Hester Street deploys four core strategies in its practice: 1.) Start with neighborhoods to build on existing social networks and local institutions; 2.) Change the narrative by centering communities of color; 3.) Re-imagine democracy and re-shape government to be more inclusive, equitable, and accountable; and 4.) Build power and deliver impact by equipping communities with tools to level the playing field. 

The organization has worked with partners serving all over New York City,  New York State, and throughout the country. They work closely with CBOs led by and serving communities of color to provide technical capacity to advance their goals and project work. They also work with government executives, staff, legislators, and agencies to develop and deploy the skills and tools necessary to ensure transparency, accessibility, equity, and accountability to communities of color. 

Hester Street has developed neighborhood plans that prioritize affordable housing, economic opportunity, and public health; supported efforts to strengthen economic self-sufficiency and self-determination in the Navajo Nation; stemmed the tide of CBO displacement by acquiring and developing new community centers in NYC; advanced people-powered, culturally-driven, post-disaster climate justice in San Juan, Puerto Rico; re-imagined beloved and democratic public institutions – libraries and parks – as true Palaces for the People, and; engaged hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in policy conversations for cultural equity, mental health for all, gender equity, and the future of fair housing. In the past five years alone, they’ve engaged well over half a million community members, directed more than $750 million of new public investment in low-income communities of color, and secured more than $50 million for community-owned capital projects.

We had a chance to talk with Isella Ramirez of Hester Street about their most current projects, and how their particular form of activism helps facilitate thoughtful development on behalf of historically voiceless communities in East Harlem and beyond. Listen to the episode below.

The Heritage Foundation of Pakistan is a non-profit working at the intersection of architecture and social justice. Since the 2005 Swat Valley earthquake, they have become one of the world’s most successful providers of sustainable, resilient disaster relief structures, and are also very involved in historic conservation projects in villages all around Pakistan.

The Foundation was established in 1980 by husband and wife team Suhail Zaheer and Yasmeen Lari. Yasmeen Lari has the distinction of being Pakistan’s first female architect.  Prior to her work with the Foundation, she built giant concrete and steel buildings for clients such as the Pakistani State Oil company. As President of the Institute of Architects Pakistan (IAP) and first chair of the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners, this winner of the Jane Drew Prize 2020 was instrumental in bringing about recognition for the professions of architecture and town planning.

The Foundation’s post-disaster reconstruction work began in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in Swat province. It developed an emergency shelter called “Karavan Ghar” made from debris of collapsed houses and local materials, and were built by community members, university volunteers and local artisans under the direction of the Foundation.

Beyond their relief work, the Foundation has worked widely in all forms of sustainable development, including developing a remarkable smokeless “chulha”, an earthen stove, which can be built by unskilled labor for only $7. With her dictum of ‘Low Cost/Zero Carbon/Zero Waste’ and using locally sourced sustainable materials such as earth, lime and bamboo, Yasmeen Lari devised Barefoot Social Architecture (BASA). BASA incorporates tenets of social and cultural justice, helping communities achieve self-reliance through participatory processes – co-building and co-creation of households by themselves. Through BASA, Heritage Foundation has provided humanitarian assistance to 840,000 persons in over 8 years.

The Foundation has also worked towards the conservation of much of Karachi’s cultural heritage, as well as the historical district of Khairpur and the ancient site of Kot Diji, by advocating for safeguarding several hundred structures in poor conditions.

Yasmeen has gone on to win several accolades, including the 2023 RIBA Royal Gold Medal, the 2020 Jane Drew Prize and Pakistan’s third-highest Civilian Honor, the Sitara-e-Imitiaz

For more on Yasmeen’s extensive and ground-breaking career, please join us on Social Design Insights. We had a chance to talk with Yasmeen in Episode 16, where she detailed her journey and her strategies for building a more resilient Pakistan. Listen to the episode below.

Gyaw Gyaw is a community development non-profit that works with the Karen people at the border between Myanmar and Thailand. The organization combines low-cost, sustainable building techniques with community input to ensure designs are appropriate to the customs and culture of each village.

Gyaw Gyaw, which means “slowly, step-by-step” in the Karen language, was co-­founded in 2008 by Norwegian landscape architect Line Ramstad and members of the Karen community. Besides Ramstad and South Korean/German architect Jae-Young Lee, the rest of the team consists of Karen people, and the core of the group has remained the same since 2008.

The Karen are the second largest ethnic group in Myanmar. After World War II, Myanmar (then Burma) was granted independence from Britain and the Karen were promised their own independent state. Neither the Karen nor other minorities received this sovereignty. Surviving more than 60 years of war, oppression, and violence from the Myanmar government, many Karen fled to the Thai border. Though they can claim refugee status in Thailand, they often have no rights and face the constant threat of arrest and deportation.

Gyaw Gyaw’s development has been organic, governed by a few general principles: source locally, involve everyone, and take it step-by-step. Though they receive program-based support from a small number of Norwegian companies which allows for flexibility in projects and the ability to navigate complex political upheaval, civil strife, and military conflict, their work is deliberately small scale. Their budget is a mere $60,000 annually by choice. 

Gyaw Gyaw’s work promotes a combination of both traditional and contemporary building methods. This design choice is intended to show viable alternatives to the common foreign aid model of primarily concrete buildings. By building upon existing local knowledge, materials, and methods, Gyaw Gyaw empowers communities to value and utilize their existing expertise skills.

Previous and current projects include primary, high, and teaching schools, libraries, dormitories, gardens, and a widow house. Additionally, the organization is involved with many community projects, like providing roofing, installing toilets and water systems, fencing, and more. 

Having completed over 65 projects and, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and a military coup that has devolved into a civil war, the team is steadily working forward, building sustainable structures for and with local existing schools.

We had an opportunity to have an extended conversation with Line Ramstad on our podcast, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episodes below.

Goonj is a non-­governmental organization based in Delhi since 1998 which undertakes poverty alleviation work, using the city's discard as material to fuel widespread development work across village India.

Founded by social entrepreneur Anshu Gupta, Goonj uses urban surplus as a tool to alleviate poverty and enhance the dignity of the underprivileged. The scarcity of clothing—and cloth, is an overlooked contributor to poverty across the world. Without proper uniforms, children cannot attend school. Without decent clothing, people are prohibited from a variety of employment opportunities. Without sanitary napkins, women might be confined to the home throughout menses. Through barter between material and community efforts, Goonj stimulates an inclusive alternative economy where everyone is an equal stakeholder in the process, creating a model for development that maintains dignity and does not compromise quality. 

Communities are no longer ‘beneficiaries’ of charity in the paradigm created by Goonj, but rather workers who are paid in a non-­monetary form of currency. Goonj’s work has also led to systematic changes in disaster relief and rehabilitation work across India, addressing taboo issues such as menstrual hygiene to reduce stigma and increase access.  

Goonj has established a culture and mechanism of sustained mindful giving, grounded in dignity and empathy, for vast stocks of everyday necessities. It collects underutilized urban materials (like clothes, books, kitchen items, etc.) and processes them, sorting, repairing, repurposing, cleaning, and carefully curating them into need-based socio-geographically appropriate family kits comprising items such as clothing, toys, utensils, footwear and more.

Goonj’s innovative approach has spread throughout 31 states/UTs in India and has handled over 13,000 tons of material in 21-22 FY. Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Goonj escalated its urban and rural network to rapidly deliver more than 1 million family/relief kits between April 2020 and March 2022 to severely affected families in the most neglected communities, working with a strong on-ground partner network.

Anshu Gupta was awarded the Magsaysay Award for his work on transforming the culture of giving in India and for highlighting material as a sustainable development resource for the socioeconomically disadvantaged. He was listed in Forbes Magazine as one of India’s most powerful rural entrepreneurs. We had a chance to speak with Anshu about Goonj’s remarkable program on our podcast, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.

GeoHazards International is a California based non-profit that works with under-resourced communities to stay ahead of disasters from earthquakes, natural hazards and extreme weather. It was founded in 1991 by geologist Brian Tucker, who was acutely aware of successes in California and wealthy nations – legally, socially and culturally – to address known risks from local hazards. This proactive approach has protected lives and enabled communities to thrive.

In contrast, people in poor and emerging economies are far more vulnerable to natural disasters. Over 90% of disaster fatalities occur in these countries. Urban populations are rapidly growing and communities lack safety expertise to assess risks and to reduce vulnerabilities. Further, basic needs often take priority over planning.

During his PhD research, Tucker traveled extensively in Tajikistan and Central Asia and was surprised and concerned by the seismic vulnerability of the buildings he found there. After his return to California, he began to consider how advanced mitigation strategies could be thoughtfully translated and put to use in the most vulnerable parts of the world.

GeoHazards International now champions a safer future for all, in which people are better protected and prepared. It equips people across the spectrum to sustain and scale safer practices. Its expert team advises decision makers so they can anticipate and tackle disaster threats. Its programs share information that is clear, relevant to daily life, and actionable. Local team members invest in community relationships, which enable steady progress.

Engagement happens at all angles. One focus is resilience of schools and hospitals, ensuring that key facilities will withstand disaster events. Some programs have trained engineers, masons and other professionals to create a safer built environment. Village-level interventions have included retrofitting vulnerable schools and conducting community outreach programs. Top-down solutions have included creating risk-informed action plans, creating structural engineering programs with universities, and helping to draft national policy and regulations that consider natural hazards risk.

Using evidence-based scenarios, GHI has mapped potential earthquake disasters to stimulate action to prepare. They calculate the percentage of damage in regions of a city based on likely shaking and local building types. They describe what life would be like in the city immediately after a disaster as well as one week, one month, and one year later. The hope is that by galvanizing public attention, leaders and individuals will be incentivized to act in advance of a disaster.

GHI has been an innovator in the field of disaster resilience for decades, chiefly because they approach it holistically: past, present and future.

We were fortunate enough to speak with Brian Tucker and Kenneth Kornberg of GHI on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episode below.