Diébédo Francis Kéré is a Pritzker Architecture Prize winning Burkinabé architect recognized for creating innovative works that are often sustainable and collaborative in nature.

Diébédo Francis Kéré began working while still a student at the Technical University of Berlin. His first project and the first primary school in Kéré’s home village of Gando, was opened in 2001. While schools in Burkina Faso are normally built out of concrete, it is an expensive and energy consuming material to produce and the material is ill suited to the hot climate. Kéré used locally available resources and built with mud bricks. His design consisted of a wide, raised tin roof to protect the walls from rain and allow air to circulate under the building for cooling. The finished building was cooler and more pleasant than the conventional concrete ones. 

Kéré’s process included the entire community, gathering together different participants in both the design and construction phases and subsequently allowing a synthesis between traditional building techniques and modern construction. The techniques that the community learned in erecting the building have allowed them to practice elsewhere, stimulating the proliferation of better building. Construction of a secondary school designed by Kéré began in May 2011. The new building complex was designed to accommodate approximately 1000 students. 

Another of Kéré’s projects, “Opera House for Africa” was initiated by German film and theatre director Christoph Schlingensief. Kéré designed a festival theatre, workshops, a medical center, guest houses, solar panels, a well, and a school for 500 children and teenagers offering music and film classes. The village comprised of simple basic modules, which vary in quality and function depending on the equipment they house. Members of the local community were employed to build the modules. Local materials such as clay, laterite, cement bricks, gum wood and loam rendering were used for construction. Due to the massive walls and large overhang of the roofs, air conditioning could be discounted in most buildings. The theatre hall was conceived as a place of encounter and exchange for people of different cultural and family backgrounds.

In 2022, Kéré became the first African to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

We had a chance to speak with Mr. Kéré on our podcast, Social Design Insights, about his philosophy of inclusion, and his advice for young designers in a two-part interview. Listen to the episodes below.

Foldit is an online game that uses crowdsourcing to enable players to contribute to scientific research about protein folding, a vital biochemical process at the basis of most cellular functions.

Foldit began as an experimental research project developed by the University of Washington’s Center for Game Science in collaboration with UW’s Baker Biochemistry Laboratory. The idea has turned a complex process into a simple, addictive game—often compared to solving a 3D jigsaw puzzle — that gives players both the thrill of competition and the satisfaction of contributing to a project that has a critical social impact. 

In the game, players are presented with a 3D model of a protein that they can manipulate by clicking and dragging its sections. The amino acid chains that make up proteins naturally want to fold into the lowest-energy shape, so the goal of a Foldit puzzle is to make the protein’s structure as compact as possible, while still keeping the chains intact and respecting the basic properties of proteins. The winning designs help researchers learn more about the shapes of proteins. The more we understand about these structures, the easier it is to design new proteins with desired functions, leading to the development of vaccines and disease-curing drugs. 

Crowdsourcing is the basis of Foldit’s success: it uses the creative problem-solving of thousands of people to refine computation. By taking complex biomedical problems and crowd-sourcing their possible solutions, FoldIt has democratized a design process typically isolated in a lab and innovated a way for amateur players and designers to help solve the world’s toughest medical questions. 

Foldit players are already solving biochemical problems that were stumbling blocks to scientific research. For example, in 2010, players determined the structure of a key protease, or protein-cutting enzyme, of the Mason-Pfizer Monkey Virus (M-PMV), a retrovirus that leads to AIDS in rhesus monkeys. It took Foldit three weeks to complete a task that biochemists had struggled with for over a decade.

Farm Cultural Park (FCP) is an art gallery and exhibition space, located in Favara, Sicily. The aim of the project is to give the city, previously known mostly for its general decrepitude and for having one of Italy's highest unemployment rates, a new life through art.

In 2010, FCP founders Andrea Bartoli and Florinda Saieva moved their family from Paris to Favara, one of the most impoverished towns in southern Sicily. Shortly after they arrived, a building collapsed in the town center, killing two sisters. Out of a desire to stop the marginalization and deterioration of their adopted home, they decided to create something transformative. Bartoli and Saieva bought several empty dwellings in the semi-abandoned center of town, saving them from a demolition order, and began to create a cultural center. 

Originally, FCP began as permanent exhibitions of paintings, photography, and music events. Now, the seven courtyards, linked together by small buildings, host expositions, exhibitions by international and local artists, and politically charged artwork. Additionally, the center is home to shops, a garden bar, cultural events, talks, screenings, and workshops. Recently, an architectural school for children was opened. 

Unlike many cultural projects that rely on government funding, Farm Cultural Park arose organically. Through networking and word of mouth, FCP has managed to attract some of the best artists, both in Italy and the world, to exhibit their work in a small, out-of-the-way town.

Now, several elderly local women who had clung to their homes in the semi-abandoned town center live amongst the exhibition spaces, happy to have company and to once again reside in a neighborhood that is safe and alive. Furthermore, a growing number of local youths have come to volunteer at the project. 

Farm Cultural Park has won countless awards, including the Human Design City Award of the City of Seoul, and was invited in 2012, 2016, and 2020 to the Venice Architecture Biennale. The space has been published in international media such as The Guardian, Vogue, and Domus. As of 2021, the Farm is an official Partner of the New European Bauhaus.

As a two-year, extended program starting in the summer of 2023, the Farm will open “The Monastery,” in a monastery from 1100 AD in the woods of Mandanici. A dense program of creative residences will bring together architects, urban planners, landscape architects, artists, anthropologists, botanists, scientists, and musicians.

Fallen Fruit is a contemporary art collective that makes art installations, public art and plants fruit trees in public space for everyone to share. Fallen Fruit invites citizens to collectively re-imagine the function of public participation and urban space, and to explore the meaning of community through creating and sharing new and abundant resources: fruit trees!

Conceived as a temporary project in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Vegener and Austin Young, Fallen Fruit began when its founders learned that L.A. city law states that fruit hanging over sidewalks and public places can be picked by anyone. The name “Fallen Fruit” is a reference to the Bible’s book of Leviticus, which decrees that fallen fruit on the edge of a field should remain unharvested to feed the stranger, the poor, and the passerby.

The group’s first exercise mapped the locations of fruit trees in public spaces in Southern California for local residents and the homeless. Fallen Fruit then expanded to include nocturnal fruit foraging tours open to the general public.

Subsequently they introduced “public fruit jams,” collaborative gatherings where participants bring home grown or street picked fruit to turn into jam alongside friends and strangers. They also organized fruit tree adoptions, with the intention that they be placed on the periphery of private properties and made available to passing pedestrians.

In 2017, Fallen Fruit launched Endless Orchard, a collaborative fruit sharing map.  Anyone, anywhere can help expand the project by mapping fruit trees in public space or by planting more fruit trees next to sidewalks in front of their homes, businesses or community centers for everyone to share.

Fallen Fruit’s work has been incorporated into exhibitions at major museums throughout LA, and Endless Orchard has expanded internationally. According to Young, the group’s work is about community. The programs and initiatives they have developed draw people together by creating a shared experience around a shared resource.

EXYZT was a European multidisciplinary design collective that broke ground in disrupting traditional notions of how public space can be organized. In fact, their approach challenged the very idea of what “architecture” is. Rather than something to be exhibited and admired intellectually from the outside, architecture should be lived in, played with and experienced.

EXYZT first rose to international attention with an installation for the French Pavilion for the 2006 Venice Biennale. They wanted to challenge the idea of ‘exhibiting’ architecture, and so they developed Métavilla: a space that had a full kitchen, hotel, sauna, and a plunge pool to demonstrate that a public space for exhibition can also be a home. It became “a place of encounter and exchange, where architecture is experienced, where the visitor becomes an actor and active participant, the place also becomes a laboratory for experimentation.”  The EXYZT team lived in their exhibition, worked there, showered there, and in so doing, blurred the lines between building, builder, designer, observer and participant.

The group considered their work ‘open source.’ They invite observers, visitors and spectators to become participants in the design and construction, creating an ongoing feedback loop of ideas. Materials (often based around scaffolding and wood) are chosen for their economy and accessibility. By using materials and methods which others can imitate, the Collective hopes to instigate a worldwide urban renewal, led by ordinary people who wish to take ownership of their physical and social environment. In their own words, “If space is made by the dynamics of exchange, then everybody can be the architects of our world and encourage creativity, reflection and renewed social behaviors. We refuse to enter the current architectural practice which serves the building industry. We produce a physical framework for a direct and immediate emulation between people.”

By blurring the lines between public and private and between temporary and permanent, the group seeks to disrupt what might otherwise be static ideas about how social space is used. An empty lot can become a sauna, at least temporarily. So why not permanently?

Although the group disbanded in 2015, each member went on to do similar work in different countries throughout Europe.

We had a chance to speak with Nicolas Herringer of EXYZT, along with Alberto Nanclares of Basurama on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episodes below.

Ecosistema Urbano, which means “urban ecosystems,” is a Madrid and Miami based architecture and consulting firm that defines its approach as “urban social design.” It is dedicated to the urban context, a social approach and design as a tool for transformation.

Founded in 2000 by Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo, a central part of its practice is “urban sustainability; combining urban design and planning with strategies articulating social, technical and management issues. They are also committed to public action through placemaking– a collaborative process used to shape public spaces in order to maximize shared value.

Ecosistema Urbano has updated the concept of “community participation” through the development of online tools and apps which encourage global participation on local projects.

They are also known for green projects such as Ecobulevar, a project of ‘air trees’ in the Madrid suburb of Vallecas. These are large, circular pavilions that are made from repurposed industrial materials such as recycled plastic, greenhouse fabric and rubber tires that contain rooting vegetation and atomizers that cool and moisten the air in the cylinder and around it. The cylinders are self sufficient and surplus electricity produced by photovoltaic panels is sold back to the grid, which pays for their maintenance.

We had a chance to speak with Belinda Tato of Ecosistema Urbano, along with Daniel D’Oca of Interboro, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episodes below.

Design for Extreme Affordability is a graduate course offered by Stanford University which tasks students with solving the resource problems of the developing world. Students are asked to design products and services that will change the lives of the world’s poorest citizens.

The coursework takes the students through all the steps necessary to make change: design, marketing, team­ building, testing and implementation. So far, students have worked on 120 projects in 27 countries. DEA is team ­taught by diverse faculty from the schools of engineering, business and other fields as the emphasis at Design for Extreme Affordability has always been on creating products and services that can be fully realized.

In its 13­-year history, the class and its alums have given rise to a number of game­ changing innovations and organizations. Many of its students continue working after the conclusion of the class to fully develop their designs into solutions.

Design for Extreme Affordability has been a pioneer in the teaching of socially responsible design in several respects:

First, it places an emphasis on implementation. Being able to write a proposal or a marketing plan wouldn’t traditionally be considered ‘design.’ But it is part of the process of moving from the design studio to field implementation. Students who wish to make real change must look at the problem from multiple angles.

Second, Design for Extreme Affordability is fully based on a multi­disciplinary approach. The course is taught by a diverse group of Stanford faculty led by Jim Patell (engineering, business), Dave Beach (mechanical engineering), Stuart Coulson (business) and Julian Gorodsky (psychology).

 

The Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), formerly the School of Architecture + Community Design, is a multidisciplinary nonprofit design center bringing high-quality, community-based design to all neighborhoods in Detroit.

In 1993, University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture Dean Stephen Vogel proposed a design center housed within an academic context. A Neighborhood Design Studio was launched, in which students learned the practice of community design by working with neighborhood leaders. Eventually, the studio evolved into a full-service architectural design center called the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), operating as a program of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture and Community Development. Now, the studio has a year-round full-time professional staff with a range of experiences and training. Each semester, they are also joined by 2-4 student designers who learn the practice of community-engaged design, working alongside staff and partners.

DCDC works citywide on a range of projects at different scales, such as architectural design, landscape design, urban design, neighborhood planning, infrastructure strategy, and community engagement. The studio believes that meaningful community-engaged design contributes to more just and equitable communities, ensuring that residents and other stakeholders have ownership in the decision-making that impacts their neighborhoods and spaces. In both the planning and design process, DCDC prioritizes participation from all involved parties, taking care to engage, educate, and promote equity in design processes and outcomes. 

Since its founding, DCDC has worked with nearly 300 partners on almost 200 projects. In 2017, the center was awarded the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award by the American Institute of Architects for its embodiment of social responsibility and actively addressing relevant social issues. It has also been the recipient of the NCARB Prize in 2002 and 2009 and was included in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Biennale as a model of community-based practice. 

Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency (DAAR) is an architectural studio, collective of architects, and a residency program based in Beit Sahour, Palestine.

Founded in 2007 by Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal, DAAR’s work combines spatial interventions, theoretical writings, and collective learning. It is dedicated to architectural experimentations on the reuse and transformation of colonial architecture, settlements, military bases, and empty villages, primarily in Palestine.

When improving environments for displaced people, it is imperative to balance the hope that the location will be temporary with the development necessary to make the space livable. Refugee camps are often viewed as places of misery, unworthy of improvement. Developing infrastructure and amenities within one can be viewed as making it permanent. However, denying improvements to the camp and forcing residents to live in inhumane conditions violates basic rights. DAAR addresses this duality through several strategic practices. 

In 2012 they founded Campus in Camps, a university in a refugee camp, to connect a site of knowledge production with the site of social stigmatization. The formation of informal learning environments has been further developed in the Tree School Project in different locations worldwide. In 2015, they built a concrete tent in the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem as a gathering space for conflict resolutions, alternative pedagogies, and celebration. In 2019, the reconstruction of Al Nada social housing after its destruction by the Israeli invasion introduced shared common spaces. 

In addition to the physical work done, several books have been written by DAAR. Refugee Heritage challenges dominant definitions of heritage and mainstream narratives, proposing exile instead as a radical perspective that can take us beyond the limitations of the nation-state. Permanent Temporariness is a book-catalog that accounts for 15 years of research and experimentation within and against the condition of permanent temporariness. In Architecture after Revolution, the DAAR team invites the reader to rethink current struggles for justice, not only from the histor­ical perspective of revolution but also from that of a continued struggle for decolonization, presenting a series of projects that try to imagine “the morning after revolution.”

We had an opportunity to have an extended conversation with Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal on our podcast, Social Design Insights. Listen to the episodes below.

Equalize Health (formerly D-Rev) is a not-for-profit medical technology company working to prevent people lacking access to treatment from suffering treatable conditions.

Equalize health identifies the biggest gaps and opportunities for tech in health care; designs affordable medical products for any circumstance; and partners with global and local actors to ensure products get where needed. 

Their first product, Brilliance Pro, came from an investigation into under-treatment of jaundice in low-resourced areas. While newborn treatment is straightforward, a dose of phototherapy under blue light, 95% of all phototherapy devices evaluated in India and Nigeria did not meet American Academy of Pediatrics standards, often due to power failures or burned-out bulbs. 

The solution was simple: a lamp with LEDs instead of fluorescents, eliminating the broken bulb problem and lasting sixty times longer for half the power of fluorescent bulbs. Since power is inconsistent in developing environments, Equalize Health designed Brilliance to be run off of a car battery for up to eight hours in the event of outages. Brilliance has now treated over 1.5 million babies in more than 65 countries.

The $80 US ReMotion Knee addresses the cost of fitting and maintaining prosthetic limbs. Not only are prosthetics expensive, but they also need frequent adjustment and can rust and swell, exacerbating the need for ongoing maintenance. The ReMotion Knee was conceived to be as simple and flexible as a natural knee, with minimum parts and using a single hinge so that it swings naturally.

In 2019, Equalize Health expanded ReMotion to ROMP (Range of Motion Project) so they could focus on addressing the health inequities impacting maternal and newborn health. They have used their expertise to address the leading causes of maternal and premature newborn death globally: postpartum hemorrhage and newborn respiratory distress. 

To ensure its products are broadly available at sustainable market terms, Equalize Health utilizes partnerships with distributors. Distribution agreements are structured so that for-profit distributors receive higher margins when they sell to hospitals with greater need. The distributors are free to sell to high-end hospitals too, granting Equalize Health a larger percentage.  

Recently, Equalize Health has started “Equalize Health 2030.” They partner with local healthcare workers and innovators to codesign health solutions, applying expertise in user-centered design, strategy, marketing and ecosystem building to scale them for global impact. Ultimately, they aim to accelerate the historically slow product development process to reach patients faster and save lives.

We had a chance to catch up with Equalize Health (then D-Rev) CEO Krista Donaldson about all the new directions at the organisation, as well as the future of technology in the social design movement. Have a listen.