Skip to main content?
Curry Stone Foundation
  • What is Social Impact Design?
    • Overview
    • Most Urgent Questions
  • About the Foundation
    • Overview
    • Programs
      • Curry Stone Design Collaborative
    • People
    • Awards
      • Overview
      • Grantees
      • Curry Stone Design Prize Winners
      • Social Design Circle Honorees
    • News
    • Connect with Us
  • Social Design Insights Podcast
  • What is Social Impact Design?
    • Overview
    • Most Urgent Questions
  • About the Foundation
    • Overview
    • Programs
      • Curry Stone Design Collaborative
    • People
    • Awards
      • Overview
      • Grantees
      • Curry Stone Design Prize Winners
      • Social Design Circle Honorees
    • News
    • Connect with Us
  • Social Design Insights Podcast
  • What is Social Impact Design?
    • Overview
    • Most Urgent Questions
  • About the Foundation
    • Overview
    • Programs
      • Curry Stone Design Collaborative
    • People
    • Awards
      • Overview
      • Grantees
      • Curry Stone Design Prize Winners
      • Social Design Circle Honorees
    • News
    • Connect with Us
  • Social Design Insights Podcast
Quick Links
  • Home
  • Advanced Search
  • Curry Stone Design Collaborative
  • Curry Stone Design Collaborative
  • In Memoriam
  • News
    • Archive
  • Videos
  • What are the most urgent questions of social impact design?
  • What is Social Impact Design?
  • About
    • Connect with Us
  • Design Prize
    • Curry Stone Design Prize Winners
    • Grantees
    • Social Design Circle Honorees
  • Social Design Insights
    • Karen Kubey
  • Explore by Keyword
  • Explore Major Topics
    • Advocacy
    • Community Development
    • Conflict and Disaster
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
    • Urban Strategies
  • Explore by Keyword
  • Advanced Search

How do we design with scarcity?

33-34 | Finding Plenty in a World of Scarcity, Part 1 & 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
Podcast
How do we design with scarcity? James Mitchell and Tatu Gatere are designers and social entrepreneurs at Orkidstudio, a multi-disciplinary firm at the intersection of design, business and social good. Tatu and James discuss their innovative approach to designing the process of social impact design.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment

Proximity Designs

2013 Prize Winner
CSF Grantee
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

Repair Café

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can anyone repair everyday objects? The Repair Café is both an organization and a global network of cafés that emphasize the repair of everyday objects in order to promote a culture of sustainability and reuse.
  • 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

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

The Association La Voûte Nubienne

Prize Winner
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

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

Connect With Us currystonefdn

  • Curry Stone Design Prize winner Liter of Light (@literoflight) has been awarded the Asia Pacific Social Innovation and Partnership Award (APSIPA) for its “Light it Forward” campaign, that challenges people to hand-build solar lamps for donation to electricity-deprived communities while paying tribute to frontliners of the COVID-19 pandemic. Inspired by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, the Light it Forward campaign gives Filipinos a chance to build solar lamps (swipe left to see @ria perform the challenge!) which takes less than 30 minutes, challenge their friends and family, and help communities living without electricity in the midst of this global health
  • Recipient of the 2020 Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (@lacma) annual Art + Technology Grant, artistic duo Rael San Fratello are exploring the potential of Indigenous mud-based building materials through 3D printing to create large scale architectural work. Conceptualised and being executed by architect and #SocialDesignInsights #podcast guest Ronald Rael (@rrael) and architect Virginia San Fratello (@vasfsf), along with their team at Emerging Objects, the project titled “Casa Covida” seeks to elevate “traditional clay craft at the scale of architecture and pottery. The end goal of this endeavor is to demonstrate that low-cost and low-labor construction that is accessible,
  • Sandhya Naidu Janardhan (@sandhyajnaidu), Managing Director of our Mumbai based design studio, Curry Stone Design Collaborative (CSDC), recently shared her insights on using design for inclusive community building in the Melbourne Microfinance Institute
  • Catch Sandhya Naidu Janardhan (@sandhyajnaidu), Managing Director of our Mumbai based design studio Curry Stone Design Collaborative, at the Inclusive Urbanism Series webinar discussing the importance of community based participatory design, making design accessible and establishing value systems that will transform urban development. Links to the Facebook and YouTube live stream are in the bio. The Inclusive Urbanism Series is being organised by The Urban Vision (@theurbanvision), The Red Dot Foundation and Stanford CDDRL Leadership Network for Change. This live webinar series with thought leaders explores ideas for urbanism and programming to support marginalized communities. @prathimamanohar @pinthecreep @_theurbanvision_ #CSF #CurryStone #Webinar #InclusiveCities #InclusiveUrbanism
  • (Link in the bio) “I want girls, who have big dreams and ideas, to have zero barriers to access the tools they need to be successful. That tool might be a hammer, a little extra confidence to try something new, or the ability to see yourself in the world of STEM.” - @emilypilloton Congratulations to Emily Pilloton on the release of her much-awaited book, Girls Garage- a 300 page compendium for young girls, which covers all the essential tools and skills one needs to learn how to build, several how-to projects and profiles of inspiring girls and women. Formerly known
  • (Link in the bio) “For nearly every injustice in the world, there is an architecture that has been planned and designed to perpetuate it.” Read this powerful piece by Bryan C. Lee Jr. (@bcleejr), co-founder of design justice practice and Social Design Circle Honoree, Colloqate (@colloqate), where he critiques the role of architecture and design and its complicity in perpetuating a culture of racial discrimination in the United States. He is also one of the organisers of Design as Protest, which is hosting its Day of Action today (next image for details), June 5 at 12 PM CST/1PM EST Catch

Get Our Newsletters

Occasional newsletter that keeps you up to date on our recent podcasts, social impact design news and more.

Curry Stone Foundation - Home

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.

  • What is Social Impact Design?
  • About the Foundation
  • Awards
  • Social Design Insights
  • Connect with Us
  • Explore by Keyword

Contact Us

985 SW Disk Dr. Suite 110
Bend, OR 97702

541.323.2299
info@currystone.org

REQUESTS FOR FUNDING

We are struggling to comprehend the magnitude and horror during this period of Covid-19.

The deaths, the illnesses, millions unemployed, millions in quarantine, borders closed and the disruption of normalcy.

Curry Stone Foundation is receiving numerous unsolicited requests for support in light of this crisis. Many of these have significant merit, and we understand the need is great.

Prior the Pandemic, our budget for 2020 and 2021 was committed to projects still in process, in India and elsewhere. Now, as a direct result of the crisis, we anticipate that these will need supplemental funds to reach completion. As these projects impact fragile, marginalized populations, we need to reserve emergency funds for that purpose.

For these reasons, we will not be able to assist financially with any immediate requests for funds.

Appreciatively,

Curry Stone Foundation

© 2020 Curry Stone Foundation. All Rights Reserved.