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

  • Congratulations to Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal on winning the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2021. Through their writing, teaching and practice, Lacaton and Vassal have successfully argued that re-adaptation of social housing stock is preferable in aesthetic, economic and ecological terms. The #SocialDesignCircle #Honorees have always led by their dictum of “Never demolish, never remove or replace, always add, transform, and reuse!" Click on the link in our bio to listen to the duo on the #SocialDesignInsights #Podcast and learn more about their work. Images: 1) Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. Photo courtesy of Laurent Chalet. 2) Transformation of G, H, I Buildings, Grand
  • Click on the link in our bio to catch Debbie Aung Din Taylor, co-founder of Curry Stone Design Prize winning practice Proximity Designs (@proximitydesigns) on the Paradigms podcast, where she discusses the work of the Myanmar-based organization. Proximity Designs works closely with small farmers to design affordable solutions to agrarian processes, offers low risk loans and supports community-owned rural infrastructure projects to make agriculture a viable and sustainable source of livelihood. Image Credits: @proximitydesigns #CSF #CurryStoneFoundation #CurryStone #CSDP #designprize #myanmar #agriculture #agrariancrisis #smallfarmers #supportsmallfarmers #farmtech #designforagriculture #farmfinance #empathydrivendesign #proximitydesigns #smallfarmirrigation #irrigationsystem #irrigationsystems #sustainablefarmingpractices #sustainablefarming #sustainableagriculturalpractices #sustainableagriculture
  • We are proud to share that CSF has pledged $125,000 to the Architects Foundation
  • Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter for updates and stories from the field of social design, featuring practices from the Curry Stone network and around the world! Link in the bio. #CurryStoneFoundation #CSF #CurryStone #quarterlynewsletter #newsletter #socialdesign #socialdesignnews #socialjusticenews #socialjustice #communitydesign #communitydesigners #socialarchitecture #socialarchitect
  • Wishing all our followers and friends a warm and safe 2021! #CurryStoneFoundation #CurryStone #CSF
  • Riwaq (@riwaq_palestine), a Curry Stone #DesignPrize winner and Palestine-based architecture and heritage conservation organisation is hosting a virtual tour of Jerusalem villages and a Christmas concert on Saturday, 12th December 2020, at 1:00 pm (CST), 2:00 pm (EST), through Zoom. Purchase tickets on their website (link in the bio) and support their efforts to rebuild and preserve the cultural heritage of Palestine. #CSF #CurryStoneFoundation #CurryStone #palestine #conservativearchitecture #palestinianheritage #architecturalheritage #architecturalheritageconservation #jerusalem #riwaq #christmasconcert

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

© 2021 Curry Stone Foundation. All Rights Reserved.