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How do we design with scarcity?

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

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
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

Social Design Circle Honoree
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

  • 2010 Curry Stone designprize winner Maya Pedal repurposes donated bicycles
  • Social Design Circle Honoree Nance Klehm runs thegroundrules a composting
  • In Myanmar 70 of the population depends on agriculture designprize
  • We love reading about all the good projects that Social
  • Repost socialdesigninsights November is here and so are new
  • meetourteam This is Eric J Cesal He is the foundations

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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.

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