Community Development

Should designers be outlaws? Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman of Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman discuss their practice at the Tijuana/San Diego border and how design transcends politics.

Community Development

03 | The Street As a Revolution

Should designers be outlaws? Mark Lakeman of the City Repair Project discusses motives and methods for igniting neighborhood change, street by street.

Community Development
Environment

04 | Engaging Community, Engaging Practice

Should designers be outlaws? Arquitectura Expandida discusses its approach to working in informal communities alongside (and sometimes around) government.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

05 | Flirting with Illegality

Should designers be outlaws? Santiago Cirugeda - Spain’s 'Guerrilla Architect’ - explains how he challenges urban authority and makes neighborhoods work for everyone.

Advocacy
Community Development

10-11 | Emily Pilloton and John Peterson Argue for Design as the Great Equalizer, Part 1 & 2

Can design challenge inequality? John Peterson and Emily Pilloton share their practices and discuss how design can subvert structural inequality.

Advocacy
Community Development

100 | Designing Portals to Connect the World

Design at the Intersection of Technology and Humanity Michelle Moghtader is the Director of Global Development & Co-Founder of Shared Studios, as well as a journalist and community organizer.

Community Development

Design at the Intersection of Technology and Humanity Hal Aronson, Ph.D., is the co-founder of WE CARE Solar – an organization that provides light and power to medical facilities across the developing world.

Community Development

102 | Putting Humans at the Center of Design

Design at the Intersection of Technology and Humanity Daniel Feldman and Adam Reineck of Ideo.org join us to talk about human-centered design.

Community Development
Environment
Healthcare

110 | Cities of the Future, Cities of the Past

Engaging + Reframing the 'Refugee' Crisis Kilian Kleinschmidt is an international networker, development, and migration expert with 30 years of experience in a wide range of countries, emergencies, and refugee camps as a United Nations official, Aid worker, and diplomat.

Community Development

111 | Adapting our Global Institutions to Today’s Challenges

Engaging + Reframing the 'Refugee' Crisis Dr. Nina Hall’s advocacy and research span varying fields. Her professional work looks specifically at how international agencies like UNHCR, IOM, UNDP, DFID, etc. are grappling with climate change, new threats in the age of global migration, urbanization, and climate change.

Community Development

112 | Giving Migrants a Voice

Engaging + Reframing the 'Refugee' Crisis Mariam Traore Chazalnoel is a Senior Policy Officer at the Geneva Headquarters of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Community Development

113 | Opening the World to Refugees

Engaging + Reframing the 'Refugee' Crisis The Refugee Academy is a Berlin-based non-profit that creates learning spaces for refugees seeking to assimilate.

Advocacy
Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

114 | Hacking Tech to Assist Refugees

Engaging + Reframing the 'Refugee' Crisis Initially a “wedding registry for humanitarian aid,” NeedsList is software that any organization can license to match needs and offers in real-time for urgent local needs.

Community Development

116 | This is Architecture as Well

Engaging + Reframing the 'Refugee' Crisis Rania Qawasma of Architecture for Refugees joins us to discuss what designers can do to help welcome refugees.

Community Development

12 | Why All Architecture is Social

Can design challenge inequality? Giancarlo Mazzanti shares his thoughts on transforming Medellin and how great architecture can bring neighborhoods together.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

13 | How to Design a School for $200

Can design challenge inequality? David Barragán of Al Borde discusses how design can empower a community to become their own designers & builders.

Community Development

14 | Combining Ancient Traditions and Contemporary Social Design

Can design challenge inequality? Active Social Architecture is a Kigali-based architecture practice that designs and builds contemporary re-elaborations of vernacular Rwandan architecture.

Advocacy
Community Development

17 | Mitigating Climate-Based Disaster Before it Strikes

Can design prevent disaster? Mohammed Rezwan of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha details his designs for floating communities.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

19-20 | The Trajectory of Social Design, Part 1 & 2

Can we design community engagement? Sergio Palleroni discusses his thirty year career in Social Impact Design

Community Development
Environment
Housing

21-22 | Building Community a Block at a Time, Part 1 & 2

Can we design community engagement? Brent Brown of bcWORKSHOP tells us how they serve marginalized communities in the Rio Grande Valley.

Community Development
Housing

23 | How do we make life into art, and vice versa?

Can we design community engagement? Project Row Houses is a neighborhood based nonprofit art and cultural organization working on grassroots development in Houston’s 3rd ward.

Advocacy
Community Development

24-25 | Tools for Urban Action, Part 1 & 2

Can design reclaim public space? Ecosistema Urbano & Interboro share their stories about how they shaped a practice around public space.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

26 | Making Public Space Productive

Can design reclaim public space? Chelina Odbert and Jennifer Toy of the Kounkuey Design Initiative share their thoughts on how to engage community.

Community Development
Environment

29-30 | The New Informal City, Part 1 & 2

Can we design a slum-friendly city? Urban-Think Tank discusses their urban strategy and how they work against structural inequality in cities.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

31 | Clothing, Currency and Community

Can we design a slum-friendly city? Anshu Gupta of Goonj discusses his unique methodology for community development: clothes as currency.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

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

How do we design with scarcity? Line Ramstad discusses the origin of Gyaw Gyaw and introduces their methods.

Community Development
Environment

36 | Changing the Way We Make Fire

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

40 | Activating Community Voices

What can design do to promote peace? Isella Ramirez of Hester Street discusses their strategies for making communities be heard.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

41 | Recognizing the Unrecognized

What can design do to promote peace? Malkit Shoshan of the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory discusses the architecture of conflict.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

44 | The Blue Economy of the Future

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Jan Jongert of Superuse Studios shares experiences in designing new forms of ecology within the city.

Community Development
Environment

46 | Gardening as Urban Action

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Marco Clausen of Prinzessinnengärten discusses how they came to pioneer a form of mobile gardening, and the positive impacts it has had on their city.

Community Development
Environment

47 | Using Design to Bring Down Crime

Does design create politics or vice versa? Kathryn Ewing and Don Shay of VPUU outline how community-based planning can make real results in crime prevention.

Community Development
Housing

51 | Collective Mapping as a Tool for Social Change

Does design create politics or vice versa? Iconoclasistas discusses the practice of collective mapping and how it can be mobilized to achieve social justice.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

54 | Designing a Post-Industrial Future

How do we democratize design? John Fetterman of Braddock, PA, shares his thoughts on how to imagine a new future in a post-industrial landscape.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

55-56 | Designing for the Future, Part 1 & 2

How do we democratize design? Diébédo Francis Kéré discusses the origins of his practice, and how good design builds community.

Community Development
Environment

79-80 | Inciting Radical Communities, Part 1 & 2

How can cities be reimagined by their citizens? Two central figures in public art and community building unveil how they help communities take control of their own futures.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

82 | Resilience’s Frontline

Is Resilience Still Relevant? Mathew Sanders details the pioneering struggle of the people of Isle de Jean Charles in confronting climate change.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Housing
Resilience

83 | Human-powered Resilience in Action

Is Resilience Still Relevant? Architect Hsieh Ying-Chun joins host Eric Cesal to talk about how people can power rebuilding after disaster.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Housing
Resilience
Urban Strategies

84-85 | Architecture, Wake Up, It’s a New Day, Part 1 & 2

Is Resilience Still Relevant? Mario and Nuno do Rosario discuss the history of design in Mozambique from Independence to the present-day.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Resilience
Urban Strategies

86 | Disaster, Design and Development

Is Resilience Still Relevant? As the world faces a rising tide of disasters and climate-induced migration, there are serious questions as to whether the design community is prepared to offer solutions meaningful to the crises humanity faces.

Community Development
Housing
Resilience

88 | How to Make Useful Noise

Is Resilience Still Relevant? By the middle of this century, up to 300 million people will be displaced by climate change and climate change disasters. What is the ethical role of designers in adapting the built environment to such changes?

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Housing
Resilience
Urban Strategies

89 | How to Make More Integrated Humans

Is Resilience Still Relevant? We had a chance to speak with Marcin Jakubowski on Social Design Insights, where he and our host Eric Cesal spoke about the future of agriculture, industry, and how to make more evolved humans.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

90 | Building Coalitions the Right Way

Who Designs the Designers? Building upon an expansive career aiding in the education and support of designers, Jason Schupbach is the Dean of the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University.

Advocacy
Community Development

91 | Designing with Love

Who Designs the Designers? Katie Swenson is a nationally recognized design leader, researcher, writer, and educator. Her work explores how critical design practice can and should promote economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment
Healthcare
Housing

92 | Do Good Stuff While You’re Here

Who Designs the Designers? For twenty years, the Prince Claus Fund and the Prince Claus Award has supported cultural development and practice in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe. The Fund supports artists and practitioners from many different fields, ranging from artists, to architects and cartoonists.

Advocacy
Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Healthcare

93 | Developing New Forms of Community Design

Who Designs the Designers? Orkidstudio is a social enterprise based in Nairobi, Kenya, which focuses not only on the design of great buildings, but on the design of design & construction processes in ways that promote equity, inclusion, and social development.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

94 | The Evolving Picture of Design Philanthropy

Who Designs the Designers? Kyle Reis has extensive corporate and social design experience, allowing him to be a valuable consultant in a range of fields. Currently, along with his philanthropic work, he serves as CEO of the consulting firm, Cooper Carry.

Advocacy
Community Development

96 | Knowing the Business of Social Design

Who Designs the Designers? Katie Crepeau is a consultant whose work helps social impact designers grow their organizations.

Advocacy
Community Development

97 | 2018 Year in Review

Who Designs the Designers? Emiliano Gandolfi and Eric Cesal reflect on a full year of Social Design Insights.

Advocacy
Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Environment
Healthcare
Housing

98 | Empathy Overdrive

Design at the Intersection of Technology and Humanity Ken Banks, Founder of kiwanja.net, devotes himself to the application of mobile technology for positive social and environmental change. He has spent the last two decades working on projects in Africa.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

99 | Catching Up with D-Rev 2.0

Design Foundation Initiative

Design at the Intersection of Technology and Humanity D-Rev, a nonprofit product development company based in San Francisco designs, develops and distributes radically affordable world-class medical products

Community Development

Activating Public Spaces

How can art help activate public spaces? Transforming desolate corners into thriving social spaces, in a neighbourhood that lacks usable common areas, shows the potential of placemaking tools and community-led initiatives in this public housing colony

Advocacy
Community Development

Active Social Architecture

Does school design have value beyond creating a place to educate children? A Rwanda-based practice, Active Social Architecture (ASA) focuses on social architecture, affordable solutions, and the use of local materials.

Advocacy
Community Development

Al Borde

How does constraint lead to creativity? Al Borde is a collaborative and experimental architecture studio that uses participatory processes and research to work within extreme constraints.

Community Development

Alliance of Community Trainers

Can design increase civic engagement? The Alliance of Community Trainers works with communities to create a shared vision and to empower communities with tools for problem solving, conflict resolution, alternative technology, environmental sustainability and more.

Advocacy
Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Environment
Resilience
Urban Strategies

Anna Heringer

2009 Prize Winner

Is sustainability about working within scarcity or finding natural abundance? Anna Heringer is an award-winning leader in architecture who utilizes the skills of the communities she works in as well as low-tech, sustainable materials like mud and bamboo.

Advocacy
Community Development

Aprovecho Research Center

Are open source, global standards for clean, efficient cook stoves possible? Aprovecho Research Center (ARC) is dedicated to researching, developing, and disseminating appropriate technological solutions for meeting the basic human needs of refugees and impoverished people.

Advocacy
Community Development

Architecture for Humanity

2013 Prize Winner

Vision Award Recipient

What is the role of architects in communities in need? Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, recipients of the first Curry Stone Design Prize Vision Award, have been committed to social impact design since co-founding Architecture for Humanity in 1999.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Arquitectura Expandida

Should designers be outlaws? Founded in 2010, Arquitectura Expandida (AXP) is a design collective based in Bogota, Colombia focused on building structures for and with communities that cannot afford to go through official channels for design and construction.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Arquitecturas Colectivas

How can global practices and individuals share ways to effect change within the built environment? Arquitecturas Colectivas is a massive, open-source network interested in the participatory construction of the built environment. The common thread is a willingness to manipulate the fabric of the built environment.

Advocacy
Community Development

Asiye eTafuleni

Can design reclaim public space? Asiye eTafuleni (AeT) is a South African non-profit focused on promoting inclusive urban planning and design to support the livelihoods of informal workers operating in public spaces not officially allotted to them.

Community Development

Auroville Earth Institute

Can traditional building techniques serve modern needs? Auroville Earth Institute (AVEI) is a pioneering organization that has led in research and implementation of earth-based & sustainable building.

Community Development
Environment

Bait al Karama

How can a women-led culinary school promote peace and understanding? Bait al Karama, Palestinian Nablus’ first women’s center, combines a culinary social enterprise with cultural activities. Translated as “House of Dignity,” it is located in an area devastated by conflict.

Advocacy
Community Development

Barefoot College

Can the rural poor attain self-sufficiency through design? Barefoot College is an Indian organization that encourages the rural poor to attain self-sufficiency by providing training in education, technology, and work skills.

Community Development

bcWORKSHOP

Can architects build community as well as buildings? bcWORKSHOP works in neighborhoods lacking access to designers. Its programs are committed to building community and begin by acknowledging that social structure is the best guide to designing physical structures.

Community Development
Housing

Bethlehem Inn

How can designers address poverty in American cities? Bethlehem Inn provides shelter to individuals and families experiencing homelessness in Central Oregon.

Community Development
Housing
Resilience

Build Change

What is needed to rebuild resiliently after a disaster? Denver-based non-profit Build Change designs disaster-resistant houses and schools for emerging nations, then trains builders, homeowners, engineers and government officials to build them using simple, culturally appropriate, and cost-effective techniques.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)

2012 Prize Winner

Can design increase civic participation? The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) collaborates with designers, educators, advocates, students, and communities to make educational tools that demystify complex policy and planning issues.

Advocacy
Community Development

Chautauqua Poets & Writers

Can community engagement be cultivated using artistic expression? The Chautauqua Poets & Writers features award-winning writers who bring the community together with their insights.

Community Development

City Repair Project

How can public space be reclaimed to forge stronger communities? Portland, Oregon-based City Repair Project (CRP) seeks to address America’s lack of community gathering spaces by empowering neighborhoods to reclaim public spaces and creatively repurpose them to bring people together.

Community Development
Environment

Collectif Etc.

Is there an alternative to a top down, hierarchical civic design process? Collectif Etc is a French design collective that challenges top down, hierarchical civic design. All stakeholders, from experts to the citizens themselves have a role—and a voice.

Community Development

Coloco

Can a city work as an ecosystem? Coloco is a collective of landscapers, artists, urban planners, and botanists working in a variety of mediums including mapping, physical gardening, and advocacy.

Community Development
Environment
Urban Strategies

Communitere

Should disaster victims be empowered to create their own recovery? Communitere is an international disaster nonprofit operating that creates dynamic, collaborative hubs in communities affected by disaster, empowering residents to take an active role in their own recovery.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Ctrl+Z

Is architecture more about community participation than materials? Ctrl+Z Architecture practices collaborative, participatory, self-construction initiatives throughout the world. It believes that at its heart, architecture is more about interaction with communities than specific materials or approaches.

Community Development
Environment
Urban Strategies

Designing Justice + Designing Spaces

How can designers challenge structural racism? Founded by Deanna Van Buren in 2015, Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS) is an Oakland-based architecture and real estate development non-profit working to end mass incarceration through place-based solutions that address its root causes: poverty, racism, unequal access to resources, and the criminal justice system itself.

Advocacy
Community Development
Resilience

Detroit Collaborative Design Center

Can Design Challenge Inequality? The Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) is a multi-disciplinary non-profit architecture and urban design firm. Its mission is to help revive the urban landscape of Detroit through innovative design and collaborative community practices.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Earth Activist Training

Can we design education for environmental sustainability? Author, activist and founder Starhawk offers Earth Activist Training in permaculture, nature awareness, earth based spirituality and more for individuals, teachers and community groups.

Community Development
Environment
Resilience
Urban Strategies

Echeverri & Fajardo

2009 Prize Winner

Can improving the built environment in impoverished neighborhoods transform a city? Fajardo and Echeverri implemented a bold program in Medellín. By training architects to build parks and public buildings in impoverished neighborhoods, Medellin was transformed from “world’s deadliest city” into a vibrant, livable place.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

El Equipo Mazzanti

Why is all architecture social? El Equipo Mazzanti is a Colombian design studio specializing in socially driven architectural design and academic research.

Advocacy
Community Development

Elemental

2010 Prize Winner

Can public housing be designed to encourage resident ownership? ELEMENTAL engages in projects ranging from housing to public space to objects to buildings, covering a wide spectrum of interests. One of the firm´s hallmarks is participatory design, in which the architects work closely with the client and users.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman

How can borders be places of innovation, creativity and exchange? Central to Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman’s work is the idea that “borders” are not places to be defended, but can promote innovation and exchange.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Fallen Fruit

What if our cities become places that grow natural resources for anyone to share? The art collective Fallen Fruit plants fruit trees in public spaces for everyone to share. They invite citizens to re-imagine public participation, urban space and the meaning of community.

Community Development
Environment

Farm Cultural Park

Can rejuvenation through art transform a forgotten town? 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.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory

Is there a relationship between architecture, planning, politics and human rights? The Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory (FAST) is a think tank founded from a desire to spark a discussion about how political powers use architecture and architects to implement ideological agendas.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Francis Kéré

Can an architect truly straddle both first world success and community development in the developing world? Diébédo Francis Kéré is a Burkinabe architect based in Berlin, Germany, whose work straddles community development in the developing world and award-winning architecture in the first world.

Community Development
Environment

FrontlineSMS

2011 Prize Winner

Can SMS technology be harnessed as a powerful information dissemination tool? Frontline SMS is software that acts as an information dissemination service for text messages. It uses cell service, not internet access, to create communication networks and exchange information.

Advocacy
Community Development

Girls Garage (formerly Project H Design)

Can design challenge inequality? Girls Garage (formerly Project H Design) is a construction and design school for girls and gender-expansive youth ages 9-18. Located in Berkeley, California, its programs range from carpentry and activist art classes to design-build programs where high school students construct full-scale architectural projects for community-based clients.

Advocacy
Community Development

Goonj

How can donated clothing be translated into community renewal? Goonj is a non-governmental organization based in Delhi. It barters clothing and other donated items to pay laborers from the community to carry out development projects in poorer areas.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

Gulf Coast Community Design Studio

How can the community be integrated into the rebuilding process? A professional service and outreach program of Mississippi State University’s College of Architecture, Art + Design, Gulf Coast Community Design Studio (GCCDS) was established in Biloxi, Mississippi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to provide design services to devastated communities throughout the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Over time, it has evolved to address long-term issues of equitable community resilience.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Gyaw Gyaw

Can architecture help stateless people put down roots? 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.

Community Development
Environment

Hester Street Collaborative

How can neighborhoods be shaped by the people who live in them? Hester Street works to ensure neighborhoods are shaped by the people who live in them. They offer planning, design and community development assistance to community-based organizations, government and other agencies.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Hsieh Ying-Chun

2011 Prize Winner

How can a community contribute to a post-disaster rebuilding process? Hsieh Ying-Chun is a Taiwanese architect who works throughout Asia training villagers to build locally-appropriate dwellings in response to earthquake devastation.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster
Environment

Iconoclasistas

Can maps promote equality and strategies of resistance? Iconoclasistas is a Buenos Aires-based design duo. Their mission is to use cartography (maps) and other graphic arts to create new visions of historic representation, societal growth and participation.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Inteligencias Colectivas

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

Interboro

How can designers create a more inclusive space? Interboro is an architecture, urban design, and planning firm working across scales, from buildings to communities. They are known for a participatory, place-specific approach that helps build consensus around complex projects.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Interbreeding Field

Can Design Reclaim Public Space? Interbreeding Field is a Taiwanese educational program that creates installations in and about public space. Interbreeding Field’s work makes provocative commentary on how a space should or could be used.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Isla Urbana

Can DIY harvesting of rainwater solve a water crisis? Isla Urbana is a project dedicated to contributing to water sustainability in Mexico through rainwater harvesting.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

John Fetterman

Design Foundation Initiative

How can a town decimated by globalization be revitalized? John Fetterman is an American politician who, as Mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, led the urban rejuvenation of a post-industrial city.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

Kitaab Mahal – The Palace of Books

How can the widening education gap be bridged? Kitaab Mahal is a children's library at Natwar Parekh Colony, designed and built by Community Design Agency in collaboration with the residents.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Kounkuey Design Initiative

How can conversation with residents and deep engagement lead to community empowerment? The non-profit Kounkuey Design Initiative is based in Los Angeles, CA and Nairobi, Kenya. Using extensive community engagement, it reveals systemic needs and enlists the community in constructing solutions.

Community Development
Environment

Kraftwerk1

Can high quality, affordable housing be created in fringe areas of a city? With diverse and flexible housing types, participatory planning processes, and energy-efficient designs, Kraftwerk1 has proven that it’s possible to create high-quality affordable housing schemes in fringe areas of a city.

Community Development
Housing

Liter of Light

2012 Prize Winner

Can a plastic bottle bring light where electricity is scarce? Philippines based Liter of light is a global, open-source, grassroots movement committed to providing affordable, sustainable light to people with limited or no access to electricity.

Community Development

Luyanda Mpahlwa

2008 Prize Winner

Can a community be built with sand? Luyanda Mpahlwa is part of a vanguard of designers reshaping and re-envisioning South Africa’s post-apartheid architectural landscape.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Marjetica Potrč

2008 Prize Winner

Can participatory design inspire sustainable prosperity? Marjetica Potrč is an artist and architect who works on community-based projects characterized by participatory design and a concern for sustainability.

Community Development
Environment

Maya Pedal

2010 Prize Winner

Can bicycles power essential tasks and support microbusinesses? In rural Guatemala, energy sources are scarce. Maya Pedal repurposes donated bicycles into pedal-powered machines that can blend food, grind corn and lift water from wells, without requiring electricity.

Community Development

Means of Exchange (MOE)

How can we democratize currency? Means of Exchange is working on the reinvention of exchange currencies using local community currencies, shared resource platforms, crowdfunding and more.

Advocacy
Community Development

Mohammed Rezwan

How can design help flood prone communities to function when facilities and resources are under water? Founded by Mohammed Rezwan, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha is a nonprofit that works to support the environment and people affected by climate change-induced flooding in Bangladesh by transforming waterways into pathways for education, information, and technology.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment

Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz

Can a former salami factory be a home, gallery, film set and a commentary on eviction? Simultaneously a gallery, film project, home for two hundred displaced people (including fifty children) and a profound social and political commentary on an all too common problem: eviction, the Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove di Metropoliz (MAAM), “Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere” is a space unlike any other.

Advocacy
Community Development

Open Architecture Collaborative

Can design increase civic engagement? The Open Architecture Collaborative (OAC), formerly known as the Architecture for Humanity Network, is a global community mobilizing architects, designers, and a diverse range of professionals who shape the built environment with the skills to work with communities experiencing systemic racism and marginalization.

Advocacy
Community Development

PICO Colectivo

Is design about the process or the result? PICO focuses on interventions in gathering spaces. They believe that architecture is not an end it in itself. The process of understanding the interaction of life and space is vital.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Plan Selva

How can design address the problem of education for internally neglected communities? Plan Selva is the Peruvian Education Ministry’s plan to bring quality education to remote regions. The result self-empowers indigenous people to cultivate their knowledge and live productively in the Amazon.

Community Development
Environment

Prinzessinnengärten

Why should citizens and activists reclaim public space? Prinzessinnengärten is a bottom-up community garden in Berlin notable for both its scale and its ingenuity in starting a public conversation about the democratic use of public space.

Community Development
Environment

Project Row Houses

Can artists create solutions instead of just social commentary? Located in Houston’s Northern Third Ward, Project Row Houses believes artists can catalyze social change and that art community are integrally linked– neither is viable without the other.

Advocacy
Community Development
Housing

Proximity Designs

2013 Prize Winner

Can design help raise the income of small hold farmers in Myanmar? Proximity Designs is a not-for-profit social enterprise working to reduce poverty for rural families in Myanmar.

Community Development

Public Architecture

How can standard design firms be supported in pro-bono work? San Francisco based Public Architecture formalizes pro bono service within architecture, interiors and landscape design. Their flagship program, 1+, supports firms in donating 1% of their time to pro-bono work.

Community Development

Public Works

How can neighborhood residents reassert control over their own futures? Public Works is a London-based critical design nonprofit straddling architecture, art, performance and activism. It addresses the challenges of urbanism, seeking ways that communities can reassert control over their futures.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Raumlabor Berlin

If utopia eluded us, what’s next? Raumlabor Berlin practices “research-based design.” Their practice intersects city planning, architecture, art and urban intervention. Central to their work are projects that disrupt a community’s notions about space.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Recetas Urbanas

How can citizens take planning into their own hands? Santiago Cirugeda is the founder and principal of Recetas Urbanas (Urban Recipes), a design & advocacy collective of architects, lawyers and social workers based in Seville, Spain.

Advocacy
Community Development

Refugee Academy

Can refugees be a national asset? Berlin’s The Refugee Academy responds to the influx of refugees into Germany. Their work is about designing new ways to think about migration.

Advocacy
Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Repair Café

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

How do we design with scarcity? RootStudio is a multidisciplinary design studio originating in Oaxaca City, Mexico that develops structures and housing for communities in need.

Community Development
Housing

Rural Studio

Can we design community engagement? The Rural Studio is a groundbreaking off-campus designbuild program of Auburn University. Founded in 1993 by D.K. Ruth and Samuel Mockbee, the program established a new breed of community-based design education.

Community Development
Housing

Rural Urban Framework (RUF)

2015 Prize Winner

Can design address China’s rural to urban migration? Rural Urban Frameworks (RUF) is a research and design collaborative working to help recover and rebuild villages across China that have been affected by the massive rural-to-urban migrations.

Community Development
Housing

Sanergy

Can waste management create jobs and improve hygiene? Launched in Nairobi’s slums, Sanergy is a business and sanitation initiative. Low-cost pay toilets are run by locals as a business. Waste is processed into fertilizer and sold to commercial farms.

Community Development
Environment

Semillas para el Desarrollo Sostenible

Can schools address development challenges? Semillas para el Desarrollo Sostenible (“Seeds for Sustainable Development”) is a Peruvian NGO providing service to public and private entities in the design of educational, residential, and exhibition spaces, community centers, and spaces of public, cultural and heritage interest.

Advocacy
Community Development

Sergio Palleroni

Can social impact design be taught? Sergio Palleroni is a leader, practitioner and educator in social impact design. In 1995, Palleroni founded the BASIC Initiative, a program that moved students from the design studio into communities.

Community Development
Environment

Slow/d

Design Foundation Initiative

Can the product-to-consumer supply chain be made more equitable? Slow/d is an Italian organization seeking to disrupt traditional supply chains in design by connecting designers, consumers & artisans directly.

Advocacy
Community Development

Slum Redevelopment

How can a designer build trust among residents under a constant threat of eviction? The residents of a Ahmednagar slum live under a constant threat of eviction. CDA is focusing on trust building, empowering residents to take on development and construction of their homes.

Community Development
Housing
Resilience
Urban Strategies

SPARC

2016 Prize Winner

Vision Award Recipient

What can slum dwellers teach design professionals? SPARC organizes, legitimizes and advocates for India’s urban poor, seeking improved living conditions and advancements in rights. SPARC believes that with structural support, the urban poor can make their destinies.

Advocacy
Community Development

Stalker

Does design create politics or vice versa? Stalker is a collective of artists, architects, activists and others whose work focuses on the margins of the city.

Advocacy
Community Development
Environment
Urban Strategies

STEALTH.unlimited

What are the limits of architectural practice? STEALTH.unlimited challenges notions about architectural practice by connecting arts, urban research, cultural activism and interventions. They have a particular focus on ‘common’ spaces shared by both the private and the public.

Advocacy
Community Development
Urban Strategies

studioBASAR

Can design reconcile the legacy of brutal authoritarianism and the new forces of the market? studioBASAR is an architectural office and a “Search and Rescue” team conducting urban observation and intervention. It searches for overlooked urban conditions. Then the ‘rescue’ encompasses architectural interventions.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Studios Kabako

2014 Prize Winner

Can art transform a nation torn apart by conflict and strife? Studios Kabako’s cultural programs and urban interventions create a network for artistic expression in a city isolated by war, political corruption, civil strife, and poverty. In addition, through international commissions and performances, the studio informs an international audience of the geopolitical consequences of postcolonial instability and the exploitation of the Central Africa region.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

TAMassociati/Emergency

2013 Prize Winner

How can architecture bring dignity in war-torn regions? Studio TAMassociati is a nonprofit architecture firm that specializes in designing healthcare facilities in war-torn areas, highlighting the connection between the built environment and the basic needs of life.

Community Development
Environment

Theaster Gates

Can we design community engagement? Theaster Gates is an artist, curator, urbanist and facilitator. His projects catalyze social engagement and political change. Gates’ studio practice works in tandem with urban interventions integrating art and community regeneration.

Advocacy
Community Development

thinkpublic

Can better human services be co-designed? Founded in 2004 as the first of its kind, Thinkpublic is a London-based social design agency that works with public sector and nonprofit organizations to improve the quality of the services they provide.

Advocacy
Community Development

Transition Network

2009 Prize Winner

Can your neighborhood become a self-sufficient community? The Transition Network is an organization whose role is to inspire, encourage, connect, support, and train communities as they create initiatives that rebuild resilience and reduce CO2 emissions.

Community Development
Environment

Turquoise Mountain

Can revitalizing traditional crafts bring economic stability to areas of conflict? Turquoise Mountain is a nonprofit focused on regenerating urban areas and furthering the renaissance of the traditional craft industry in the Middle East.

Community Development
Conflict and Disaster

Urban-Think Tank

How can urban dwellers participate in the construction of their own built environment? Urban-Think Tank (U-TT) is an interdisciplinary design studio dedicated to high-level research and design at a variety of scales. The studio champions collaborative work with intended users as a tool to develop spaces and projects that reinterpret the potential of unbuilt areas.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Urbz

How can slum dwellers be protected against profit-minded developers? Urbz is an experimental action and research collective specialized in participatory planning and design. They work with citizens, associations, local governments, and private clients in Mumbai, Bogotá, and Geneva.

Community Development
Urban Strategies

Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading

Can urban upgrading reduce crime? In Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township, Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) uses urban planning to fight crime, developing interventions in high-crime spots. They create decent, livable communities through local planning.

Community Development
Housing

YA + K

Can design free the public from hierarchical constraints in society? YA + K is a French collective that seeks new ways of understanding and defining public space. Their projects focus on low-tech innovation and the creation of new economies.

Community Development
Environment

YAYA Arts Centre