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May 8, 2013
Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Challenge
The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and the Make It Right Foundation have issued a $250,000 challenge for manufacturers to design a product for the affordable housing market, which is both safe for human and environmental health and is designed for re-use. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2013.
No more “waste” for incinerators, oceans, or landfills. We’re asking innovators to rethink common materials–such as PVC–and come up with revolutionary new products that can meet or beat conventional products on the basis of price, performance, availability and “eco-effectiveness.”
Click here to learn more about the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Challenge, online at C2CCertified.org.
May 8, 2013
Aga Khan: Nahr el-Bared Refugee Camp
Continuing our coverage of shortlisted projects for the 2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, today we profile the Reconstruction of Nahr el-Bared Refugee Camp in Tripoli, Lebanon. Leading the design were the United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Nahr el-Bared Reconstruction Commission for Civil Action & Studies.
Reconstructing a camp of 27,000 refugees which was 95% destroyed during the 2007 war involved a planning effort with the entire community, followed by a series of eight construction phases. Limited land and the exigency of recreating physical and social fabrics were primary considerations. Established in 1948, the camp followed the extended-family pattern and building typology of the refugees’ villages. In a layout where roads provided light and ventilation, the goal was to increase non-built areas from 11% to 35%. It was achieved by giving each building an independent structural system allowing for vertical expansion up to four floors on a reduced footprint.
Click here to learn more about the Reconstruction of Nahr el-Bared Refugee Camp, online at AKDN.org.
May 8, 2013
Geoff Piper’s Career Defining Moment
Continuing to draw from Design Affects‘ breakthrough piece, “15 Social Impact Designers Reveal Their Career Defining Moment,” today we hear from Geoff Piper of Five Dot Design Build and The Global Studio. In his response, Piper explained:
I realized that I wanted to focus on public interest design during my graduate school education. I was on a public interest design program that was cleverly disguised as a design/build program and I saw the affect that architecture could have on a disenfranchised community. I learned that good design could empower people who had little public voice and bring together a community to create positive change. We built a library with the community and that building has become the focal point for the neighborhood, helping them to craft an identity and advocate for better services and more inclusion within the municipal government.
Click here to read more of Design Affects’ “15 Social Impact Designers Reveal Their Career Defining Moment,” online at DesignAffects.com.
May 7, 2013
Tipping Point Community Launches “T Lab”
One of our favorite, high-impact organizations is Tipping Point Community, which “finds the best organizations serving low-income families in the Bay Area and gives them the dollars and, more importantly, the support they need to realize their full potential so that they can help their clients do the same.” So we were naturally heartened to see the announcement of “T Lab,” the organization’s incubator of sorts to “design and test new approaches in the fight against poverty.” The first class of the program is expected to run September 30, 2013-March 28, 2014. Selected participants will work in teams of three and receive a $25,000 stipend. The deadline for applications is June 14, 2013.
Companies and investors spend billions to develop new products, technologies and services, but far less is invested in solving social problems. With 1.3 million people living in poverty, the stakes are high. In its inaugural year, T Lab will explore new solutions in childcare, pre-k education and prisoner re-entry. T Lab seeks 9 problem-solvers eager to engage in 6 months of designing, building and testing new solutions in the fight against poverty. Solving complex problems is messy. We embrace all potential outcomes as part of getting to the best solution. We let the work teach us. Those who fear failure need not apply.
Click here to learn more about T Lab, online at TippingPoint.org.
May 7, 2013
Aga Khan: Museum of Handcraft Paper
Continuing our coverage of shortlisted projects for the 2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, today we profile the Museum of Handcraft Paper for the Longshang Tribe in the Yunnan Province of China, designed by Trace Architecture Office, based in Beijing, China.
The Museum is located close to a village at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain, in the province of Yunnan, an area of significant Muslim presence. It provides exhibition space for ancient paper craft and artefacts produced locally. Six galleries clustered around a courtyard form a micro-village. The exhibition is extended through displays of paper-craft in the village. Texture is articulated through local materials, formal expression and visual connection with the landscape. The spatial experience of the village is consolidated within the museum. Interior spaces alternate between galleries and views beyond. Accommodation on upper levels includes offices, tea and guest rooms. Local timber, bamboo, handcrafted paper, low energy-consuming and decomposable natural materials are used.
Click here to learn more about the Museum of Handcraft Paper, online at AKDN.org.
May 7, 2013
Bryan Bell’s Career Defining Moment
We ring in Tuesday with another excerpt from Design Affects‘ breakthrough piece, “15 Social Impact Designers Reveal Their Career Defining Moment.” Today we hear from Bryan Bell, founder and executive director of Design Corps. In his response, Bell explained:
In 1985, when I was still in grad school, I happened to meet a partner of Mockbee Coker Howorth. In my interview, I met Sambo Mockbee who had completed one “charity house.” He hired me at $4 per hour to be in charge of designing three more such houses. We worked with a nun and United Way to find three eligible families. Watching Sambo work with these families, nine years before he started the Rural Studio, was life changing. The houses were individually designed for each family. Sambo did one, I did one, and we did one together. Even though the houses were not funded and never built, it taught me how great design was of great value to all. Main lesson is that design is about people not things.
Click here to read more of Design Affects’ “15 Social Impact Designers Reveal Their Career Defining Moment,” online at DesignAffects.com. Credit: Photograph by Victoria Ballard Bell.
May 6, 2013
CNN: “We Need More Women Designing Buildings”
SOSHL Studio founder Marika Shioiri-Clark and our own John Cary took to the pages of CNN.com this weekend to weigh in on the resurgent controversy surrounding Denise Scott Brown and the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The piece stems from comments made by Scott Brown in late-March, which spurred a Change.org petition that has elicited nearly 12,000 signatories.
In the end, Denise Scott Brown receiving equal recognition for a 22-year-old slight is not the point. The bigger issue is that the gender disparity in architecture, both symbolically and substantially, is not just a problem for women; it’s a problem for all of us. How might our shared built environment–our homes, hospitals, schools, workplaces and public spaces–be shaped differently if women were behind half the proverbial blueprints? How would it be different with the contributions of architects from racial minority groups, who make up only 2% of the profession?
Click here to read “We Need Women Designing Buildings,” online at CNN.com. Caption: Photo of Denise Scott Brown in Las Vegas, circa 1966, taken by Robert Venturi.
May 6, 2013
Aga Khan: Islamic Cemetery in Altach, Austria
Continuing our coverage of shortlisted projects for the 2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, today we profile the Islamic Cemetery in Altach, Austria, designed by Bernado Bader Architects of Dombirn, Austria.
The Cemetery serves Vorarlberg, the industrialised westernmost state of Austria, where over eight percent of the population is Muslim. It finds inspiration in the primordial garden, and is delineated by roseate concrete walls in an alpine setting, and consists of five staggered, rectangular grave-site enclosures, and a structure housing assembly and prayer rooms. The principal materials used were exposed reinforced concrete for the walls and oak wood for the ornamentation of the entrance facade and the interior of the prayer space. The visitor is greeted by and must pass through the congregation space with its wooden latticework in geometric Islamic patterns. The space includes ablution rooms and assembly rooms in a subdued palette that give onto a courtyard. The prayer room on the far side of the courtyard reprises the lattice-work theme with Kufic calligraphy in metal mesh on the ‘qibla’ wall.
Click here to learn more about the Islamic Cemetery in Austria, online at AKDN.org.
May 6, 2013
Emer Beamer’s Career Defining Moment
We start the week with a super short excerpt from Design Affects‘ breakthrough piece, “15 Social Impact Designers Reveal Their Career Defining Moment.” Today we profile Emer Beamer, UNEXPECT and Butterfly Works. In her very short response, Beamer writes:
At 28 years, my new husband and I were imagining our futures together, suddenly I knew I was ready to start on my life’s mission. That moment was the start of my global social innovation path.
Click here to read more of Design Affects’ “15 Social Impact Designers Reveal Their Career Defining Moment,” online at DesignAffects.com.
May 3, 2013
Aga Khan: Maria Grazia Cutuli Primary School
Continuing our coverage of short-listed projects for the $1,000,000 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, today we visit the Maria Grazia Cutuli Primary School in Herat, Afghanistan. The project was designed by 2A+P/A, IaN+, and Mario Cutuli, all based in Rome, Italy.
Built in honour of Italian journalist Maria Grazia Cutuli, murdered in Afghanistan in 2001, this school represents an alternative approach to emergency school design for war-torn areas. Like a small village, the complex is intended to resemble an unplanned juxtaposing of elements enclosed by a boundary wall. It accommodates eight classrooms, various staff accommodation, a double-height library and a garden which acts as a ‘green classroom.’ Built of reinforced concrete with brick cladding, the structures are painted rather than rendered, to save costs. The walls’ range of blue tones reflects the ‘lapis lazuli’ pigment used on local pottery, while window frames are in contrasting red.
Click here to learn more about the Maria Grazia Cutuli Primary School, online at AKDN.org.
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