Cameron Sinclair: Open source architecture

Founder member of Architecture for Humanity architect Cameron Sinclair “seeks architectural solutions to humanitarian crisis” by bringing design services to communities in need. Through competitions, workshops, educational forums, and partnerships with community organizations and other activities, Architecture for Humanity creates opportunities for architects and designers from around the world to place resources and expertise where skills and finance are scarce.

At university level, architecture and design programmes around the world have used AFH competitions and design criteria as a model for semester-long projects. Sinclair’s mantra is Design Like You Give a Damn – also a publication that offers a history of the movement toward socially conscious design, providing contemporary solutions to urgent needs such as basic shelter, healthcare, and education. Sinclair relays strong criticism suggesting that the architectural profession is guilty of embracing an ideal, where the perception of the role of the designer is seen as a service for the privileged. Through initiatives such as the Open architecture network, which engages an on-line community of designers in pressing social issues, providing access to open source architectural plans. This year they have issued a ‘real’ challenge to architects, designers and others around the world: to develop a proposal for the design and construction of technology centres in 3 regions across the globe that will support the ‘digital inclusion’ of communities in educational, social and business opportunities via the Internet.

Rural Studio

Based in the School of Architecture at Auburn University Alabama, Rural Studio forms part of a commitment to bridge learning in academia with ‘real’ world needs and problems. Along with the Urban studio programme, students create/design/build for local community contexts, putting education and learning to work creatively in meeting the needs of people and place. The mission of The Rural Studio is to allow students to find solutions to the needs of the community within the community’s own context, not from outside it. Abstract ideas based upon knowledge and study are transformed into workable solutions forged by real human contact, personal realization, and a gained appreciation for the culture.

The Rural Studio consists of three programs across the period of study – all taking students out of the institution to “form teams, to plan, design and build community projects”. Key to Rural Studio, is the making of ideas into habitable, affordable buildings. The 20K house is a unique project at the Rural Studio. The design for the house is not client or site specific, but rather intended as a prototype for low-income housing in Hale County. At present there does not exist a precedent for a house that can be built for $10,000 materials and $10,000 labor and profit. The 20K house aims to create that precedent [...] giving people an alternative to substandard housing or trailers.

Students at Rural studio offer up blogs of their projects as the process progresses, offering fantastic visual and personal insights to the making and realisation of ideas. Reminiscent of the communality of barn raising, each project opens up the richness of dialogue and relations that are built up between students and those who will live in and use the architecture.

Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

In this short presentation for the annual TED conference, Ken Robinson, makes the case for “creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it”. Ken Robinson led the British government’s 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy. His book Out of our minds explores the different ways in which creativity is undervalued and ignored in Western culture and particularly in our educational systems.

For more interviews and information on the work of Ken Robinson, check out the following sites:

IMNO

Ken Robinson

Philippe Starck: Why design?

Well known for the prolific nature of his design work, Starck’s menu of activity encompasses large architectural projects and interiors, through to the smallest minutiae of toothbrushes and garden trowels (or in Starck’s case, ceci n’est pas une trouelle), that allow us to function in such spaces. Starck didn’t complete his design school education at Ecole Nissim de Camondo in Paris. Athough he enrolled at the design school, he never attended. You don’t have to go to school if you have an incredibly rich life says Starck. In this talk he lays open ideas on how he sees the design process and why we need design. Starck describes creativity as the only beautiful job, caring for design not [...] for its own sake. That is a materialistic project but caring about an object or a place only if it gives a bit of life for my friends.