“Design like you give a damn”; this phrase, borrowed from Cameron Sinclair, sums up the work of the five design activists featured in this FringeHog Friday Five. Each creates positive change in the world through architecture and design. Their projects are diverse, but they share common themes. All are open, collaborative, generative and DIY, the core values of the emerging era of design I blogged about recently called Designers R Us.

(1) Roberta Feldman is the Director of the City Design Center and UIC Professor of Architecture. She focuses on the practice of design in public spaces. One of the most innovative projects Dr. Feldman spearheads is “Design Matters: Best Practices in Affordable Housing”. Design Matters is the first Internet catalog of nationwide exemplary housing that is affordable for people with limited incomes.

(2) Brian Bell, founder of Design Corps , designs for the 98% of the population without architects. He calls it his dream job. In his book Good Deeds, Good Design he chronicles his work with architecture students who learn the social application of architecture through an internship program he started. The Shiloh Bus Shelter is one example of Brian’s Good Deeds, Good Design.

(3) John Peterson of Public Architecture would like to see his Day Labor Station deployed across the country. Peterson realizes the station is controversial, but says, “The design is based on the realities of the ways in which the day labor system operates, and responds to the needs and desires of the day laborers themselves, as clients”.The station is in the Design for the Other 90% exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. The exhibition highlights efforts by designers to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world’s population not traditionally served by professional designers. Mr. Peterson has also founded The One Percent Solution , a Match.com for architects and nonprofits with the mission of strengthening non-profits through design.

Daytime rendering by Phoebe Schenker & Margot Lystra

(4) Randy Hester is a Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental
Planning, University of California, Berkeley. His passion is sacred landscapes; site planning neighborhood design; environmental anomie; community participation; environmental justice; localism; community development, planning and design, place-appropriate economic development. To find out more check out his book, Design for Ecological Democracy

(5) Cameron Sinclair solves problems with architecture through the organization he co-founded aptly named Architecture for Humanity. His famous tagline and the title of his book, “Design like you give a damn,” encapsulate his mission. He uses architecture and design to solve world problems. His latest initiative is the Open Architecture Challenge . It is sponsored by AMD and the vision is to help enable affordable Internet access to 50% of the world by 2015.

del.icio.us Digg | Del.icio.us | EMail This Post | Comment | Permalink