The issue of housing and poverty in many countries is a major concern that is overlooked
by many architects and designers. It is generally assumed by many designers that when
someone designs, they should design something that is to be craved for. A lack of socially
responsible designers who have a knowledge and understanding of these kind of
problems may be what is stopping larger scale solutions from being developed. Poverty is
not only a concern in developing countries, but is also evident in certain areas of privileged
countries. A good example would be Alabama or Mississippi in the United States. Often
the living conditions of areas like these are far worse than those found in developing
countries. The damage caused by natural disasters and systemic issues are two main
reasons why housing and poverty may be a major concern in an area or community. 1
billion people live in abject poverty, 4 billion live in fragile but growing economies and 1 in 7
people live in unplanned settlements. If nothing is done about the growing housing crisis in
the next 20 years, 1 in 3 people will live in unplanned settlements or refugee camps.
Cameron Sinclair is an award winning architect who has always taken an interest in
socially responsible design. He was born in London, England and studied architecture at
the University of Westminster and The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College
London. During the later stages of his education, Sinclair began to develop an interest in
social, cultural and humanitarian design. His post graduate thesis looked at creating
housing solutions for New Yorkʼs homeless through sustainable, transitional housing. The
ideas developed in his thesis were a starting point for his career. Sinclair contributes to
educating people about socially responsible design by giving lectures at universities and
contributing to a number of exhibitions on social justice design. Sinclair has also spoken at
a number of international conferences.
Within the overall issue of poverty and housing, Sinclair has addressed some more
specific issues. Sinclair believes that an architectural design should not just be designed
for the specific residents, but for the community as a whole. A design can either improve or
create a detriment to the community that the design is for. Housing solutions should not
just provide a roof over someones head but should also help them and their community
become self sufficient. Cameron Sinclair is not just focused on designing architecture and
providing shelter but is also focused on developing governance and stable networks within
these communities. Within many african communities, housing wasn't the main concern.
The HIV AIDS pandemic was. this gave Sinclair the idea of not only providing housing for
these communities but also getting health clinics to these people.
Many different organizations including the United Nations have responded to systemic
issues of poverty and natural disasters but have fallen short of Sinclairʼs standards. The
United Nations often respond slowly and cannot keep up with the needs of these often
devastated areas and communities. Cameron Sinclair really felt that their is a need to
deliver these systems and solutions quickly and effectively. Many designers are tired of
talking about change but not actually seeing any change happen. There are many partly
developed design solutions out there that haven't been but into practice because an
implementation plan has been too difficult to develop and resolve. It can be suggested by
many designers that an idea isn't properly an idea until it is fully implemented.
In 1999 Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr founded a charitable organization called
Architecture for Humanity. Architecture for Humanity develops architecture and design
solutions for humanitarian crises and provides free and readily available services to
communities. It was founded in response to the need for immediate long-term shelter for
returning refugees in Kosovo. This organization went on to work on many different projects
relating to systemic issues within communities. Many of their designs have a Creative
Commons Developing Nations license attached to them. This license means that the
licensed work can be shared and adapted as long as this is only done in a developing
nation and full attribution is given. This has allowed for construction designs and plans to
become easily accessible and readily available for use by architects and communities.
Cameron Sinclair has used Architecture for Humanity to promote humanitarian and social
design. He aimed to get more designers involved in this kind of work.
Architects for Humanity started as a website where designers would post their design
ideas for housing solutions for a specific problem such as the housing crisis is Kosovo.
Only after a few months the website had hundreds of entries and this lead to a number of
prototypes being built. As Architects for humanity started as a website with a staff of three,
it became increasingly difficult to keep up with all the ideas and requests that were coming
in. The solution to this problem was to embrace an open source model of business. This
involved local people developing local solutions for local problems. This also lead to over
50 local chapters being started with thousands of architects involved. Architects for
Humanity has become a huge network of designers and other professionals developing
solutions, all connected by a website. This open source model of business has provided a
solution to the problem of half developed ideas with no feasible way of implementation.
While giving a talk at a TED conference, Sinclair mentioned that he has a wish. “I wish to
develop a community that actively embraces innovative and sustainable design to improve
living conditions for all. Lets improve the living standards of 5 billion people with 10 million
solutions. After winning a TED prize the organization worked with Sun Microsystems and
Creative Commons to help set up the Open Architecture Network. The network included
file sharing, project management, a resource database and online design tools. It has over
20,000 members and contains over 3,000 projects.
Many of the solutions from Architects for humanity are not just about providing a single
function. For example they have developed a HIV AIDS clinic that turns into a movie
theatre at night and a shelter that also has a water tank. These are ideas that not only give
the community the basics they need but also provide them with the things needed to help
develop a strong sense of unity and integrity in their community.
Architects for Humanity focuses on three things. Advocacy, instigation and implementation.
They advocate for good, socially responsible design through workshops and lectures.
They also hold open source competitions and get the communities they are designing for
involved in the process. Architecture for Humanity has hosted a number of design
competitions focusing on developing solutions for systemic issues of poverty. Examples
being the Siyathemba youth sports and outreach facility and Design Ideas for Mobile
Health Clinics to Combat HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2007 they began hosting a
design competition on the Open Architecture Network called The Open Architecture
Challenge.
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