Recently, OSE has begun work on the full product release of the Seed Eco-Home: an affordable housing solution that doubles as a job training program. In the program, a novice can build a house independently for $60k, as it is designed in a modular, easy-to-build way. Additionally, OSE is now developing an apprenticeship to build 50 of these houses per year starting in 2023, with the goal to expand even further. The organization’s unique value proposition is to build these homes with 24 apprentices at a time using swarm build methods so that each house is finished in one week. Beginning with stick frame construction, OSE hopes to release a CEB version in one year from the initial product release. 

Jakubowski has been recognized on the Enrich List and gained the distinctions of a 2012 TED Senior Fellow, a 2013 Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, and a 2013 White House Champion of Change.

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. Join us below at the link.

The post 89 | How to Make More Integrated Humans appeared first on Curry Stone Foundation.

In these myriad roles, Stephenson has described disaster recovery as more a process than an outcome, where ultimate success depends on the degree to which the recovery actors are themselves empowered. Fundamentally, recovery takes place against a backdrop of historical factors and power dynamics, which must be acknowledged from the moment recovery begins and carry on throughout the long period of redevelopment. 

In the wake of the Haiti Earthquake in 2021, Stephenson questioned the capacities and preparedness among humanitarian agencies and local communities residing in vulnerable zones to efficiently tackle rebuilding without starting from scratch each time, as well as the attention paid to data collection, preservation and sharing for long term planning in disaster prone areas.

We had a chance to speak with Maggie on Social Design Insights, have a listen below. Click on the links at the left for more information about Maggie and her amazing work.

The post 88 | How to Make Useful Noise appeared first on Curry Stone Foundation.

Stephanie is the author of Anthropocene Back Loop: Experimentation in Unsafe Operating Space and co-editor of Resilience in the Anthropocene: Governance and Politics at the End of the World. She recently completed a new book, The City in the Anthropocene: Resilience, Infrastructure, and Imagination at Miami’s End, which critically explores experimental sea rise adaptations in Miami, Florida and, through these, suggests new limits and possibilities for critical urban theory and practice in the age of climate change.

Stephanie’s work work has been published in  academic journals including Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, and Geography Compass, and in popular and artistic venues such as Brooklyn Rail, Miami New Times, and May.

Along with scholarly publication and teaching, she frequently works with community groups, art institutions, and nonprofits to explore experimental sustainability planning and community resilience design. Across her work her goal is to shift the center of gravity in resilience and climate change thinking away from designs that reproduce the socioeconomic status quo and toward a widespread, democratic exploration of the transformative potential of the Anthropocene. Currently, Stephanie is Director and Assistant Professor of Human Ecology at Life University (Atlanta, GA).

We were able to speak with Ms. Wakefield on Social Design Insights, where she offered an optimistic vision of an experimental future.

The post 87 | Experiments in Resilience Amid the Backloop appeared first on Curry Stone Foundation.

Projects so far include a disability day center for children in Vietnam, a resource center for a rural women’s group in Fiji, and an Aboriginal arts and culture precinct in Maningrida in Arnhem Land. AWF recently started work on developing a center for teenage girls subjected to sexual violence in Tanzania’s former capital, Dar Es Salaam, and has just completed a small renovation of a women’s crisis center in Northern Melbourne suburbs.

In addition, in 2015 Charlesworth founded RMIT University’s Masters of Disaster, Design and Development [MoDDD] program in Melbourne, Australia– a mostly online graduate degree (open to non-designers from Australia and internationally) that seeks to transform the careers of both designers and non-designers through transitioning their careers into the disaster management and humanitarian sectors.

Charlesworth is the author of seven books on the theme of social justice and architecture, including Divided Cities (2009), Humanitarian Architecture (2014) Sustainable Housing Reconstruction (2015), and the soon-to-be-published Design For Fragility: 13 Stories of Humanitarian Architecture (2022).

We had a chance to speak with Dr. Charlesworth on Social Design Insights, join her and our host, Eric Cesal in conversation.

The post 86 | Disaster, Design and Development appeared first on Curry Stone Foundation.

After Mozambican Independence, Mario was retained by the new independent national government to help lead the new country. In the forty years since, he and his son (Nuno) have developed a practice that stretches into the farthest and most remote regions of Mozambique.

Notably, their work stands apart from many of the international development efforts deployed in Africa. They emphasize lasting solutions. They look to create buildings and communities that can self-sustain and no longer be in need of outside assistance. This eradicates the enduring post-colonial model that sets African communities in a position of ongoing dependence on Western charity.

The post 84-85 | Architecture, Wake Up, It’s a New Day, Part 1 & 2 appeared first on Curry Stone Foundation.

Hsieh’s approach to disaster began in response to the 1999 Earthquake which devastated Taiwan. Hsieh moved his firm to an area severely affected by the quake and began working closely with a local tribe, the Thao, to rebuild their community.

Hsieh has since gained further recognition for his work with the architecture collaborative, WEAK!, at the 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, while building thousands of sustainable and cost-efficient homes for disaster survivors throughout East Asia.

Through a combination of indigenous and modern building techniques, Hsieh designs houses with local reused and reusable materials. His practice encourages local people to take part in the construction process and believes that involving locals helps to rebuild not only the physical, but also the emotional fabric of communities affected by disasters. Hsieh won the 2011 Curry Stone Design Prize for his innovative and inclusive building practices.

Join host Eric Cesal as we speak with Hsieh about this, and more.

The post 83 | Human-powered Resilience in Action appeared first on Curry Stone Foundation.

In January 2016, through the National Disaster Resilience Competition, HUD awarded $48.3 million to the state of Louisiana for the Resettlement of Isle de Jean Charles—one of the state’s winning entries in the competition. With this funding, Louisiana gained the opportunity to facilitate a structured retreat from Isle de Jean Charles in a way that is thoughtful and equitable, and maximizes opportunities for past and current Island residents. 

This HUD-funded Resettlement integrates some features from past planning efforts, yet seeks to incorporate full participation of Island residents in the planning and implementation process. The state hopes this inclusive process will not only serve the residents but also create a national and international resettlement model with a proactive, climate-based relocation framework that will guide other communities also facing ongoing land loss and increasing flood risk. 

Historically, most efforts of this type look to buy out or move individual properties – resulting in community fragmentation. Sanders is hopeful that the Isle de Jean Charles Resettlement Plan will be a model for future large-scale relocation projects which can keep communities and families intact with an effective and considerate system.

The post 82 | Resilience’s Frontline appeared first on Curry Stone Foundation.

In an era defined by climate change and ultra-rapid urbanization, where designers are often cajoled into thinking about their designs in minutes, hours or years, The Long Now Foundation encourages us to think differently. Instead of asking how fast something can be designed, the Foundation seeks to answer what good design looks like when people start to consider themselves as part of the great continuum, stretching 20,000 years. Members of the foundation seek to promote this sentiment through projects, blogs, and seminars that focus on topics related to the future of human civilization. Some of their projects include the Rosetta Project, the Long Bet Project, and the Clock of the Long Now, all facilitated by Rose.

Rose graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Industrial Design in 01995 (The People of the Long Now keep track of time on a ten thousand year scale to account for the responsibility of 10,000 years in the future). Shortly after graduating, Rose joined efforts with the founding technologists of the Long Now Foundation and quickly became Clock Project Manager of the Clock of the Long Now. The timepiece, which is being engineered to keep track of time for the next ten thousand years, will be a monument to longevity and resilience in design. Some of their more recent projects include The Organizational Continuity Project, which explores how some of the longest running organizations have survived for centuries and hopes to distill those learnings into a book, which will be led by Rose. The PanLex is a non-profit that aims to reduce language related barriers to human rights, information and opportunities by creating one of the largest lexical translation databases where the emphasis is on translating individual words, not just whole sentences.

Rose is also the Principal at Rose Futures where he consults on select projects in futures, robotics, technology and organizational continuity, and the founder of the Interval, a time-themed bar in SF which is home to The Long Now Foundation.

How can we convince people to care about long-term investments? On Social Design Insights, we sat down with Alexander Rose, who reminded us: “to look both ways, not only to the next 10,000 years, but also to the past 10,000.”

The post 81 | The Resiliency of Right Now appeared first on Curry Stone Foundation.