Design for Social Good

In anticipation of this weekends Design Corps Structures for Inclusion 2011 conference in Chicago,  I thought this article was important to post a second time.  Ecohaven Project is looking forward to being inspired by Bryan Bell, Dan Pitera + Sergio Palleroni once again. We're also very excited about the other keynote speakers, panels, Achieving Design Excellence in Affordable Housing conference, practical workshops, and opportunities to meet + exchange ideas with other visionary "agents for change".  We are planning on learning a lot, meeting incredible people + being inspired to continue to work towards our mission of creating innovative ideas + design solutions that support “design for social good”.  

This past September I had the pleasure of meeting New York-based Gisela Garrett at the Architecture for Change Summit held at UIC.  I loved Gisela's series she wrote about Public Interest Architecture in response to the summit for her blog, Daily Design Idea, + asked if she would write a piece for Ecohaven Project. Enjoy! - Jennifer

Architecture for Change Summit by Gisela Garrett

In 2008, Metropolis Magazine announced “ a new breed of architect has emerged.” Anna Muoio of

Continuum, an innovation and design consultancy with offices everywhere from Boston to Seoul, is

quoted in Change Observer this past June as saying: “ We are finding increasingly that young design

talent cares and wants to work at a place where they can feel and see the impact they have in the world.”

I consider myself a young design talent striving to be part of this new breed; and I very much believe

that designers need to be considering the social impact of their projects – much the same way that they

would consider the environmental impact.

This outlook led me to the 2010 Architecture for Change Summit, held at the University of Illinois-

Chicago in September. The summit’ s description was more of a rally cry: “ join architects, developers

and affordable housing activists to address the affordable housing crisis.” Appropriately, and very

refreshingly, almost all of the speakers focused on actionable strategies for change.

One such speaker was Maurice Cox, whose career includes being an architecture professor at UVA,

former Director of Design at the NEA, and former mayor of Charlottesville VA, in addition to leading

a few community-oriented design and planning firms along the way. A major highlight in Cox’ s career

is his work with the rural village of Bayview on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The project started with

providing access to clean water but ultimately resulted in a multi-year, multi-million dollar community

redevelopment project. A strong advocate of participatory design, Cox discussed Bayview and his other

work in a way that encouraged the shift from client-focused to community-focused design. Clearly much

of the audience agreed – one of the most repeated lines of the summit was a South African proverb that

Cox shared in his presentation: Nothing about us, without us, is for us.

Completed houses in Bayview, by David Tulloch

Equally eager to listen and engage with communities, though more likely to go a bit rogue in the

process, were speakers Dan Pitera and Sergio Palleroni. Pitera, Executive Director of the Detroit

Collaborative Design Center and professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, introduced us to a few

projects, including the guerrilla and admittedly permit-less FireBreak project. FireBreak “ reclaims

public space within the burned houses of Detroit” and brings “ attention to structures in need of

demolition.” This goal is achieved by wrapping abandoned houses with everything from hay to plastic

wrap, among other design actions. While cities like Detroit currently have daunting revitalization goals,

Pitera encouraged the audience to “ insert at the scale in which you can engage,” whatever and wherever

that might be.

In-progress photo of ”HouseBreath” from FireBreak

Sergio Palleroni, co-founder and Director of the BaSiC Initiative and professor at Portland State

University, definitely agrees with having an active and optimistic approach, even admitting to being

known for "quixotic behavior." The Alley Flat Initiative is one of Palleroni’ s numerous educational

design/build projects that I admire, and it also happens to be a project where his work “ in the margins”

became unexpectedly high profile almost overnight. Luckily Palleroni is experienced at working out

solutions relatively quickly and using the resources at hand (see projects like the Katrina Furniture

Project and Solar Kitchen), qualities that he is committed to passing on to his students. Another key

lesson comes from Plato, who Palleroni referenced at a recent Structures for Inclusion conference:
you don’t become a citizen unless you act.

Rendering from the Ally Flat Initiative

The final group program at Architecture for Change was the presentation ‘ Affordability Through

Preservation.’ While historic preservation didn’ t start as a community building tool, it has absolutely

become one, in part because of the smart usage and re-usage of available resources. Rather than

demolishing in order to rebuild from scratch, there is increasing support for renovating and revitalizing

existing structures. Royce Yeater, of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, spoke broadly about

how the rehabilitation of historic homes can be a viable solution for affordable housing. One of many

reasons is the ability to renovate existing structures and therefore minimize materials costs. Another is

the opportunity to minimize disruption of the existing neighborhood fabric, including the inconveniences

of the construction process and the mixed consequences of introducing new buildings to a historical area.

John McDermott, of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, and Charles Leeks, of Chicago’ s

Neighborhood Housing Services, both spoke about specific Chicago neighborhoods that are relying on

historic preservation as a way to support affordable housing initiatives. McDermott shared the history

and the current political dynamics surrounding the Julia Lathrop Homes, one of the nation’ s first public

housing developments. Uniquely, the Lathrop development has never had market-rate housing and has

also never had any new construction projects throughout its entire history (though that may be about to

change). Leeks spoke about North Lawndale, an area filled with historic “ greystones,” an astonishing

1,714 of which have been documented in North Lawndale. Leeks and McDermott both touched on how

the process of formal historic documentation can garner new support and stakeholders, and can therefore

be a fantastic tool for revitalization in a neighborhood.

North Lawndale’ s greystones, photo by Eric Young Smith

Community-oriented architecture firm David Baker + Partners is also interested in the preservation of

resources, though their stance is firmly rooted in the environmental and sustainable end of the spectrum. The firm's video “ Better Living Through Density” , shared by Baker during his presentation atArchitecture for Change, defends this point by showing how well-designed residential densitydramatically reduces environmental impact. One of my favorite moments (located at 2:04) is the comment that dense living requires less stuff but offers more for both the individual and the environment. I completely agree with Baker that density is a positive in urban environments, but I should admit that I really enjoy living in New York City, taking the subway daily, and being friends with my neighbors. As Richard Sciortino, the self-declared “ developer in the room,” noted during his turn to play devil’ s advocate: “ density requires demand.” That said, Baker also pointed out that once you make something a standard, it generally gets cheaper to do, which can help previously undesirable construction options become more attractive. The cheaper-by-standardization model has certainly proved helpful in eco-friendly construction (see Philadelphia's 100K house for one of my favorite examples) and could probably be applied to denser models for living as well.

DB+P’ s stunning and mostly affordable-unit g2 Lofts

While numerous inspiring case studies were presented, some speakers explored the housing crisis from a big picture standpoint as well. For example, Daniel Glenn of environmental works led the program “ Too

costly for affordability,” which focused on the causes of high costs in an affordable housing project as

well as on the diversity of unofficial or illegal, but very real, affordable housing worldwide. The fact is

that squatter settlements make up most of the world's affordable housing stock, with many others living

in nomadic shelters, cars, storage spaces, and on friend’ s couches. Why then, asked Glenn, is there no

cultural or legal standard for these types of housing in America's longterm private housing market? In an

effort to help alleviate the current housing crisis, should we consider providing more at a somewhat

lower quality instead of less at the current standards?

Squatter settlement in Durban by Flickr user Easy Traveler

Glenn also pointed out that a typical affordable housing project generally takes 5x the funding sources

and 2x the time to complete as a market-rate housing project. So even with low materials costs, there is

significant time and money used in supporting fundraising, legal, and other administrative efforts. This

was reaffirmed by panel member Peter Landon, an architect and professor who noted that "We don't

build affordable housing. We build housing that's made affordable through subsidy." Recognizing the

administrative burden of getting those subsidies, they asked: how can we change the business structures

and, in particular, streamline funding in order to reduce these soft costs?

Westhaven Park Phase IIB by Landon Bone Baker Architects,

a mixed-income development including 45 affordable units.

Bryan Bell, founder and executive director of Design Corps, also asked some hard questions and

encouraged the audience to take important (non-design) action. Bell made reference to the work

of Howard Gardner, whose research spans topics such as ethics, the human mind, and educational

performance. One gem from Gardner’ s website is “ the key to good work is responsibility—taking

ownership for one’ s work and its wider impact,” an idea that Bell highlighted while urging architects to

continue practicing good design but also to articulate its definition. The SEED Network, established in

major part through Bell’ s efforts, is definitely a great step in that direction.

Design Corps’ migrant-farmworker housing project,

from Metropolis Magazine courtesy of Bryan Bell

Casius Pealer, Regional Director-Gulf Coast for Builders of Hope, also focused on the importance

of setting our profession’ s standards. With advanced degrees and public interest experience in both

architecture and law, Pealer spoke with conviction on the need to get architecture’s Code of Ethics &

Professional Conduct up to speed with that of law or medicine. He then opened up the floor by asking if

access to design is as important as access to legal representation or medical treatment – leading to one of

the most dynamic audience discussions of the entire summit.

Builders of Hope relocating a donated house originally set for demolition,

from the Wall Street Journal courtesy of Builders of Hope

Pealer’ s kick-off slide read “ The design has yet to begin, but the architecture is already there.” While

certainly appropriate literally, he also meant it in a broader sense. What both Pealer and Bell seemed

to entreat is that, as a profession, we need to start taking thoughtful ownership of our work and its

impact. This sense of expanded responsibility in our role as designer was a subtext of every presentation

at the Architecture for Change Summit; an idea that is wonderfully summed up by a quote displayed

prominently on the website of David Baker + Partners: “ looking good only counts if it does good, too.”

This post was adapted from Daily Design Idea for Ecohaven Project from a series of posts on Public

Interest Architecture.

Gisela Garrett

Image courtesy of Gisela Garrett

Gisela Garrett (Brooklyn, NY) is a multi-tasking, multi-industry designer with a focus on process + a penchant for writing. She is especially passionate about the psychology of space, + she likes to keep implementation + impact in mind throughout each step of a project. In addition to her freelance writing + design, Gisela works for New York-based architecture firm HMA2. She holds a BA in Visual Studies from the University of Pennsylvania (+ has recently started to shop around for graduate programs specializing in public interest architecture and planning). Gisela also writes and curates content for Daily Design Idea, a blog she started in 2010 to ensure that design would be an everyday part of her life.