The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C. The AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach programs. The AIA collaborates with other stakeholders in the design and construction industries. The current leadership of the AIA includes Lakisha Ann Woods, CAE, serving as EVP/Chief Executive Officer, and Emily Grandstaff-Rice, FAIA, serving as the 2023 AIA President.
Engineers Without Borders Canada, abbreviated EWB or ISF, is a non-governmental organization devoted to international development. Founded in 2000 by George Roter and Parker Mitchell, engineering graduates from the University of Waterloo, it is a registered Canadian charity focused on finding solutions to extreme poverty, specifically in rural Africa. The group has chapters at universities across Canada, and regional chapters aimed at professionals in several major cities.
The open-design movement involves the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. This includes the making of both free and open-source software (FOSS) as well as open-source hardware. The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation. The goals and philosophy of the movement are identical to that of the open-source movement, but are implemented for the development of physical products rather than software. Open design is a form of co-creation, where the final product is designed by the users, rather than an external stakeholder such as a private company.
Emergency is a humanitarian NGO that provides free medical treatment to the victims of war, poverty, and landmines. It was founded in 1994. Gino Strada, one of the organization's co-founders, served as EMERGENCY's Executive Director. It operates on the premise that access to high-quality healthcare is a fundamental human right.
Cameron Sinclair is a designer, writer and one of the pioneers in socially responsive architecture. He is founder of the Worldchanging Institute, a research institute focused on innovative solutions to social and humanitarian crises and serves as pro bono designer of Armory of Harmony, a US-based organization focused on smelting down decommissioned weapons into musical instruments. He is a third generation gin maker and is co-founder of Half Kingdom Gin based in Jerome, Arizona.
Boston Architectural College is a private college in Boston. It is New England's largest private college of spatial design. The college's main building is at 320 Newbury Street in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood.
Sergio Palleroni is an American architect, professor, and fellow at the new Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. He is known for his social and environmental activism, providing with his students and collaborators sustainable design solutions to communities in need. Since 2013 he has been director of the Center for Public Interest Design, the first such design research center in the US, whose mission is, in the words of its mission statement, "To investigate and promote design practices that are a catalyst for the social, economic and environmental change needed to serve the growing needs of communities both locally and worldwide."
David Rockwell is an American architect and designer. He is the founder and president of Rockwell Group, a 250-person cross-disciplinary architecture and design practice based in New York City with satellite offices in Madrid and Los Angeles.
Superadobe is a form of earthbag construction that was developed by Iranian architect Nader Khalili. The technique uses layered long fabric tubes or bags filled with adobe to form a compression structure. The resulting beehive-shaped structures employ corbelled arches, corbelled domes, and vaults to create sturdy single and double-curved shells. It has received growing interest for the past two decades in the natural building and sustainability movements.
Open Architecture Network was the world's first online open source community dedicated to improving global living conditions through innovative and sustainable design. It was developed by Architecture for Humanity and incorporated Creative Commons licensing within the project management tools.
Public Architecture is a national 501(c)(3) charitable organization based in San Francisco, CA. The organization mobilizes designers to transform communities by putting design in the service of the public good The organization is the leading advocate and facilitator of pro bono practice in the design field through The 1% program. Public Architecture also takes on its own projects that expand the social relevance of design, including a prototypical station for day laborers, open space strategies, and advocacy around the issue of material reuse. The organization has partnered with and worked for a number of renowned nonprofits, including KIPP Schools, International Planned Parenthood, United Way and Habitat for Humanity. The organization's work has been featured in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Huffington Post, GOOD, Dwell, Architect, Metropolis, and many others. Public Architecture was founded in 2002 by architect John Peterson of Peterson Architects.
Engineers Without Borders New Zealand (EWBNZ) is a not-for-profit organisation based in New Zealand who champion humanitarian engineering as a means to improve community well-being, opportunity and alleviate poverty in all its forms. The organisation is member-based and incorporates several chapters of professional engineers, in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch as well as two student chapters, from the University of Canterbury and the University of Auckland.
One Peace at a Time is a film by Turk and Christy Pipkin. It was produced by The Nobelity Project and was premiered at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas, USA, on April 14, 2009. It is the sequel to the film Nobelity. It has been shown in various countries.
The Earth Awards is an aspirational platform for consumer-driven ideas that challenge designers and innovators to build a new economy. It is an annual competition since 2007, aiming to "transform visionary ideas into market-ready solutions by offering finalists the unique opportunities to pitch their project to world business leaders". The Awards are open to students, graduates and industry professionals - the public is invited to submit innovations to be judged.
Possible is a nonprofit that works to provide access to healthcare. Possible roots its work in places like Achham, a remote district in the Far Western Province and Dolakha in Bagmati Province in Nepal.
Open Source Ecology (OSE) is a network of farmers, engineers, architects and supporters, whose main goal is the eventual manufacturing of the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). As described by Open Source Ecology "the GVCS is an open technological platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 types of industrial machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comforts". Groups in Oberlin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and California are developing blueprints, and building prototypes in order to test them on the Factor e Farm in rural Missouri. 3D-Print.com reports that OSE has been experimenting with RepRap 3-D printers, as suggested by academics for sustainable development.
Terreform ONE is a 501c3 non-profit architecture and urban think tank that advances ecological design in derelict municipal areas. By formulating unsolicited feasibility studies and egalitarian designs, their mission is to illustrate speculative environmental plans for New York City and other cities worldwide. Their intention is to support community outreach and master plan solutions in underprivileged areas that do not have direct access to qualified architects and urban designers.
Public interest design is a human-centered and participatory design practice that places emphasis on the “triple bottom line” of sustainable design that includes ecological, economic, and social issues and on designing products, structures, and systems that address issues such as economic development and the preservation of the environment. Projects incorporating public interest design focus on the general good of the local citizens with a fundamentally collaborative perspective.
Kate Stohr is an American journalist, data scientist and civic activist based near San Francisco, CA. She was the director of a Data Science initiative at Simon & Schuster. She founded 99 Antennas. In 2016 she covered the U.S. Presidential Elections as a data journalist with Fusion and noted for her coverage of the online dominance of the Trump candidacy and for her reporting on the racial inequality in US prosecutor elections
Jiri Lev is a Czech-Australian architect and urbanist, active in the field of sustainable residential, sacred and public architecture, disaster recovery and humanitarian development.
