The 1% program of Public Architecture
The 1% program is a call to action for professionals of the built environment to pledge a minimum of 1% of their time to pro bono service. Through The 1% website, firms can identity and locate nonprofits across the country in need of design services. Conversely, nonprofits enrolled in the program can find designers in their area willing to give of their time. As the program grows, it aims to connect design firms, nonprofits, manufacturers, and funders to collaborate and improve the infrastructure of America's nonprofits. In March 2011, the program had over 900 participating firms, donating $28million in design services annually. The firms range from sole practitioners to some of the largest firms in the country, including Gensler, HoK, and Perkins+Will.
In October 2010, Public Architecture released The Power of Pro Bono: 40 Stories of Design for the Public Good by Architects and Their Clients through Metropolis Books. Edited by longtime, former executive director, John Cary and Public Architecture, the book presents 40 pro bono design projects across the country. The clients include grassroots community organizations like the Homeless Prenatal Program of San Francisco, as well as national and international nonprofits, among them Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity, and KIPP Schools. These public-interest projects were designed by a range of award-winning practices, from SHoP Architects in New York and Studio Gang in Chicago, to young studios including Stephen Dalton Architects in Southern California and Hathorne Architects in Detroit, to some of the nation's largest firms. Scores of private donors, local community foundations and companies, and material and service donations made these projects possible. So have some of the most progressive funders in the country, ranging from Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans to the Robin Hood Foundation in New York. Taken as a whole, the selected works represent six general categories: Arts, Civic, Community, Education, Health and Housing.
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that have human occupancy or use as their principal purpose. Etymologically, the term architect derives from the Latin architectus, which derives from the Greek, i.e., chief builder.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art. The museum's current collection includes over 33,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts, and moving into the 21st century. The collection is displayed in 170,000 square feet (16,000 m2) of exhibition space, making the museum one of the largest in the United States overall, and one of the largest in the world for modern and contemporary art.
Pro bono publico, usually shortened to pro bono, is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment.
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science of forming objects, systems, or organizations. It comes from the Latin word constructio and Old French construction. To 'construct' is a verb: the act of building, and the noun is construction: how something is built or the nature of its structure.
Architecture for Humanity was a US-based charitable organization that sought architectural solutions to humanitarian crises and brought professional design services to clients. Founded in 1999, it laid off its staff and closed down at the beginning of January 2015.
A general contractor, main contractor, prime contractor, builder (UK/AUS), or contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of a building project. In the USA a builder may be a sole proprietor managing a project and performing labor or carpentry work, have a small staff, or may be a very large company managing billion dollar projects. Some builders build new homes, some are remodelers, some are developers.
The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal for ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay, a food hall and an office building. It is located on The Embarcadero in San Francisco, California and is served by Golden Gate Ferry and San Francisco Bay Ferry routes.
Pro Bono Net is a US nonprofit organization based in New York City and San Francisco. The organization works in close partnership with nonprofit legal aid organizations across the United States and Canada, to increase access to justice for the millions of poor people who face legal problems every year without help from a lawyer. It does this by (i) supporting the innovative and effective use of technology by the nonprofit legal sector, (ii) increasing participation by volunteers, and (iii) facilitating collaborations among nonprofit legal organizations and advocates working on similar issues or in the same region. Founded in 1998 with a grant from the Open Society Institute, Pro Bono Net has developed a broad base of support from foundations, law firms, corporate sponsors and nonprofit partners alike, to build web platforms that offer powerful and sophisticated online tools to pro bono and legal aid advocates, and to provide critical legal information and assistance directly to the public. Its model has been adopted in 30 states and regions, reaching approximately two-thirds of the poverty population and lawyers in the United States.
Gensler is a global design and architecture firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. It is the largest architecture firm in the world by revenue and number of architects.
Beverly Willis was an American architect who played a major role in the development of many architectural concepts and practices that influenced the design of American cities and architecture. Willis' achievements in the development of new technologies in architecture, urban planning, public policy and her leadership activities on behalf of architects are well known. Her best-known built-work is the San Francisco Ballet Building in San Francisco, California. She was a co-founder of the National Building Museum, in Washington, D.C., and founder of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, a non-profit organization working to change the culture for women in the building industry through research and education.
MBH Architects is an architecture and interior design firm founded in October 1989 by architects John McNulty and Dennis Heath. The firm is headquartered in a LEED Gold certified office in Alameda, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Bar Association of San Francisco(BASF) was established in 1872 as a nonprofit legal membership organization that provides San Francisco legal professionals with networking, educational and pro bono opportunities in order to better serve the community.
Frederick M. Nicholas is an American lawyer specializing in real estate development and leases. He is known as "Mr. Downtown Culture" for his role in building the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Geffen Contemporary, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and for the founding of Public Counsel, the nation's largest public interest law firm. Frederick M. Nicholas has combined his legal career with a heavy real estate involvement to become an institution builder in the arts in Los Angeles.
One of the oldest and largest chapters of the AIA, the Boston Society for Architecture (BSA) is a nonprofit membership organization committed to architecture, design and the built environment.
The East Tennessee Community Design Center, founded in 1970, is an organization who offers design and planning assistance to communities and organizations throughout 16 counties of East Tennessee. The Community Design Center offers its services through the pro bono contributions of area architects, landscape architects, planners and other professionals. It is located in Knoxville, Tennessee and is registered as a nonprofit corporation chartered as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization under IRS regulations.
Arthur Dyson is an American architect.
The Alaska Immigration Justice Project(AIJP) is a non-profit agency that provides low-cost immigration legal assistance to immigrants and refugees in all immigration applications including citizenship, permanent resident status, work permits, asylum, family-based petitions and immigration petitions for immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.
Rosalyn Chin-Ming Koo was a Chinese-American philanthropist. She served as Executive Vice President of MBT Associates, an architectural firm listed in the 1980s as one of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in America, for 30 years. After her retirement, Koo turned to philanthropy and social activism. She has served in non-profits that assist senior citizens, such as Self-Help for the Elderly, in California, and those which assist girls trying to attain an education in China, through such organizations as The 1990 Institute and the All-China Women's Federation. Koo has been the recipient of numerous honors and was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in 2007.
San Francisco Women Artists (SFWA) is one of California's oldest arts organizations. Created in 1887 as the Sketch Club, the organization was created by local San Francisco Bay Area women to support and promote the talents of established and emerging Bay Area women artists. Located in San Francisco's Sunset District, SFWA is a nonprofit organization that welcomes all genders, while specifically serving women artists.
Materials & Applications is a Los Angeles–based art and architecture exhibition space. M&A's exhibitions typically take the form of outdoor, public installations and one-to-one architecture. The organization is one of dozens of small non-profit artist run spaces that have been called "feral" in their relationship to larger, more established organizations and museums in Los Angeles. Jeremy Rosenberg, a Los Angeles based writer, has likened it to other "feral" artist-run organizations such as The Museum of Jurassic Technology, Center for Land Use Interpretation, and Echo Park Film Center.
