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unusualmusic_lj_archiveWho is he?
After training as an architect, Cameron Sinclair (then age 24) joined Kate Stohr to found Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit that helps architects apply their skills to humanitarian efforts. Starting with just $700 and a simple web site in 1999, AFH has grown into an international hub for humanitarian design, offering innovative solutions to housing problems in all corners of the globe.
Whether rebuilding earthquake-ravaged Bam in Iran, designing a soccer field doubling as an HIV/AIDS clinic in Africa, housing refugees on the Afghan border, or helping Katrina victims rebuild, Architecture for Humanity works by Sinclair's mantra: "Design like you give a damn." (Sinclair and Stohr cowrote a book by the same name, released in 2006.)
A regular contributor to the sustainability blog Worldchanging.com, Sinclair is now working on the Open Architecture Network, born from the wish he made when he accepted the 2006 TED Prize: to build a global, open-source network where architects, governments and NGOs can share and implement design plans to house the world.
"Cameron Sinclair is doing his best to save the world, one emergency shelter and mobile AIDS clinic at a time."Washington Post
Who is she?
Mechanical engineer Amy Smith's approach to problem-solving in developing nations is refreshingly common-sense: Invent cheap, low-tech devices that use local resources, so communities can reproduce her efforts and ultimately help themselves. Smith, working with her students at MIT, has come up with several useful tools, including an incubator that stays warm without electricity, a simple grain mill, and a tool that converts farm waste into cleaner-burning charcoal.
The inventions have earned Smith three prestigious prizes: the B.F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Award, the MIT-Lemelson Prize, and a MacArthur "genius" grant. Her course, "Design for Developing Countries," is a pioneer in bringing humanitarian design into the curriculum of major institutions. Going forward, the former Peace Corps volunteer strives to do much more, bringing her inventiveness and boundless energy to bear on some of the world's most persistent problems."Smith has a stable of oldfangled technologies that she has reconfigured and applied to underdeveloped areas around the world. Her solutions sound like answers to problems that should have been solved a century ago. To Smith, that's the point."Wired News
David Kelley: The future of design is human-centered
Who is he?
David Kelley is a designer -- of products, details, environments, his own industry-leading workplace, and now a groundbreaking design school at Stanford.Virtual Advisor (www.va-interactive.co)
Kelley was working (unhappily) as an electrical engineer when he heard about Stanford's cross-disciplinary Joint Program in Design, which merged engineering and art. What he learned there -- debate, openness to new approaches, a desire to solve fundamental problems with design -- he has maintained in his professional life as a designer.
In 1978, he co-founded a design firm that ultimately became IDEO, now renowned worldwide for its innovative, user-centered approach to design. IDEO works with a range of clients -- from fast food conglomerates to high tech startups, hospitals to universities -- building everything from a life-saving portable defibrillator to the defining details at the groundbreaking Prada shop in Manhattan (IDEO designed those famous see-through dressing rooms). Based in Palo Alto, Calif., IDEO has grown to seven offices and 400+ employees worldwide.
Now chairman of IDEO, Kelley has also been teaching design at Stanford for more than 25 years. He's now leading the university's brand-new d.school -- an interdisciplinary institute for educating innovative designers and thinkers. "Kelley has become a poster child for innovation in America for two reasons: His engineering firm serves as the brains behind many of today's most innovative products, and IDEO (Greek for idea) has been a trendsetter in modern-day corporate management."
