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Social Design: The Latest Architecture and News

Designing with Empathy: Architecture for Social Equity

Architecture has long been understood as a powerful tool for shaping the physical environment and social dynamics within it. However, its potential to foster social equity is often overlooked. Empathy-driven design invites architects to approach their work not only as creators of space but as facilitators of human connection and community well-being. This approach centers on understanding people's lived experiences, struggles, and aspirations — particularly marginalized communities — and responding to their needs through thoughtful, inclusive architecture. It goes beyond aesthetics and functionality, instead focusing on creating spaces fostering dignity, accessibility, and social equity. By prioritizing empathy, architects can design environments that uplift communities, address disparities, and create inclusive spaces that promote positive societal change in a tangible, human-centered way.

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Concéntrico, Logroño’s Festival of Architecture and Design, Prepares Its 10th Anniversary Edition

From April 25th to May 1st, 2024, in the Spanish city of Logroño, Concéntrico prepares for its 10th anniversary edition. Envisioned as a contemplation of changing urban environments and an opportunity to share insights about these processes, this year’s International Festival of Architecture and Design incorporates new formats to engage a wider audience and explore time as a catalyst for change in urban and social design. The festival expands its program, featuring 21 installations by designers of 20 different nationalities, in addition to several other initiatives and explorations.

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Utopian Practice, Political Power, and Community in Architecture: An Interview with Olalekan Jeyifous

After being awarded the prestigious Silver Lion for his contribution to this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, Brooklyn-based artist Olalekan Jeyifous shows no signs of slowing down. Currently in the midst of preparing his entry to the next Sharjah Architecture Triennial, he also recently celebrated the opening of Climate Futurism, a group exhibition that highlights the power and efficacy of artists’ methods and processes to imagine a more equitable future – and is working on a public monument to former United States Representative Shirley Chisholm as part of New York City's She Built NYC initiative, among other projects.

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The Expert Citizen: A Change of Perspectives in Participatory Design

Participatory design is a democratic process that aims to offer equal input for all stakeholders, with a particular focus on the users, not usually involved directly in the traditional method of spatial creation. The idea is based on the argument that engaging the user in the process of designing spaces can have a positive impact on the reception of those spaces. It eases the process of appropriation, helps create representative and valuable spaces, and thus creates resiliency within the urban and rural environment.

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Rights to the City and Urban Conflicts in Latin America: What Can Be Done?

María Cristina Cravino, the head of numerous research projects and publications on informal settlements and the politics of public habitation, draws from her background in anthropology to become one of the most prominent voices in the discussion about rights to the city and modern urban conflicts. 

To get her perspective, we sat down with Cravino to discuss her observations and understanding of the issue--especially in the context of quarantine and lockdowns--as well as her reflections on the role of academia in exploring the problem and finding solutions. 

“The Citizen Urbanism Claims an Alternative Urban Model From Latin America”: Ocupa Tu Calle’s Lucia Nogales

Lucía Nogales is the general coordinator of Ocupa tu Calle (Occupy your Street) —an UN-Habitat, Avina Foundation-supported initiative promoted by Lima Como Vamos— which focuses on 'citizen urbanism' for inclusive and resilient cities in Latin America.

Ecological Design: Strategies to Protect Latin America and the Caribbean's Vulnerable Cities in the Face of Climate Change

Throughout the world's cities, in the midst of current and projected crises-- environmental, health, economic, and otherwise--one question looms: How can we prepare our urban centers' most vulnerable sectors?

Current data paints a bleak picture of cities and the impact of climate change. With urban populations skyrocketing as people around the globe seek opportunities for a better life in the world's urban centers, cities have become gluttons for energy and other resources while simultaneously producing more emissions than ever before. On top of this, 3 out of 5 cities are at high risk for natural disasters.

Words on the Street: Art, Architecture, and the Public Protest

This article was originally published as "What Marchers Today Can Learn from the May 1968 Protests in Paris" on CommonEdge in May 2018. In the 50 years since the historic and worldwide protests of 1968, much has changed. But today's political climate seems equally volatile, with seismic changes threatening social and political establishments across the globe. Lessons from the past are, to borrow the phrase of the moment, more relevant than ever.

American friends recently sent an email: “What’s going on with the French political system? Why all the strikes? What about the endless protest marches? We’d like to visit you in Paris, but we’re a little wary.”

Social Design Work in Mexico Brings Community, Solidarity and Local Materials Together

This project emerged during the summer of 2015, when CHOPEkE Collective, together with Paúl Pérez, a seminarian and active member of the group, visited the community of Santa Luisa de Marillac, located in the central periphery of Ciudad Juárez. At the time, members of the community had an "unworthy" space -as they called it- for their meetings and spiritual activities.

How Earthbags and Glass Bottles Can 'Build' a Community

A design by C-re-a.i.d. for a Maasai village in northern Tanzania, is a morphological response to the imposed need to settle, using sustainable, local and accessible materials to redefine its construction culture.

The project is built by a series of earthbags and glass bottles that in addition to generating private and comfortable spaces, allow a quick and easy construction.

The Construction Details of ELEMENTAL's Incremental Housing

Good location, harmonious growth over time, concern for urban design, and the delivery of a structure that has "middle-class DNA" are the key points of the ABC of incremental housing, developed in detail by the Chilean architects ELEMENTAL. It's a question of ensuring a balance between "low-rise high-density, without overcrowding, with the possibility of expansion (from social housing to middle-class dwelling)."

Following this line of action, the office has released the drawings of four of the projects carried out under these principles, to serve as good examples of design which have already been implemented and proven in reality. However, despite making them available for free consultation and download, the architects emphasize that these designs must be adjusted to comply with the regulations and structural codes of each locality, using relevant building materials.

Easily Reproducible Disaster Relief Constructions in Bamboo

In 2015, after the catastrophic earthquake in Nepal, Maria da Paz invited Joao Boto Caeiro from RootStudio to design and build a model house in Nepal. Using local and accessible materials, they built two prototype houses out of bamboo and partitions, via a collaboration between locals and volunteers that came to the region.

The prototypes respond to the need for housing that is able to be built quickly with the goal of providing independence and immediate shelter, while at the same time introducing basic building techniques using bamboo and bricks. In doing so, they're able to create a set of tools that allow for future construction that the community can make themselves.

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2nd National Architecture Jamboree

The University of Santo Tomas’ Architecture Network (ARCHINET), a recognized student organization, is hosting the 2nd National Architecture Jamboree in the Philippines in order to connect students and professionals from around the country to those around the globe. The National Architecture Jamboree is a four-day event, with the Dynamic Solutions: 9th National Architecture Symposium as its main event to be held on April 21, 2017 at the SMX Convention Center, Pasay City, Philippines.

Adaptable Bamboo Geodesic Domes Win the Buckminster Fuller Challenge Student Category 2016

Launched in 2007, The Buckminster Fuller Challenge has quickly gained a reputation for being what Metropolis Magazine once called “Socially-Responsible Design’s Highest Award.” This year, for the first time, a Student Category was reviewed separately from the general applications, however still based upon the same criteria: comprehensiveness, feasibility, replicability, ecological responsibility, and how verifiable and anticipatory the project is. Students from the Centre for Human Habitat and Alternative Technology (CHHAT) claimed the prize with their adaptable and lightweight modular domes, made from natural, local or recycled materials.

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Buildify: Unlock the Potential of Bottom-Up Architecture

Buildify connects global professionals with local, community-driven architecture initiatives in need of support. Submit your project today!

Buildify - Architecture in Development’s new initiative is seeking new projects that aspire to improve the lives of rural or urban communities. Buildify supports community-driven architecture projects, helping them connect to the expertise and resources needed to upscale their impact.

Call for Applications: Dutch Design Summer School

Open Set is a two-week thematic program consisting of a series of intensive one or three day workshops, symposiums and film screenings, led by Dutch and international designers, artists and researchers. Our goal is to promote and enhance the social value of design by facilitating debates around the chosen theme from a rich diversity of perspectives, design trends, traditions, and cross-disciplinary cultural practices. The event aims to offer international participants a studio environment where they are inspired to step out of their comfort zone and question the conventional ways of working, experiment with different strategies, techniques, ideas and cross-sector collaborations in order to develop their own practices with confidence.