public journal no 4

YOU ARE PUBLIC, PUBLIC IS YOU.


SPRING 2016

Your resource for designing a better world:

COVERING ALLASPECTS OFDESIGN

equit y international

professional

educationCOLLABORATION

jobs

energy andmore!

future

THROUGH ORIGINAL FEATURE CONTENT.

www.impactdesignhub.org

NewsPublic interest design tidbits from around the world.

Business - How Civic Is Permeating TechAn examination of a hybrid for-profit design office that provides nonprofit assistance. By Garrett Jacobs

Editorial - Public SpeakingQuestions to Danielle Littman

Culture - Coworking As A Sustainable Pillar Of Urban EcosystemsThe Coworking revolution. By Aline Rutily

Editorial - Policy, Meet DesignHow can communication designers help government and municipal policy organizations be more effective? By Andrew Shea

Editorial - On Stable GroundLearning lessons from earthquake recovery around the globe.By Paul Keskeys

Technical Corner - Green RoofsUrban Rooftops. By Jessica Metz

Gallery - Nakuru ProjectThe 9/11 memorial in Shanksville, PA., by Paul Murdoch Architects and Nelson, Byrd, Woltz Landscape Architects.

Editorial - Designers, Let's Get OrganizedGarrett Jacob's call to arms.

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Read us online!Want more coverage on public interest design? Visit our website www.thisispublicjournal.com

Cover Image: Public Journal

How Civic Is Permeating Tech, p.13

Nakuru Project, p.82

DEPARTMENTS

SPRING2016SPRING 2016Read us online!Want more coverage on public interest design? Visit our website www.thisispublicjournal.com


Policy, Meet Design, p.26


|1Spring 2016PUBLIC

e n v i r o n m e n t a l ly, e c o n o m i c a l ly, a n d s o c i a l ly

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THE CIVIC HEART OF CENTRAL AVENUE Once a thriving hub of African-American culture, this blighted South Los Angeles neighborhood is on the mend thanks to a combination of forward-thinking municipal leadership and poetically sustainable architecture. By Andrew Goodwin

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME How good design and the spirit of sport are spurring social change across Africa. By Paul Keskeys

E X C L U S I V E V I D E O S :PUBLIC Journal features videos throughout its articles that you can view on the digital version of our magazine or by typing the links provided in your print copy.

RISE OF COWORKINGHow the idea of connecting like-minded social entrepreneurs went from concept to global network in a decade. By Katie Crepeau

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FEATURES

|3Spring 2016PUBLIC

PublisherMatthew Linden

Editor-in-ChiefJacqueline Devereaux

Assistant EditorsDanielle Littman

Creative DirectorMathieu Anfosso

Contributing WritersKatie Crepeau

Garrett Jacobs

Paul Keskeys

Andrew Shea

Aline Rutily

Andrew Goodwin

Jessica Metz

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Copyright © 2016. PUBLIC Journal is published quarterly by ConsciousBuild, Inc., 66 59th Place, Long Beach, CA 90803. No part of PUBLIC Journal may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior written consent from ConsciousBuild, Inc.

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SUBMISSIONS LETTERS TO THE EDITORShare your thoughts with us by email at [email protected]. Letters may be edited for content and length and published in future issues or online on our blog.

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ARTICLESWe do not accept unsolicited articles. If you have an idea about an article, please send it to our editors with a brief description and writing samples of your previous work. You can reach our editors at [email protected].

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The Public Interest Design [PID] Movement is gaining momentum as people everywhere are increasingly concerned about the

places where we work, play, commute, and live. We want these spaces to be beautiful, sustainable, serve us, and even inspire us by fostering a greater sense of community. This is what is wanted and needed, but has been lacking in the gathering spaces where we interact daily.

There is much work to be done to chip away at an age-old paradigm in which the very existence of our built environments are more a function of bottom-line economics and the political will of the day than they are designed to contribute to a flourishing community. We have recently seen significant signs of a paradigm shift in cities all over the world, and where this shift is happening, a real difference is being made in the fabric of our communities.

The leaders of this movement are young, driven, and passionate. They are beginning to articulate organizing principles that can have great influence on the way our communities are designed and built well into the future. The PID Movement audience is enthusiastic about participating to transform the nature of our public spaces and how we design our built environments. They are demanding a critical review of public policy that so often plays a major role in determining the success or failure of a project.

PUBLIC Journal was born to draw attention to the important work being done, and to laud the people dedicated to this movement. We had a great first year, and are continually encouraged by the positive feedback we have received.

We are certain that this movement encompasses many of the most important conversations to be had in the field of design today - and that as a publication, we have a responsibility to amplify them. We hope to draw connections between vetted PID projects, organizers committed to responsibly transforming their communities, and funding sources that see the benefits of financing these projects; thereby creating a network willing to get involved and take action to better our spaces, our worlds, and our lives.

As PUBLIC Journal began our second year, we underwent an organizational shift. We used it as an opportunity to evaluate ourselves and our mission. We regret that we missed some intended quarterly publication dates, and we have been thrilled that you let us know how much you missed us! We have a new Managing Editor, and new team members committed to a heightened level of communication and collaboration. As a team, we are firm in our belief that the PID Movement is permanent and crucial, and we are committed to bringing it to you, our PUBLIC, with the journalistic integrity that you expect. There is a long road ahead to elevate the movement to the height it deserves, and we plan to earn your loyalty along the way as a resource to learn about who is making a difference, and how you can count yourself among those striving to be a part of the solution.

Thank you for listening. You are Public, Public is You.

Matthew F. Linden, Publisher & Founder

|5Spring 2016PUBLIC

CONTRIBUTORSPUBLIC JOURNAL WOULD LIKE TO THANK THIS ISSUE’S

CONTRIBUTORS FOR THEIR DEDICATION.

I regularly advocate for communication designers to work across disciplines and to

share their methods. PUBLIC’s focus on public interest design in whatever form it takes attracts me as both a reader and writer.

Andrew Shea, Writer

Jessica Metz is an Associate with Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., in Boston, MA.

She writes for Public because she wants to help architects design and construct beautiful,

functional, and durable buildings.

Jessica Metz, Writer

As a young British architect turned writer, PUBLIC Journal has provided me with an

opportunity to explore everything I’m passionate about — great design, inspiring people, and

the stories that tie them together. Having seen how innovative buildings can help revitalize

the communities that need it most, I’m glad to share some truly remarkable tales about public interest design with a global audience through

this exciting publication!

Paul Keskeys, Writer

When Matthew Linden and I founded PUBLIC Journal we believed that there was an

unprecedented amount of socially conscious projects, products, and people around the world

creating a wonderful impact on the design community. It is important to me that these

world changing stories get out to the public in enriching ways. I believe that my contributions as a writer to this space help to breed greater

innovation through discovery.

Andrew Goodwin, WriterWhy it’s important to write for Public:

We need more critical discourse within the Public Interest Design movement. Putting things on paper is a beginning, agree, disagree or feel

neutral, it’s all a start to a dialogue we all create together and I hope it becomes a natural part of

the design process.

Garrett Jacobs, WriterThe people and projects featured in this journal represent a socially inclusive methodology to

design and architecture, which is what excites me the most about the future of the industry.

Each article has provided me the opportunity to learn about and share important and inspiring stories through interviewing practitioners and end users, visiting projects, and researching diverse people and places around the world.

Katie Crepeau, Writer

Through “Impact Atriums”, we organize regular interactions and collaborations between creative

people coming from various backgrounds and businesses. I realize everyday the importance of design in our current ecosystems. Connecting with the readers of Public is a meaningful way

for me to have a voice among a community who has a true impact on our lives.

Aline Rutily, Writer

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Andrew S.

Garrett

Paul

Aline

Andrew G.

Katie Jessica

|7Spring 2016PUBLIC

Micro-ApartmentsMicro-Apartments for Affordable Housing

RECENT NEWS PROVIDED BY IMPACTDESIGNHUB.ORG,

AN EVOLVING RESOURCE OF THE AUTODESK FOUNDATION.

Urban Investigations, a project-based curriculum created by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), was just awarded the 2015 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the nation’s highest honor for creative youth development programs. Urban Investigations enables high school students to explore fundamental questions about how [New York] city works using collaborative research and design. “At a White House ceremony on November 17th, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the

CUP Awarded Nation’s Top Honor for Arts and Humanities Programming

award to CUP’s Executive Director Christine Gaspar and Urban Investigations alumnus Shaffiou Assoumanou, a senior from International Community High School in the South Bronx.” CUP was joined by 11 other awardees and selected from a pool of nearly 300 nominated programs from all 50 states. In addition to the award, CUP will receive $10,000 to continue its work engaging young people across New York City.

12.3.15

This summer, New York City follows in the footsteps of Tokyo and Seattle by creating popular, affordable, and extremely tiny urban living spaces. Its first micro apartment building, consisting of 55 prefab units that are all well below the city’s regulated minimum apartment size of 400 square feet, is up and running on Manhattan’s east side. “More than half of city households devote more than 30% of their income to rent, which is the threshold for affordability as defined by federal guidelines. A family would need to make a minimum income of $114,000 a year to afford the median home price citywide (and a lot more in Manhattan). As a remedy, Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged to build or preserve 200,000 affordable apartments over 10 years.”

11.19.15


NEWS | Impact Design Hub

What Makerspaces

Need to Be Sustainable

Democracy in Action: Impact Design Education at Malmö

As part of our Shaping Design Through Education feature series we’ve been exploring the many different ways impact design education is being practiced around the world. anNa Seravalli is a senior lecturer in product design at Malmö University’s School of Arts and Communication in Malmö, Sweden – a pioneering institution dedicated to pressing the boundaries of design for social impact. anNa spoke with Impact Design Hub about connecting the global and local through education, and how design needs more than magic toolboxes, and more than designers.

Make Sure to read the full article at impactdesignhub.org !

12.2.15

NEWS

DFID, UNICEF, and UNHCR have partnered to form the first Humanitarian Education Accelerator to scale previously piloted projects that can deliver quality educational services in crisis settings. Humanitarian crises caused by conflict and other emergencies can weaken governments’ ability to provide basic services to children and it is clear that routine responses have been unable to meet the educational needs and there is a need for new approaches. Teams selected to join the first cohort of the Humanitarian Education Accelerator will participate in an innovative, multi-year evaluative program.

First Humanitarian Education Accelerator Seeks Applicants12.16.15

Selected candidates will benefit from:• Tailored mentorship on the scaling process

and on evaluation• Annual bootcamps to build organizational

capacity and enable peer-support• A fully-funded external evaluation• Up to £300,000 to strengthen evaluation

capacity within the organization. The accelerator aims to identify and strengthen effective methods to scale educational programs to expand quality educational access to refugees and displaced communities worldwide. Applications are due February 15, 2016.

Will Holman, general manager of Baltimore’s newly established makerspace, Open Works, discusses his experience researching the emergence of makerspaces and the ascendance of the sharing economy, sharing optimism couched in the current growing pains and questionable long term sustainability of the movement.

12.11.15

|9Spring 2016PUBLIC

SEED Co-Founders Share Strategies for Evaluation

The American Institute of Architects, San Francisco held their inaugural NEXT conference last month, with MoMa Curator Paola Antonelli kicking off the event with a thought-provoking keynote speech suggesting that design is moving beyond problem solving into engaging with complex critical thought and strategic disruption.

She suggested that design has a “history of violence while the professional discourse has largely trumpeted its successes. Violence… while ubiquitous and ambivalent, has introduced new threats with the rapid advancement of technology.” She continued by asking, “How can we be responsible stewards of design to leverage the ambiguity of design for positive impact while mitigating the negative effects from moving too quickly forward without understanding the power and consequence of design?” The conference included business, technology, and design tracks, and included sessions on negotiation, co-creating for social change, and the practice of innovation in architecture.

MoMa Curator Paola Antonelli Kicks off AIASF Conference

Open Secret: An Interview with John Bielenberg

12.11.15

11.26.15

12.16.15

Lisa Abendroth and Bryan Bell, co-founders of SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design) have shared as essay on SEED evaluation and certification as part of their larger Public Interest Design Guidebook: SEED Methodology, Case Studies, and Critical Issues. “Evaluation involves a detailed assessment of project results based on benchmarks and performance measures embedded in the design

process. Evaluation is the translation of project plan or program successes, failures, and challenges. Designers, communities, stakeholders, funders, and clients all have a need to assess the outcome of design work, just as clients and communities have a need to assess how goals were achieved for purposes of defining community benchmarks and working together toward common goals.”

Recently, Design Impact doubled their staff, focusing on increasing their ability to create impact in communities through their growth as an organization. From creative government planning in the city of Nashville, TN, to empathic approaches on hunger, to helping kids thrive with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital – the new hires will be working to solve complex problems worldwide. In addition to promoting their staff growth, they are celebrating a successful year with Studio C, a collaboration project between Design Impact and United Way of Greater Cincinnati.

Design Impact Expands & Celebrates Successes 11.13.15

John Bielenberg is a designer, entrepreneur, and imaginative advocate for creating a better world through the application of “Thinking Wrong”. In 2003, he created Project M, an immersive program designed to inspire and educate young designers to shape a positive future through their work. In 2012, he co-founded Future Partners to advance his Thinking Wrong methodology within organizations and companies. Most recently, Bielenberg launched CCA Secret Project, a new program at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, based on Project M.

Make Sure to read the full article at impactdesignhub.org !

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IF YOU’VE EVER HAD TO PULL A BUILDING PERMIT, apply for unemployment, or even just renew your driver’s license, you’ve probably been frustrated by your interaction with the government. These seemingly mundane transactions frame the majority of our experience with government services. But what if these experiences were actually enjoyable, or at least, far simpler than they currently are? Would changing the way we interact with government raise our appreciation or participation with the systems we live in?

The growth and reach of private sector technology is speedily providing us with new ways of communicating and completing business transactions. Internet access can be easier and more accessible on phones than on computers and we can shop, bank and collaborate all through applications. For the most part government services don’t operate like that - at least, not until recently. Many programmers and digital designers are beginning to lift the hood on civic services and operations, and they have much to offer in helping governments catch up to residents’ expectations. The movement, dubbed “civic tech,” has grown rapidly over the past few years and accomplished much in a short time.

>>

HOW CIVICS IS PERMEATING TECH

Text: Garrett JacobsImages: Code For America

BUSINESS

THE ORIGINS OF A MOVEMENT BENT ON PROVING GOVERNMENT CAN WORK IN THE 21ST CENTURY - WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM CIVIC-MINDED TECHIES.

|13Spring 2016PUBLIC

Imagine that you’re a city transportation planner. You are tasked with establishing all of the bus routes for your transit agency, and city. Although the process varies, most transit planners will agree that sketching out new bus routes isn’t easy and involves many tools. Here’s what the process might look like.• If a digital map does not exist, map out the city with a geographic

information system (GIS) program or Google Maps. • Compile your research (traffic analysis zones, vehicle and passenger

counts, density mapping, economic studies, etc.).• Begin sketching routs, most likely by hand on trace paper. • Input those sketches into Google Earth to calculate distance. • Copy the numbers into a spreadsheet and calculate cost estimates. • Open up ArcGIS and convert to a shapefile (a GIS format) for additional

data analysis. • Engage the community by convening community meeting and drawing

more maps.• If approved (which may take years), manage the operations of your

city’s bus routes through a massive excel spreadsheet.

This overview of the transit creation process was made possible by an inquisitive group of technologists who were frustrated with unreliable travel times on their local route to work. The investigation began, and they started building. One of the most prominent questions in technology is: What is the user need? During a 2014 Code for America Fellowship in San Francisco, these technologists occasionally arrived late to work due to the often delayed buses; they targeted transit planners as those they could help and began conducting interviews across the globe. After identifying the process, they built a basic tool and tested it with those they interviewed. They continued to improve the product, first called Transitmix, and released a beta version in June 2014. The company recently renamed Remix, is both a public-facing and back-of-house transit planning tool that automatically calculates route times and costs in real time as any user drags their cursor across the screen drawing new transit routes. Its simple design invites the public to redesign bus routes and allows people to get under the hood and really understand the fiscal and social consequences of even simple route alterations. Four months after it was launched, 30,000 remix maps were created in over 3,600 cities around the world. They were drawn by people with an interest in their cities’ transportation systems, and planners that have been waiting for a an efficient, effective, and easy-to-use interface for this otherwise arduous process. The remix team designed the tool so people could enjoy their participation with this government service, while also making it more efficient for internal operations. It is important to note that remix is only made possible because the city collects and makes public its real time data from buses and trains. Thanks to the general transit feed specification (GTFS) for publishing this data, nearly every city’s data looks the same and thus can be input easily into the remix platform. The rapid spread of remix is possible because transit agencies around the world have been adopting the GTFS format for the past decade.

“Helping governments catch up to residents’ expectations”

APPLYING CIVIC TECH TO TRANSIT PLANNING - AN EXAMPLE

>>

Previous Page: Code for America Fellows and Staff circa 2012.

Right: 2012 Code for America Fellows.

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BUSINESS | How Civics Is Permeating Tech

Spring 2016 PUBLIC

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The design of remix is based on a simple idea, one with a potentially massive impact on the way municipalities operate: Government should act as a producer of data for the public to build upon, thereby improving society faster and better than government could on its own. The founder of the open-source publication company O’Reilly Media, a strong advocate for open government, and a convener of government innovators, Tim O’Reilly has been a leader in this realm and can be seen as helping to establish the origins of the civic tech movement. A 30k foot view of the civic tech movement as well as the heartfelt motives behind the delivery of technology at a human scale are important to distinguish for a rounded comprehension of activities. High Level: In his book Open Government, O’Reilly states that “information produced by and on behalf of citizens is the lifeblood of the economy and the nation; government has a responsibility to treat that information as a national asset.” O’Reilly continues by asking some basic questions about what he calls Government 2.0: • How does government become an open platform that allows people

inside and outside government to innovate? • How do you design a system in which all of the outcomes aren’t

specified beforehand, but instead evolve through interactions between government and its citizens, as a service provider enabling its user community?

A successful example of a platform is the Apple App Store. Instead of designing all of the applications for its hardware and operating system, Apple created a marketplace (the platform) for anyone to build programs for the greater community, thereby fostering the explosive app industry. Human Scale: In his post “People, Not Data,” civic technologist Jacob Solomon elaborates on a basic question: How can we build empathetic government services? “It’s not about innovation, big data, government-as-a-platform, transparency, crowdfunding, open data, or civic tech,” Solomon writes. “It’s about people. Learning to prioritize people and their needs will be a long slog. It’s the kind of change that happens slowly, one person at a time. But we should start.” In an example of practicing what you preach, Solomon along with Andy Hull, Rebecca Ackerman and Marc Hebert designed and helped implement a simple text-messaging service for the Human Services Agency of San Francisco while they were fellows at Code for America. Many in the civic tech movement strive to work directly with leadership at the city, county and state levels while simultaneously energizing the community to approach these issues from the grassroots. Governments are continually asked to do more with less, and the pressure to deliver only mounts. Many are stepping up to meet the challenge, and entrepreneurial civic employees, volunteers, and private companies are adopting similar missions, aiming to make government more efficient, effective, easy to use and beautiful. Civic technologists have the privilege of seeing government services at a high level, across various departments and silos. This enables them to first articulate what an entire process looks like. Once the service is defined clearly, technologists, in partnership with civil servants, can begin identifying the gaps, and redundancies. Through many tests, iterations, and learning by putting products in front of real people, the ideal process can be developed, so the end user - the resident - can get what they need, when they need it.

A POWERFUL CONCEPT

“Government should act as a producer of data for the public to build upon”

>>

Bottom Left: Code for America Founder Jen Pahlka at the 2014 Summit.

Next Page, Left: 2013 Code for America Fellows in the San Francisco Headquarters.

Next Page, Right: 2012 Code for America Fellow Michelle Lee flyering for their engagement tool - Textizen.


For the past five years, the nonprofit Code for America has been a mainstay of the civic tech movement. Although it can’t trace its roots back to a garage in Palo Alto, Calif., Code for America was first conceived at a backyard barbecue. Founder Jen Pahlka was chatting with the chief of staff for Tucson, Ariz.’s mayor in the summer of 2010, when a discussion about resident and staff frustration over the cumbersome pothole-repair process spiraled into a brainstorming session that landed on a solid idea: What if cities could hire programmers and others for a tour of duty to see if technology could improve civic engagement and service delivery? In January 2011, Code for America launched with its Fellowship program in three cities: Boston, Philadelphia, and Seattle. These three cities took the leap experimenting with an emergent outcome-based approach using technology. Each of those cities received a cohort of back-end developers, digital designers, and user researchers to dive into the depths of civic services. Much appreciated applications were developed, showing that good technology could be created for cheaper and quicker than with the traditional legacy vendor process. The underlying vision of Code for America is that government can work for the people, by the people, in the 21st century. Making our government work involves empowering citizens to participate in the design and development of basic services and operations. This is why the organization has expanded

Many organizations around the globe are contributing to this movement. MySociety in the UK, the Sunlight Foundation, the Bloomberg Foundation and one non-profit called Code for America (full disclosure, the author is a staff member at Code for America) here in the US are all developing different approaches to making government more effective. Some of the notable official offices that have been devoted to improving government technology include The Office for New Urban Mechanics, offices of data and business analytics and newer appointees of Chief Innovation and Chief Data Officers in many municipalities. At the federal level there are the recently launched Government Digital Services, 18F and other operations in the General Services Administration (GSA).

THE CODE FOR AMERICA APPROACH

“Government can work for the people, by the people, in the 21st century”

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Spring 2016 PUBLIC

since that first class of fellows, and now includes many other outlets to engage with, design with, criticize, build for, and befriend local government. Code for America only works with 5 - 10 cities a year in its fellowship program, to grow the scale of impact the organization also coordinates a grassroots volunteer network for other civic technologists to engage their local municipalities. Called the Brigade — after Benjamin Franklin’s volunteer firefighting outfits — these local volunteer groups have forged strong bonds with their local municipalities by creating a safe space for residents, local technologists, and civil servants to gather and address local challenges. After five years, more than 100 fellows, thousands of volunteers, 30 municipal partners, and many dozens of applications developed, Code for America is forming a set of digital practices for 21st century governments. The organization acknowledges that these principals are organic and will evolve, but they have also become a benchmark. With these practices as the cornerstone of its efforts, Code for America helps guide governments, communities and companies toward a shared idea of what it means to have a government that “works” in the 21st century.

All 7 digital Practices – found here http://www.codeforamerica.org/practices/

Characteristics of design, data-based decision-making, and empathy for the end user are at the core of the civic tech movement — methodologies that are present in the impact design, human-centered design, and community-design realms. When looking at the civic tech movement and its focus on improving governance and civic services, it becomes more apparent that much of the work we have been largely doing in the developing world is equally applicable in our own backyard. Redefining the way government can function is a momentous task. We are all affected by this change, we are also participants in it - and there is infinite room to grow.

REFERENCE READING:- Tiffany Chu. “Planning Beyond Paper” in Civic Quaterly, Fall 2014.- Jacob Solomon. “People, Not Data,”- Tim O’Reilly. “Open Government”


WHO IS YOUR PUBLIC? I work for the Chicago Park District, so my PUBLIC is Chicago. Chicago has over 500 parks, so every resident has nearby access to a park in their neighborhood. Over 200 of these parks have field houses, where recreational and cultural programming is held for all ages. My work centers around engaging neighbors and stakeholders in conversations about what they envision for their local parks, and how the cultural programming and visual elements of these spaces influence the ways that parks are seen and used by neighbors. We also hold over 1,200 free events each summer in parks in nearly every neighborhood in Chicago. Parks in Chicago have a reputation for being places where violence occurs, so we’re working to turn that idea on its head -- to make parks spaces where art happens, peace happens, and neighborhoods flourish.

public speakingQUESTIONS TO DANIELLE LITTMAN, CONTENT EDITOR OF PUBLIC JOURNAL

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The Englewood Jazz Festival at Hamilton Park Cultural Center in Chicago, IL in September 2015.


WHY ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN? I am passionate about the ways that Public Interest Design can be a practice towards sustainable community change. My background is not in design - it is in the arts (performance), and community development. I am inspired by Asset Based Community Development and the ways it can be used in design and sustainable change processes: I believe in recognizing the assets, stories, and history of individuals, groups, and spaces before making decisions about what should happen or when. I believe in beginning a process with questions, and allowing those questions to guide said process. Who is in the room, and how does that influence the conversation? Who should be in the room that is not here? How can we engage voices that aren’t currently represented? I am particularly interested in the use of public space as a forum for expressing community identity, and facilitating the process of space becoming place (for space plus value equals place).

HOW DO YOU THINK DESIGN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD? For me, this is a question of ownership. If people have ownership over the way they interact with and use spaces, they will be more willing to sustain those spaces long into the future. I think about the students I worked with in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago to turn an available (abandoned, city-owned) lot across the street from their school into a vegetable garden. They went through the entire design process from imagination to reality. Two years later, they are calling me to tell me about the progress on the lot, and sending pictures of themselves in front of the vegetables they’ve planted. If these students are invested in making a public space into a vegetable garden for the school and neighborhood, they will be more invested in their neighborhood as a whole. They are learning that their mindful actions can have tangible, positive impact on their community. That, to me, is the world.

EDITORIAL


COWORKING AS A SUSTAINABLE PILLAR OF URBAN ECOSYSTEMS


The past fifteen years have witnessed a fundamental shift in the global business landscape where any small group of individuals, whether employees of large corporations or self-employed workers, can seed and grow incredibly powerful business models with little more than a laptop and a cellphone. First, the explosion of online networks has broken barriers to reach out to collaborators or clients at a cheap price, anytime, and anywhere. Secondly, as digital natives start working, it has become obvious that their approach to networks and collaborations differ from those of older generations whose networks were limited to family, close friends, and business colleagues. This new generation is less focused on company loyalty; they know they will likely change jobs many times in their life, and perhaps will need to travel for work. Networking and flexibility fit naturally into this landscape and process. In some countries, the influence of local policies that encourage entrepreneurship during an economic slowdown has increased the number of micro companies in a big way. For instance, France created a simplified status for people willing to start as freelance workers. This status is called

“auto-entrepreneur,” and was launched in 2008. It generated immediate success: just under 1,000,000 people were registered under this status in December 2014, and about half of them were considered active as of December 2014.

Text: Aline Rutily, CEO of A Bridge and Co-founder of Impact Atriums

CO-WORKING SPACES THAT INCLUDE A SOCIAL COMPONENT ARE A NATURAL RESPONSE TO THE NEEDS OF A GROWING NOMADICAND CONNECTED CROWD OF WORKERS

In the past few years, coworking (defined by a situation where two or more people are working in the same place together but not for the same company) has rapidly moved from a niche market to a growing alternative to the traditional office, offering the best answer to the development of an increasingly nomadic crowd. According to the “Global Coworking Survey 2015” by the magazine Deskmag, there are indeed today 7,800 coworking spaces in the world (as compared to 3,400 in 2013), gathering an average of 65 members each (against 86 members each in 2013). 61% of the existing coworking spaces as measured by the “global coworking survey 2015” plan to expand in the next 12 months and 44% of members come every day. Although this is a declarative survey, it gives an idea of the strong growth of the demand.

TRUSTED COMMUNITY: Most coworking spaces offer a system of membership based on a monthly fee which includes renting the workspace itself in addition to social events and other services that build loyalty (such as free refreshments and newspapers). Socializing isn’t forced, but happens naturally. According to the “Global Coworking Survey 2015,” 70% of members of coworking spaces have a strong feeling of “being part of their coworking community,” and more than 90% expect to remain members of the spaces for at least one year. These percentages indicate a genuine enthusiasm, especially given that most of the coworking spaces worldwide do not invest any resources on marketing, and rely mostly on members’ word-of -mouth. The design and aesthetics of a coworking venue are essential to building the image and nurturing the feeling of community. Neuehouse, a selective shared office space operating worldwide, does not define themselves as a coworking space but rather as a home for the ambitious and the curious. Neuehouse creates and contributes to their aesthetic soul by having a selective membership process and welcoming celebrities to their events. With the “Impact Atrium,” we have taken a different approach. We have started to organize social and business events for a community of game changers based in Paris, or travelling often to Paris. We have found our expertise in facilitating business connections and fruitful collaborations between top international decision makers from policy makers to CEOs to Creative Designers across multiple disciplines. At first, our events were in living rooms or restaurants. Then, we rented private rooms in palaces and five stars hotels, but we didn’t find the same intimacy available there. We tried to find a welcoming business center, but we couldn’t find any that reflected our DNA. After studying many options, we decided to create our own venue that will offer a large designed space dedicated to open lounges, as well as social and collaborative areas reflecting our mindset and the DNA of our community. COLLABORATION VS HIERARCHY : Research of Gretchen Springer, from the Michigan Ross University, showed in the Harvard Business Review, recently measured that co-workers have a strong feeling of thriving compared to other workers. One factor she attributes to this “feeling of thriving” is the decreased competition and internal politics from traditional workplaces; members tend to find it easier to work with people coming from different backgrounds and with different goals, expertise, and projects. As a collaborative environment, it becomes more natural to help other members, and the demographic diversity can positively contribute to each member’s skillset. FLEXIBILITY & EMPOWERMENT : Flexibility is at the heart of any coworking space. The most basic – and majority – of coworking spaces offer temporary workspace (hourly, daily, or monthly) in either conference rooms or private offices. Many of them

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Umbono tech incubator in Woodstock, Cape Town.


are open 24/7 which enables workers to respond more dynamically to their workload - flowing in an out of the office as they navigate their personal and professional lives. The largest and most luxurious coworking spaces (from 20,000 sq ft to 70,000 sq ft), like Neuehouse or Wework, utilize design to facilitate flexibility. To keep members using and enjoying the venue all throughout the day, a diversity of space and environment is key. A well-designed coworking space can create an atmosphere where members can enjoy a drink in a contemporary cafe, spend a few hours working at their desk, spend private time in a private office, and then attend an event in the evening, without ever leaving the building. This multiplicity of space offers flexibility to members, and maximizes the time spent in the venue. SUSTAINABILITY: Choosing to work in a coworking space tends to be more than a professional choice; many workers experience it as a major evolution towards a more efficient, fair and sustainable way of doing business.More than 1,870 people have signed the coworking manifesto and they have created the “Global Coworking UN Conference” to promote and nurture their vision. Within the manifesto, it is stated clearly how these individuals view coworking as a true improvement of the worker’s way of life through shared values:

• Collaboration over competition• Community over agendas• Participation over observation• Doing over saying• Friendship over formality• Boldness over assurance• Learning over expertise• People over personalities• "Value ecosystem" over "value chain"

REAL ESTATE OWNERS ARE STILL SLOW TO ADAPT TO THE TREND

IN CONCLUSION

Coworking services are bridging the gap between what landlords can offer, and what many businesses want. Understandably, it is difficult for newer companies to plan ahead to the same extent as more established businesses. Young businesses are often unwilling, or unable, to commit to traditional lease terms (i.e. a three years, five years, or longer), or to provide landlords with guarantees for the two to three years of rent often required. Additionally, the nomad business community doesn’t want to handle the recruitment for back-office and facilities management. In coworking spaces, operators manage the relationships with landlords and endorse the responsibility for their members. However, many real estate owners are slow to understand this trend, and they often consider coworking as a phase. Based on the “Global Coworking Survey 2015” by Deskmag Magazine , 49% of the respondents said that the spaces were vacant for at least the 6 months before the coworking operators adopted the lease, which is further evidence that coworking is not seen as a primary option for landlords. However, many large companies are following the coworking trend and developing similar values inside their own offices. According to a study by DTZ, in Macquarie’s banking and financial services group, 55% of employees change their workspace everyday at no cost for the company and of those employees, 90% report being satisfied. Slides from the conference can be found here. Established companies are also entering the coworking arena, which should hopefully have a positive impact on the way real estate owners consider this business. Regus, one of the oldest business center companies, is starting a social brand of coworking spaces called “Third Place” in partnership with British Land, a large retail landlord. The famous social & VIP networking club brand Soho House has also recently launched three coworking spaces called “Soho Works”, acknowledging the value of coworking spaces for a high quality of networking.

The coworking revolution is inevitable; it has begun already. Coworking appears to be an efficient alternative to traditional workspace environments. It helps generate a collaborative atmosphere, it seems to have a positive influence on attitudes of workers, and it helps answer some of the concerns of a growing crowd of companies, from self-employed individuals to large corporations. Those already involved in this revolution hope that real estate owners continue to understand, embrace, and invest in this trend; adapting their vision for ambitious projects so that this revolution can be joined by more visionaries, entrepreneurs, and established companies alike.

Top: Zonaspace coworking in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Casual, creative atmosphere.

Bottom: Creating a concept for a new co-working space for artists in Brussels.

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CULTURE | Coworking As A Sustainable Pillar Of Urban Ecosystems


POLICY, MEET DESIGN

HOW CAN COMMUNICATION DESIGNERS HELP GOVERNMENT AND MUNICIPAL POLICY ORGANIZATIONS BE MORE EFFECTIVE? A NEW COURSE AT PARSONS THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN IS LEARNING THE ANSWER.

Text & Images: Andrew Shea

FOR GENERATIONS, COMMUNICATION DESIGNERS have worked for clients within every industry and increasingly, these designers are collaborating with their clients as partners rather than service providers. Although they are often seen as possessing unique problem-solving skills and adding an important perspective to a multidisciplinary team, communication designers’ approach might seem foreign — even intimidating — to their collaborators. I witness this every spring, when I co-teach a hybrid communication design-policy analysis course at Parsons The New School For Design. The students usually seem excited to work with people outside of their discipline, but they openly admit to little knowledge of the other’s processes. I have been eager to discover a tool that could aid in this process - some have dubbed it a “Rosetta Stone” to remove barriers between these disciplines during these kinds of collaborations, both in and out of the classroom.


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A NEW SCHOOL COLLABORATION

This hybrid course includes policy students who are part of the Urban Policy Lab, a class offered at the New School as part of its graduate program in urban policy analysis and management. Directed by professor Alex Schwartz, the Lab is required of all students in the program and is taught by four or five faculty members, depending on enrollment. Several of the 16 to 20 Lab projects carried out in each of the past two years combined policy analysis and design, in collaboration with design students at Parsons. The urban policy students who are part of this collaboration work in large part under the supervision of Jeff Smith, professor of politics and advocacy. The urban policy students analyze complex policy or management issues, while the design students that I teach as part of

“Visualizing Urban Policy” focus on using communication design to translate the policy analysis into systems, services, and forms that enable more people to understand and benefit from it.

Since spring 2013, students in this collaboration have worked on projects with clients from government organizations, nonprofits, and community-based organizations. They have recommended alternative uses for outdated and underused pay phones in New York City as part of a city-wide competition, designed a youth program that leveraged place-based installations in high-crime areas, helped an immigrant day laborer organization grow sustainably, designed an awareness campaign about the need to parole elderly prisoners, advised developers with strategies that prioritized sustainable building solutions when selling their air rights, designed an awareness campaign to help immigrants understand NYC’s affordable housing lottery system, and designed an app that connect at-risk youth with free and safe services and that are offered in their neighbordhood and throughout NYC, among other projects.

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Left Page: The students redesigned various items for Community Board 14: a booklet for print and screen, and a poster that could be used at monthly meetings.

This Page, Left: “Policy, Meet Design” event organized by Town & Gown and hosted at Center for Architecture in New York City, 2013.

This Page, Right: Design and policy students presenting to their client.

EDITORIAL


The policy students begin each of project with a rigorous analysis, while the Parsons students work through design thinking exercises that help them to research and understand the problem followed by design making, when they visually translate the policy recommendations. We talk with our students about how each discipline can contribute to projects, but that only alleviates some of their concerns about the collaboration. The two groups come to projects at different stages of their careers: the designers are mostly undergraduates, while the policy students are in the graduate program and usually have part- or full-time jobs. Students are also used to working in their discipline’s silo, which influences how they work, their priorities, and expectations for the collaboration. For these reasons, we regularly discuss how each group can collaborate more effectively, using the advice-filled

“Rosetta Stone” poster as a core resource to help translate the nuances of each discipline during those discussions.

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“Using an advice-filled poster as a core resource to help translate the nuances of each discipline”

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Detail of the “Policy, Meet Design” poster, focusing on the importance of user-centered design.

EDITORIAL | Policy, Meet Design


PROMOTION

BRIDGING POLICY-DESIGN COLLABORATIONS

This event poster resulted from the “Policy, Meet Design” event that was held in October 2013 at the New York Center for Architecture as part of Town+Gown, an ongoing initiative of the city’s Department of Design and Construction. Terri Matthews, Town+Gown director, described the poster as “a tool to help practitioners on each side of the policy-design gap learn more about each other.” Conceived as a “top 10” list of tips, the double-sided poster offers a primer for designers who work with policy analysts on one side, and an analogous primer for policy analysts who work with designers on the other. Nearly 20 people — including my teaching partners and me — contributed insights to the poster, all of which was distilled into the two sets of ten points Both sets cover a range of topics: objectives of the work and their working process, issues of scale, how each considers audience, and the added value of each approach, among other topics. There was a risk of oversimplifying the contributions from 20 people into a single poster, but it serves as useful starting point for designers and policy analysts. Before our spring 2014 class, I asked several experts and advocates

of design and policy collaborations to look at the poster and talk about those tips they feel are particularly valuable, those that need more explaining, or insights that could be added. These included Bryan Boyer of Makeshift Society (who formerly worked at the Helsinki Design Lab), Megan Canning of the Design Trust for Public Space, Christine Gaspar of the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and Chelsea Mauldin of the Public Policy Lab. My teaching partners and I started our spring 2014 collaboration by discussing the poster in detail as a way of framing the semester and before partnering with a range of clients, including Brooklyn Community Board 14.

Graphics: These posters serves as a primer for policy

analysts and designers to become more familiar with

each other’s discipline.



COMMUNITY BOARD 14

Community Board 14 serves the Central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush and Midwood. Students were excited by this partnership, since community boards serve as conduits between citizens and local government, which was alluded to on the poster. Residents can voice concerns to their community board about a variety of topics, from noisy neighbors to trash collection to potholes to high-crime areas. In a sense, community boards serve as neighborhood doctors who act on behalf of residents. Community boards can be seen as the original and more local 311 system, which allows residents to make routine inquiries and voice non-urgent concerns. However, most citizens are more familiar with the 311 system than their local community board. This imbalance became one of our main goals. “Community members can lodge their complaints, concerns, and requests directly to a person knowledgeable about the locality by calling, e-mailing, or through community board’s website,” said Shawn Campbell, District Manager of Community Board 14. “The information that comes to the board and that is gathered through the 311 system are two pieces of the same puzzle. How to

make the community aware of where the community board piece fits became one of the student’s challenges.” This challenge related to several design points on the poster about the importance of every design being appropriate to the intended audience. “We do this at CUP by giving an object or the design to the audience and just let them use it, interpret it, and make comments about it,” said Christine Gaspar from The Center for Urban Pedagogy, who recommends that every design or service go through a testing period to ensure that it is appropriate and responsive to the intended audience. “People make comments about color and hierarchy, but also about how some of the graphics look. Community groups are the first to point out that colors have negative connotations.”

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Top Left Graphic: Overview of the design process, from the “Policy, Meet Design” poster.

Top Right Graphic: Overview of the process of policy

analysis, from the “Policy, Meet Design” poster.

Image Below: Design and policy students presenting to

Community Board 14.



The students seemed to understand the points on the poster, but were confused by the policy mandate, or creative brief, that kicked off the project. The mandate defined the challenge broadly and left students feeling overwhelmed and unsure of their goals. For these reasons, they started their seven-week project by defining the mandate more clearly, which limited the amount of time they could spend designing a solution that addresses these problems. This was an important first step. As Megan Canning, from the Design Trust for Public Space, put it: “...the better the brief, the better the final outcome will be. By doing a creative brief, the client is forced to articulate their main goals for the project, their audience and also their organizational personality, how they want this output to ‘feel,‘ and what they want the reaction or action to be as a result.” The students researched a range of issues to better define their brief: literature reviews, comparative analyses of NYC’s 59 community boards’ budget documents, surveys of NYC community boards’ district managers, and a review of the board’s community engagement and outreach materials. It became clear that Community Board 14 had several needs: (1) To collect and interpret the raw data that the board collects more effectively so that it can identify local trends, interests, and needs in community. (2) To improve how the board visually communicates its insights about the community to government agencies and decision makers that fund the board’s requests. (3) To identify new opportunities that better engage residents and organizations in order to increase participation. Fortunately, Shawn Campbell, District Manager of Community Board 14, was eager for the student’s recommendations, which can often be a challenge for these kind of large, often-bureaucratic organizations. Christine Gaspar highlighted this fact, too, while observing that the poster largely focuses on helping designers work with policymakers from within an organization. As she put it: “A lot of times it’s important for designers to work from outside of government organizations since those organizations often represent the status quo. In order for the important changes to be made, voices from outside of the organization need to be heard.” The students distilled what they learned during this discovery phase into the “Central Policy Issue”: How can Brooklyn’s Community Board 14 use available data to strengthen its role in the city’s budget process and better engage with its community?

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Top Graphic: The importance of understanding your audience interaction, from the “Policy, Meet Design” poster.

“How to make the community aware of where the community board piece fits became one of the student’s challenges”


PUTTING DOLLARS TO WORK AT THE COMMUNITY BOARD LEVEL

The students compiled their recommendations into a document they called

“Data-Driven Influence: Putting Dollars to Work at the Community Board Level.” To collect and interpret the raw data that the board receives, students suggested a range of solutions, from reorganizing spreadsheets to using data-collection programs such as SeeClickFix, QGIS, and Google Fusion. To present the data in more compelling ways, they pinpointed two key areas in the budgeting process where the board could better position itself: during agency consultations and in its budget documentation. The students also proposed a suite of new or updated visual designs to make the board more engaging to the community. While the first two recommendations addressed system-level service modifications, this last point involved doing something that graphic designers are regularly associated with: beautifying existing documents. We talked with the students about this often-restrictive understanding of what designers do while discussing the poster. Canning also addressed this generalization in her response: “Design is not the icing on the cake; design influences what goes into the cake, what form the cake should take, and often calls into question the need for a cake at all.” With this in mind, and recognizing the time constraints of this project brought on by the need to revise the mandate, the design students redesigned existing materials in order to enable the board to improve the way both government officials and community members respond to it. The first of these documents was a brochure that explains what community boards do and how people can get involved. The original brochure’s outdated design used more jargon than graphics, which the students quickly noticed. It also lacked an engaging hierarchy of information that could help readers quickly understand the content. The students redesigned the brochure to include more color, an improved typographic hierarchy, a more interactive layout, and a call to action (which did not appear in the original version). The designs went through several iterations with feedback from Campbell. The brochure provided a kind of style guide that students used for a variety of other materials: a “budgeting basics” document, posters that could be used during community board meetings, and branded graphics that can be used for social media and on the board’s website. Because the students only had seven weeks to work on the project, they were unable to engage community residents in ways that could help the students ensure their recommendations would be effective over time. Public Policy Lab’s Chelsea Mauldin was quick to point out that this detail was also

Top Graphics: Revised Community Board 14 brochure.

Bottom Graphic: Detail from the “Policy, Meet Design” poster, focusing on the importance of participatory design.



missing from the processes outlined on the poster: “There’s no mention about user engagement in this process, which is very important. You don’t do use user-centric design without doing user research.” Makeshift Society’s Bryan Boyer echoed this point: “To have meaningful impact on a system, it’s important to understand and incorporate the needs of all users, and that means the civil servants as well as the citizens. Designers must assume a deep empathy for their partners working inside of these organizations, and get to know the constraints under which civil servants operate — political, financial, legal; internal, external — if they hope to play a role in changing the behavior of the system.” The students presented their recommendations at the end of the seven weeks, and Community Board 14 began to implement them soon after. The brochures and materials have been printed and distributed to local residents, giving them more ways to be engaged and to get involved, and the board also hired a policy fellow to serve in an advisory role and to help it engage residents. According to Campbell, they are managing complaints better and have improved communication with fellow government officials.

NEW COLLABORATIONS

While the students read and reread the “Policy, Meet Design” poster many times and discussed the nuances of each discipline repeatedly, it will mostly likely take years of active cross-disciplinary collaboration before they will fully understand each tip and perhaps have a few of their own to add. After witnessing the potential impact of the student’s work with Community Board 14, I hope to see more of these kinds of collaborations, and more local government agencies hiring designers not only to improve the visual impact of a service, but also to influence how that service operates as a system over time. To that end, any community board can download the community board design files, customize and use them to better promote their services and activities.

LEARN MORE:Make sure to go on our website thisispublicjournal.com to watch the video and download the posters featured in this article!


RISE OF COWORKINGAnd Its Influence on Social Innovation

The first Impact Hub coworking space dedicated to social

innovation opened in London in 2005 and still thrives today.


FEATURE

Text: Katie Crepeau

IN 1998, A GROUP OF STUDENTS from the progressive, internationally-focused Atlantic College in Wales were captivated by the significance of the millennium on the horizon. While on summer break, Jonathan Robinson, Mark Hodge, Katy Marks, Yuill Herbert and few other students were wandering along London’s South Bank and saw the imposing, Modernist Royal Festival Hall where thousands of events and exhibits take place each year. Coming from a progressive school where they were encouraged to act on ideas, the students wanted to put on an event to “shake up lots of peoples’

thinking” and properly kick off the new millenia. They decided to speak with the Festival Hall event managers about an event for the millennium celebration and convinced them to take a booking for a 2-day event to take place the following year. One year and many phone calls and faxes later, the students had a fully-fledged conference featuring some of the most prominent world leaders and thinkers, including human rights activist and The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, English journalist and TV presenter Jon Snow and several Nobel Peace Laureates. “I’m not entirely sure how a bunch of 19 years olds attracted such figures,” recalled Jonathan Robinson. “I guess it was our combination of being kind of cheeky and a

bit humble all at the same time.” The 2-day event on human rights, environmental and social issues went off without a hitch and lead to a flood of interest from more international organizations, the most interesting of which came from the United Nations. Organizers of the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development asked the group to replicate the Royal Festival Hall event for their 2002 summit taking place in Johannesburg. Although the students were now deep in the throes of university studies, they weren’t about to let the opportunity pass them by. They booked flights to Johannesburg during a week-long break and quickly realized that the convention center

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HOW THE IDEA OF CONNECTING LIKE-MINDED SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS WENT FROM CONCEPT TO GLOBAL NETWORK IN A DECADE.

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assigned to them was not the appropriate place for their event. “Against everyone’s warnings that horrible things would befall us, [we] decided to venture into Soweto to find out what people there made of this impending summit,” said Jonathan. Created most dubiously when white South Africans moved black South Africans and Indians out of the city, Soweto is most infamously known as a political hotbed during Apartheid. Jonathan and his peers met people who had been at the heart of the anti-Apartheid movement and were now shifting towards community regeneration. They knew nothing of the UN’s World Summit but had a different sustainable development conundrum underway--dealing with a huge mountain of waste that was accumulating in the center of their neighborhood. Jonathan and his comrades saw an opportunity: “We felt there was a real connection between what these guys in Soweto were telling us the needed to make progress and the global issues around

progress and sustainable development that we wanted to be telling leaders at the UN summit.” With Katy Marks working on the ground for 18 months in Soweto, the team and community members were able to turn the mountain of waste into a thriving, fully-functioning area by the time the UN Summit took place in 2002. Buildings were constructed from discarded glass bottles and car tires. A defunct water tower was turned into a light beacon. Half a dozen small social enterprises were providing food, waste, music, and film services. Soweto’s Mountain of Hope became an icon for community regeneration and sustainable development at a local scale, and many world leaders took notice. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, UK Prime Minister John Prescott, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, and thousands more World Summit delegates visited the Mountain of Hope. Inspired by the magnitude of what was accomplished, Kofi Annan scrapped his formal To

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The 3,250 square foot Impact Hub Islington provides sweeping views of London from the top floor of an old warehouse.

speech and instead spoke about the project remarking that there was no point waiting for the UN summit to deliver since the real summit had happened at the mountain in Soweto. After returning to the UK, each of the students continued with their individual studies and, upon graduation, wondered how best to use this inspiring energy they had discovered, and the conversations it prompted, to make real change. As in Soweto, they realized that people in the UK wanted to make a difference through their work, yet they were generally operating out of their homes, in isolation. Jonathan Robinson, a member of the group that had traveled to Soweto and a recent graduate and soon-to-be cofounder of the Hub organization, asked himself a question: “What if these people could come together in the same physical space and have a place to connect?”

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FEATURE | Rise of Coworking


Left: Hosts at Impact Hubs welcome guests and make connections in order to make the experience warm, welcoming and homely.

Right: The kitchen becomes a common meeting place at many Impact Hubs.


“Connecting people from different worlds into meaningful relationships”

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In 2005, the group of former students founded the first workspace solely dedicated to social innovation. Named “The Hub,” the 3,230-square-foot (300-square-meter) space opened on the top floor of a warehouse-turned-artist space in London’s Islington district, collaboratively built by the people who would eventually work there. Design and construction were a bit crude at the beginning: starting with an open wood floor surrounded by old brick walls and topped with a sawtooth roof, the team began marking out different areas by drawing on the floor with chalk.

They broke up the space into reception, event, office, and meeting spaces, as well as a kitchen, restrooms, and storage closets. With a limited budget, the group hand-built wood-and-metal desks, sunken meeting spaces, and a secluded library. Once the space was ready for opening, the Hub London began accepting startups, freelancers, and social enterprises, with membership fees based on the amount of time per month each member anticipated working in the space. Some of the features incorporated into the first Hub have become staples for new Hubs around

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The First Hub Takes Shape

Top Left: Hub Birmingham.

Bottom Left: Lounge spaces at Hub Melbourne.

Bottom Right: Petal-shaped tables have become a staple of Impact Hubs' open workspaces.

Right: Impact Hub Bergen reflects its Scandinavian environment.


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A movement of like-minded people.

the world, including leaf-shaped tables that spiral from a central shelf, and a reception area where members take turns serving as “host” for the space. Maria Glauser, who was the first host at Hub London and later led the development of hosting practice, said, “We didn’t want any traditional receptionists. We wanted to host people in the same way that you would host someone in your house or at a party — making guests feel at home and introducing them to people they should meet. So we looked at how we could develop a practice of creating collaborative environments and connecting people from different worlds into meaningful relationships.” Although enterprises like the Hub are now commonly found in most large urban cities, the idea of bringing people together in a common space to foster connections was not a new idea. In 1995, C-base opened as the first hackerspace — a precursor to coworking spaces — in Berlin, founded on the mission of increasing knowledge and skills in computer software, hardware, and data networks. Four years later, in 1999, Bernard De Koven coined the term “coworking” as a method of facilitating collaborative work and business meetings, a phenomenon of “working together as equals.” Brad Neuberg began using the same term in 2005 to describe a space to support the community and structure of working with others. The term stuck. Since then, coworking spaces have sprouted up around the world, growing from three in 2005 — Spiral Muse in San Francisco, the Hub in London, and St. Oberholz in Berlin — to more than 3,000 in 2014. As London’s first Hub began to attract members, it simultaneously attracted attention from people who wanted to build similar spaces in their own cities. In 2007, Hub London held a meeting for people interested in creating their own spaces; it attracted attendees from as far afield as Mumbai and Sao Paolo. “Although the initial purpose of the meeting was merely to share lessons related to the hosting practice, it quickly became clear that most attendees had come to learn how they could replicate the entire Hub model,” wrote Michel Bachmann, cofounder of the Zurich Hub, in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Many of the meeting’s attendees went on to found Hub sites in their home countries, inspiring a movement

of like-minded people building similar Hub communities around the world. Three years after the first Hub was opened, nine new Hubs were in operation, including Amsterdam, Johannesburg, and even a second location in London. The success of the Hub network — which now has more than 60 locations worldwide and 20 new spaces under way — comes from the spirit of collaboration and a firm commitment to its members. “The evolution of the Hub has never been about any one person,” wrote Bachmann.

“If there’s one thread that runs through the history of the Hub, it’s the fundamentally collaborative nature of the organization.” >>

Left: The warm and cozy tower level of Impact Hub Kings Cross.

Right: Hub Brixton.



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Top Left: A WikiHouse prototype creates a unique meeting room at

Impact Hub Westminster.

Bottom Left: The Impact Hub Westminster's bright space is

highlighted by a glazed meeting space.

Bottom Right: Flexible furniture and an open floor plan allow Impact Hubs

to be used during the day, evening and night.



Locally Influenced within a Global Network As each new Hub was created, many Hub founders and managers identified three common elements emerged as keys to success and longevity: (1) A community of entrepreneurial people who become members and create a network for sharing skills, cross-fertilizing information, and developing new ventures. (2) Content that is inspiring and thought-provoking to facilitate connections through events, labs, incubation programs, and facilitated meetings. (3) A physical space that is flexible and functional, facilitating activities to work, meet, learn, and connect. Although the Hubs (which changed name to Impact Hub last year) are part of a global network, each is rooted in its locale -- even within a single city. The original Impact Hub London takes inspiration from the local artist community and the old warehouse building where it resides, while just three miles away, Impact Hub Westminster offers an entirely different atmosphere. Located in the New Zealand High Commission building, the Westminster location buzzes with energy from the political district, which plays host to

Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, and the British Prime Minister’s residence. Designed by architecture and design strategy firm Architecture 00 — whose founders were members of the first Impact Hub London — the “high octane” space purposely utilizes high acoustics to mimic the fast-paced surrounding neighborhood. Though the energy of the Westminster location responds to the local atmosphere, it still maintains Impact Hub’s global focus on connecting members. Workspace designs often look at efficiency and productivity of individuals serving a company, but Impact Hubs seek to foster connections of individuals working independently. “That’s the efficiency of the Hub: getting the maximum connections out of people,” said Lynton Pepper, the Architecture 00 designer of Impact Hub Westminster. “We look at how to get [members] moving around the day to meet more people.” When Impact Hub Westminster first opened, the designers rearranged the space every month to disrupt the flow. This created new opportunities to network as people constantly met new Hub

members. Architecture 00 also designed permanent space to foster connections. “We used the common enemy: washing up,” said Pepper. “We purposely put in one tiny sink so people have to queue to use it. People then have to talk with each other — and the common conversation starter is, ‘Why such a tiny sink?!’ ” Rooting design in psychology, Pepper is always looking at how architecture influences people and their behaviors. “We design for ‘condition settings,’ based on comfort, attention, and noise,” said Pepper. The Westminster space includes a series of environments for different activities in anticipation of how people will use it, and incorporates opportunities for members to take ownership. For instance, a series of small rooms became telephone and recording booths, where members installed acoustic panels as needed. Other areas are becoming makerspaces, where members can build things. Through these opportunities for participation, the space is meant to instill a sense of ownership in members rather than a feeling of being managed or controlled.

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Impacts of a Network With nearly 10 years of development under its belt, the Impact Hub network has begun to evaluate its impact on members and on larger workspace trends. The global network now has more than 11,000 members, accounting for individuals working as freelancers, in startups, and even in full-fledged enterprises. In 2012, the collective of Impact Hubs saw more than 400 new startups founded and initiatives started, along with more than 1,500 new full-time jobs created. This number mirrors trends in new businesses started annually. In the U.K. alone, a record number of businesses have recently launched, rising nearly 14% in three years, from 440,600 in 2011 to 502,068 in 2013. Along with new businesses, the number of freelancers continues to increase. In the U.S.,

34% of the national workforce is doing freelance work, accounting for roughly 53 million people. The number of freelancers in the U.K. has grown 14% in the past decade, with 1.4 million independents working across all sectors. Across Europe, the number of freelancers — which have come to be dubbed “iPros,” independent professionals — has increased 45% in 10 years, from 6.2 million in 2004 to 8.9 million in 2013, making it the fastest growing group in the EU labor market. At a systemic level, the Impact Hubs are beginning to see more interest in collaboration from governments, especially in the U.K. and Canada. Two of the five Impact Hubs in England have been opened with financial support from local governments. The Westminster location was launched with 40% equity from the City of

Westminster, and the recently opened Brixton location opened as a pilot project with the Lambeth Council. Across the pond in Canada, the Halifax and Ottawa Impact Hubs are working with local governments on piloting social impact bonds. Due to the high levels of jobs created each year at Impact Hubs, many local authorities are interested in creating similar incubation spaces to foster even more job creation. Alongside contributing to increases in jobs, businesses, and public-private partnerships, the Impact Hub’s main mission is to create a network of collaborators focused on making positive impacts on the world — and they are seeing this come true. In 2012, members reported an average of 10 or more highly valuable new connections made each year, solidifying the Impact



Hub’s mission. With these connections in place throughout the network, the Impact Hub becomes more than a place to work. “We’re moving away from space at the center of our model to space as an enabler of impact,” said Debbie So, Impact Hub Islington’s Head of Partnerships. The global Impact Hub network is now more focused on supporting their membership base of entrepreneurs, freelancers, and changemakers, who are working at the edges of traditional work environments and business culture, to make the impact they desire to see at local and global levels, whether they tap into the network in the physical or virtual environments.

ORGANIZATION Impact Hub WEBSITE www.impacthub.net

WORKS CITED- Bachmann, Michael. “How the Hub Found Its Center” Winter 2014. Stanford Social Innovation Review.- Baderman, James and Law, Justine. “Jonathan Robinson” Everyday Legends: The Ordinary People Changing Our World: The Stories of 20 Great UK Social Entrepreneurs. Heslington, York: WW, 2006. 102-07. Print.- De Koven, Bernard. “The Coworking Connection” 5 August 2013. Deep Fun. - DeskMag.com. “The History of Coworking Spaces in a Timeline” 2 September 2013.- Dunsby, Megan. “UK Hits Record 500,000 New Businesses for 2013” 13 December 2013. StartUps.co.uk.- ImpactHub.net. “Impact Hub.” 2014. - Kauffman.org. “Kauffman Index of Enterpreneurial Activity Interactive” 4 September 2013.- Matthews, Ben. “Freelance Statistics 2014: The Freelance Economy in Numbers” 9 September 2014. BenRMatthews.com. - Neuberg, Brad. “The Start of Coworking (from the Guy that Started It)” 21 December 2014. CodingInParadise.org.Le

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Left: Impact Hub Milan's dual purpose storage and signage.

Right: Small teams work in a sunlit top floor of Impact Hub Kings Cross.


WHEN THE GROUND OF NEPAL SHOOK on April 25th last year, the reverberations were felt from the urban heart of Kathmandu to the snow-covered slopes of Mount Everest. From that moment, the overwhelming priority has rightly been to support all those people caught up in the disaster: the human tragedy has been great, with more than 8,800 people losing their lives and many thousands more being left bereaved, homeless and in desperate need of international aid. Now that search and rescue operations have begun to wane, attention is turning to the urban fabric that has been left behind, with both city authorities and local communities establishing what will be necessary to knit these broken lands back together again. Help has been at hand, with pledges from governments around the globe to catalyze the recovery and rebuilding process. In June, Nepal’s neighbor India pledged $1 billion to the cause, with China promising $483 million and the United States putting forward around $130 million. More has been pledged by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, along with donations from a host of other countries, but further support will be needed: some 875,000 private and municipal structures have been damaged or destroyed, and the Nepalese Government has calculated a sum of $6.7 billion to rebuild all that has been lost. The global reaction to earthquakes in recent history has gained momentum, thanks largely to increased levels of public awareness due to the instant nature of modern media platforms, from 24-Hour news channels to Twitter. Subsequently, governments around the world are under greater pressure to be proactive in their response, and support from around the world has been robust. Furthermore, the Internet has made fundraising strategies infinitely more efficient, harnessing the increased power of communication and coordination in the digital era. For all the progress though, a key question for Nepal remains:

In what way can this money best be used to create a more resilient environment for Nepal and its people in the future?

For architects and urban planners focused on humanitarian design, a dual-pronged approach is essential: first, work must be done to offer people immediate refuge and community cohesion following the disaster, creating safe surroundings that offer a foundation for recovery. Secondly, long-term strategies should be devised to create public infrastructure that can better withstand disasters like this further down the line. Former public interest non-profit Architecture For Humanity adopted a slogan that encapsulates this notion perfectly: they advocate for governments and local communities alike to “Build Back Better”, with greater environmental, social and economic resilience being the overriding goal.

How might the people of Nepal and its supporting partners achieve this resilience, in both the short and long term? In searching for answers, one can examine the varied approaches to post-disaster recovery in 3 countries across the globe that have suffered similarly devastating earthquakes in recent times – Japan, New Zealand and Haiti. While the socio-economic context of each country varies considerably, many design and construction projects can offer a glimpse as to what might be possible in giving communities hope for the future – both in Nepal and in other countries that might suffer from natural disasters in the coming years. Though a proactive disaster-reduction approach is ideal, many countries cannot afford such an undertaking So, from the moment the ground stops shaking, the rebuilding process must begin – physically, economically, and perhaps most significantly of all, socially.

JAPAN

Following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11th 2011, and the devastating tsunami that followed it, the impact on public infrastructure and homes the Tohoku region was even greater in scale to that of Nepal – an estimated 1.2 million buildings were destroyed or damaged, primarily by the devastating tsunami that struck the east coast of Honshu following the tremors. In the months immediately following this catastrophic natural disaster, people working in a wide variety of disciplines across the construction sector worked feverishly to provide a platform for long-term recovery across the region. The priority at the outset lay with repairing road and bridges, and providing temporary shelter and schools for the millions left without homes. However, for many architects and designers, there was a clear need to move beyond these basic necessities, looking for solutions to strengthen that sense of communal cohesion and create civic spaces to fill the void left by the destruction of innumerable public amenities. As well as the physical damage caused by the earthquake, cultural identity and the collective morale of the population was affected by the widespread devastation – and this was an area that British artist Anish Kapoor sought to address. In 2013, Kapoor conceived Ark Nova, a mobile inflatable concert hall that would tour the affected east coast regions, offering a temporary hub of cultural activity for communities as they strove to rebuild their towns and cities. The aubergine colored pod comprised a PVC-coated polyester membrane, stretched taut to form a gargantuan funnel and bulbous surround that could seat up to 500 people.

On Stable GroundLEARNING LESSONS FROM EARTHQUAKE RECOVERY AROUND THE GLOBE

Text: Paul Keskeys


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It was a space that signified the potential for architects and designers to conceive spaces that are not only practical in their provision of shelter and temporary refuge for earthquake victims, but also have a positive emotional impact on everyone who enters. As Kapoor himself said, “Visitors will be invited to walk inside the work, to immerse themselves in color, and it will, I hope, be a contemplative and poetic experience. Designed using the most advanced technologies, the work will not merely speak to us visually, but will lead the visitor on a journey of total sensorial and mental discovery.” As well as cultural resilience, there was a recognized need for a strong commercial recovery throughout the east coast region. To this end, Architecture For Humanity implemented their “Urban Acupuncture” plan, underlined by a belief that “a single key project in a community can work to create a positive ripple effect to help the entire affected community in its recovery process.” One such project was particularly evocative of the local population’s resourcefulness in the face of adversity: a new covered deck for the Hikado Marketplace in Kesennuma-shi was constructed using salvaged timber from the tsunami itself, weaving the region’s turbulent history with a future of increased hope and economic resurgence. With the creative input of nonprofit organizations and humanitarian foundations, small businesses in Kathmandu have the potential to harness upcycling in a similar manner, breathing new life into existing materials and saving money on rebuilding costs in the process.

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Above: Bhaktapur, Nepal after the 2015 earthquake.

EDITORIAL

PUBLIC |49|49Spring 2016

PUBLIC

EDITORIAL | On Stable Ground

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NEW ZEALAND

Just one month prior to the Great East Japan Earthquake, the south island of New Zealand was rocked by its own devastating tremors, leaving the heart of Christchurch in a state of disarray. The center of New Zealand’s second largest city was severely damaged by the earthquake, and more than half the buildings in the central business district were ultimately demolished. One of the greatest architectural losses for the local community was that of ChristChurch Cathedral, which saw its spire collapse along with several sections of the roof. A second earthquake in June 2011 caused a key feature of the Cathedral, the rose window in the west wall, to fall in. This ultimately led to a decision in October 2011 to deconsecrate, demolish, and rebuild the building from the ground up. Many communities understood the need to rebuild in a considered manner, given that the new Cathedral will stand as a city landmark for many decades to come – 70 churches and community groups in Christchurch supported the decision. However, after acknowledging that such a project would take many years to complete, a temporary structure was deemed essential, both as a practical location for continuing masses, but also to give the people of Christchurch a transitional hub that could help preserve morale and the city’s identity during the reconstruction period. To create this temporary structure, Enter Shigeru Ban, a Japanese architect with an in-depth knowledge of temporary design, and a man who understands the philosophy of transience so embraced by many in his native country. Ban conceived the Cardboard Cathedral, a simple triangular prism constructed from 98 timber-reinforced cardboard tubes, 8 shipping containers and a colorful stained glass “trinity window” depicting images from the original cathedral. Ban has been developing cardboard as an emergency relief material for the last 3 decades, and is sure that the flexibility of paper can make it extraordinarily resilient if designed correctly. “The strength of the building has nothing to do with the strength of the material,” he points out. “Even concrete buildings can be destroyed by earthquakes very easily, but paper buildings cannot.” Indeed, Nepal too has recognized the value of Ban’s expertise – he has recently devised a series of disaster relief shelters, combining the same innovative “paper tubes” incorporated with bricks salvaged from the

collapsed buildings of Nepal. The resulting structures are as elegant as they are humble, and show the power of designers specializing in disaster relief to move beyond purely utilitarian structures, producing temporary refuges of real architectural quality. As well as Ban’s cultural intervention, a separate effort to recover Christchurch’s commercial status has been catalyzed by the implementation of unconventional transient structures for the city’s retail offering. Realizing the wait for commercial units to be rebuilt in the city center could lead to the disappearance of many small businesses, Christchurch’s Property and Building Owners group initiated the Re:START project, utilizing shipping containers to offer affordable leases to retailers and giving locals a new hub to bridge the gap whilst the heart of the city is repaired. What began as a pragmatic, cost-effective solution, evolved into a vibrant new cultural district, with pedestrian-friendly avenues framed by a plethora of colorful containers housing boutique retail outlets, bespoke craft shops, independent art galleries and trendy cafes. The raw materiality of the structures acts as a cultural selling point, lending the area an edgy vibe full of unpolished charm. Their modular nature also provides invaluable flexibility, allowing the city to add, subtract and reconfigure structures as the rebuilding process evolves. While there is a huge disparity between the economic context of New Zealand and Nepal, the Re:START project forms a low-cost, high-speed precedent for regeneration, possible within any country provided it is implemented carefully. The same can be said of Christchurch’s wider regeneration plan, which has been viewed by the Government as an opportunity not only to reconstruct as before, but to actively improve the layout of the central district for future generations. Improvements to Cathedral Square, together with a new series of linear parks along the River Avon, are planned to enhance the public realm across the city. The government hopes these improvements will attract many more visitors, and benefit locals that have stood strong through some of the toughest times in the city’s history.

Top: Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand after the 2011 earthquake.

Bottom: Houses in Nepal after the 2015 earthquake.

>>PUBLIC |51|51Spring 2016

HAITI In stark contrast to both Japan and New Zealand, the fragile economic state and less developed infrastructure of Haiti meant that recovery from the earthquake of January 2010 has brought entirely different challenges. Delays in clearing rubble meant that many roads in the capital Port-au-Prince remained impassable for many months; when CNN visited the city July 2010, they reported that “it looks like the quake just happened yesterday.” The country has faced major hurdles relating to funding – according to UN figures, only 43 percent of pledged donations for reconstruction had been delivered one year on from the disaster, holding back many proposals for Port-au-Prince. There was also a major health crisis -- the country was hit by its first outbreak of cholera in over a century, further complicating the recovery process. Amongst the struggle, there have been some moments of positivity – once again, Shigeru Ban’s paper architecture appeared as emergency shelters in the months following the earthquake. Given the fragile nature of Haiti’s infrastructure, much of the work by designers belonging to humanitarian organizations such as MASS Design Group and Architecture For Humanity (MASS) focused on 2 of the core essentials of society – health and education, respectively. Two clinics - one to treat for tuberculosis and another to treat for cholera - run by Haitian health service Gheksio – were designed by MASS to harness the local conditions of the Caribbean; both were built using vernacular materials crafted by local artisans with permeable walls allowing for cross-ventilation. These clinics provide a tantalizing glimpse of what can be possible across a developing world where low budgets and creative designs are combined. As the New York Times’ architecture analyst Michael Kimmelman mused,

“If they turn out right, they could serve as relatively light-footed models for other struggling countries that lack resources for high-end Western-style hospitals.” The same could also be said of the 13 schools Architecture For Humanity has sponsored across the region, designed in collaboration with local architects and constructed by Haitian builders and craftsmen. The schools range from the rainbow-colored canopies of Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger to the intricate metal gates of Ècole Nationale Republique d’Argentine, local residents have significantly contributed to every school, and were frequently offered a specialty training for each project. This process speaks to the success of Architecture For Humanity’s overarching strategy to empower local residents, educating these residents with reusable skills that increase the long-term resilience of the community. The events in Haiti could provide valuable lessons for Nepal, as both health and education sectors suffered significant damage as a result of the earthquakes: 90% of remote health facilities were destroyed, while over 32,000 classrooms collapsed across the region. Given these statistics, it is essential that the political wrangling and subsequent inefficiencies that blighted Haiti’s reconstruction efforts are avoided. The work of groups like MASS illustrate the possibilities for constructing well-designed public services on a tight budget, harnessing the skills of the very communities that will go on to use them.

PUBLIC

EDITORIAL | On Stable Ground

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IN CONCLUSION Each of the three countries highlighted adopted different design approaches to public structures, depending on their economic context and the overriding needs of the population – but Kathmandu and its people can take something away from each scenario as it looks forwards to urban recovery. Perhaps the most crucial point of all is that the most positive instances of design innovation in these varied contexts – the inflatable concert hall in Japan, the re:START project in New Zealand, and the health and education projects of Haiti – do more than simply responding to an environmental disaster; they strive to repair cultural, economic and social damage caused by the earthquakes, giving the communities the means to feel stronger as they move forward. This is where resilience comes into play, a key word currently being dissected and analyzed by numerous urban strategists and architectural theorists around the world. Architecture critic Michael Kimmelman recently spoke about cities on the run-up to the New York Times’ “City for Tomorrow” conference, and gave his view on the subject with some pertinent words: “I think resilience is about more than just green buildings and soft edges to waterfronts. I think truly resilient cities have to be economically resilient and socially resilient…a resilient city is one that’s equitable enough that people of different income levels can live together, with a robust transit infrastructure that serves those people, and a healthy network of public spaces, parks, and sidewalks. A resilient city should deal with issues like public health as well as environmental concerns.” Economic and social stability will undoubtedly help make all other challenges more surmountable. Politics will always play a major role in the success or failure of such strategies – but innovative design can and should be an influential factor in any event. With a combination of pragmatic decision-making and creative input, building back better is undoubtedly possible – hope remains that Nepal will, in time, find itself back on stable ground.

Top Left: Ecole Nationale de la Republique d'Argentine, Haiti.

Bottom Left: Collège Mixte Le Bon Berger, Haiti.

Right: Re:START Mall, Christchurch, New Zealand.

PUBLIC |53|53Spring 2016

THE CIVIC HEART OF CENTRAL AVENUEONCE A THRIVING HUB OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURE, THIS BLIGHTED SOUTH LOS ANGELES NEIGHBORHOOD IS ON THE MEND THANKS TO A COMBINATION OF FORWARD-THINKING MUNICIPAL LEADERSHIP AND POETICALLY SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE.


THERE WAS A TIME in the 1940s and early 1950s when South Los Angeles was a hotbed for jazz, with the creative expressions of such musical giants as Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Johnny Otis, Jimmy Witherspoon and Dizzy Gillespie wafted through the air and out of clubs along Central Avenue. At that time, Central Avenue and popular haunts such as the Dunbar Hotel were cultural icons in the early 20th century story of African-American social culture in Los Angeles. The Dunbar Hotel even hosted the first national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held in the western United States. W.E.B Du Bois, Ray Charles, Billie Holiday and even former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson walked L.A.’s Central Avenue

for years. But just as racial segregation had created the need for a Dunbar and the vibrant social scene along Central Avenue, so did the ensuing racial integration tear that scene apart. As the celebrities who had enlivened the South Los Angeles neighborhoods moved on to perform and frequent the hotels and clubs in Hollywood and other parts of L.A., Central Avenue fell into a period of deterioration, characterized by migration from the area and high vacancy rates. Ironically, the highest levels of racial segregation happened after federal civil rights laws were to have eliminated formal discrimination. However, from the 1960s through the late 20th century, this area of South Los Angeles saw some very hard times. As time heals all wounds, the decades of blight that plagued the Central Avenue corridor have begun to fade away and become re-invigorated with the addition of inspired building

projects, the renovation of older buildings, and the infusion of new commerce and community engagement. One new building that has had significant impact on the Central Avenue corridor is the Central Avenue Constituent Service Center (CACSC) envisioned and designed by Paul Murdoch Architects, an L.A. based architecture firm of international repute. The CACSC is a fine, stand-out building located between 43rd Street and 43rd Place in the heart of Central Avenue’s rejuvenated commercial district. This unique and modern civic center opened in early 2010. Since that time, it has been a catalyst for social and environmental change in South Los Angeles. As a LEED Gold building it is innovative, community-oriented, and incorporates advanced technological features. The building has introduced much needed open space as well as public gathering areas, which have returned residents to the streets with pride.

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Text: Andrew C. Goodwin

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FEATURE


The Central Avenue Constituent Service Center and the resulting exuberance that has followed it into the surrounding neighborhoods was the vision of L.A. Councilwoman Jan Perry, who has served since 2013 as the General Manager of the Los Angeles Economic and Workforce Development Department (EWDD) under Mayor Eric Garcetti. Describing the CACSC and its impact on the community in the past few years, she says “It is more than just a building. It helped to recalibrate [the community’s] lives, because now they have an option; they have an amenity that they never had before.” The building was not only a dream of Ms. Perry’s, but she was able to call it home when she served as the Councilwoman of the Ninth District of Los Angeles from 2001 until 2013. Ms. Perry is responsible for many projects around Central Avenue beyond the CACSC. “The Avenue”, as it was known for many decades was thrown into depression in the 1960s when local factories closed and the good jobs dried up in the adjacent neighborhoods. It really wasn’t until a $27.5-million mixed-use project at Central and 20th Street opened the floodgates of new opportunity

in 2009 that growth and development came to this community. The project’s new, urban supermarket was such a big deal to the community that a line of almost 800 people met the business on its opening day. Following that, new housing developments, a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, and substantial renovations to the historic Dunbar Hotel all contributed to the optimistic aura that now can be felt by every visitor to “The Avenue” and its neighborhoods these days. In an interview for the LA Times in 2010 on the revitalization of Central Avenue and the opening of the CACSC, Ms. Perry was quoted as saying, “even though it’s taken a long time, we are really hitting critical mass.” Three years afterwards, the LA Times confirmed this critical mass in its musical nostalgic headline “Jazz Patrons See L.A.’s Central Avenue on the Upswing”. Ms. Perry’s vision of a revitalized South Los Angeles was working, and her collaboration with Paul Murdoch Architects led this neighborhood to receive a sustainable building of which to be proud.

“It is more than just a building. It helped to recalibrate lives.”

A New Vision

Previous Page: Sustainable design riffs along Central Avenue.

Above: Planted façade screens and roof garden, visible from Central Avenue.

Right: Aerial view, looking Southwest. >>

FEATURE | Central Avenue City Hall


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“Ms. Perry wanted the community to not only appreciate that they could have progressive design in their neighborhood, but also as the building and others helped to catalyze future development in South Los Angeles that this would be a precedent for sustainable building going forward”, explains Paul Murdoch, lead designer and architect. Murdoch and his wife, Milena, have been designers, environmentalists and architectural activists in Los Angeles for over two decades. Having both worked with some of the most well-known, award-winning architects in the world, the Murdochs’ firm is quickly becoming well-known in its own right as a poetic architectural avenger providing sustainable solutions with great aesthetic vision. Their design entries for world renowned memorial design projects, such as Constitution Gardens in Washington, D.C., the July 22 Memorials in Norway, as well as the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, built over the past few years, have brought them international recognition. This inspiring project just celebrated the public opening of the long awaited Visitor Center Complex on September 10, 2015. The Murdoch’s deep architecture experience and design process provided Ms. Perry with a

great resource to analyze what an architectural project such as the CACSC could do to revitalize the neighborhoods of South Los Angeles. One of the most important neighborhood amenities that the team studied was the amount of parkland available in this area of South Los Angeles. Murdoch found that South Los Angeles had one of the lowest parkland-to-resident ratios in the entire city and far below that recommended by urban planning experts. In 2010, South Los Angeles had approximately a 1/2 acre per 1000 residents. This was a notable and dismal statistic. Parks are a good example of a community design element that can help invigorate pedestrian traffic and increase security. The more families who use parks; the more eyes there are on the streets. Parks also create a sense of community and foster hope for social and environmental change in blighted city areas. Therefore, the CACSC became a civic project that exuded enthusiasm about creating a building that was to incorporate urban park qualities, but was to become so much more. As a project dedicated to utilizing as many sustainable design features as possible, the CACSA is to have a public-accessible roof garden, an urban park and be an environmental demonstration

The People’s Project



piece. In fact, this 8,000 square foot public roof garden is the first public, municipal roof garden built by the City of Los Angeles, and roof plantings consist of organically grown species indigenous to Southern California. There is a 12-inch to 18-inch growing medium of scoria, aged compost, peat, sand, and perlite that is on top of a roof assembly built to withstand extreme Southern California temperatures. This roof garden helps mitigate stormwater runoff through an ingenious collection system, which cascades off the roof into a small pond at street level. Not only does the roof collect storm water, the whole site works to gather and store rainwater in a cistern that is located under

the parking lot. It is remarkable that more natural greenery can be found on this site than in almost any other location in South Los Angeles. The design team at Paul Murdoch Architects pushed the envelope of showing the community how green a facade could help transform the building and the Central Avenue streetscape. Other sustainable aspects of the project include photovoltaic arrays with sun tracking technology, natural lighting, and a “cool roof” system that reduces heat island effect and the energy load of the building. The CACSC is a mixed-use building, as it functions not only as the offices for the Ninth District of L.A.’s City Council, but also as a community gathering space, an exercise facility, a community kitchen, public garden space, an active learning tool for sustainable building design, and it hosts a vibrant local farmers market every Thursday for several hours. The multifunctional nature of the CACSC is really an additional feather in the cap of this neighborhood’s revitalization efforts. This building gives the community more cause to engage Central Avenue and offer so many more options for its neighborhood residents and visitors.

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Utilizing as many sustainable

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Top Left: Courtyard and community room, from roof garden stair.

Bottom Left: Roof garden with skylight, looking North.

Bottom Right: Roof garden planters and seating, looking South.


Buildings as Catalysts for Social Change In terms of urban revitalization the Central Avenue Constituent Services Center is a wonderful aesthetic addition to a blighted area of Los Angeles. But in the context of true revitalization, this project obviously contributes much more than just adding aesthetic value. “The project has helped to start new businesses and investment along Central Avenue,” says Paul Murdoch. “It is helping to make change in that neighborhood and that is the main message.” What can be learned from this building is how a civic space can be envisioned to provide a sustainable solution by starting with the question

“how can this building impact the people of the community?” The building provides recreation, commerce, exercise, and meeting space for a community that was not returning to the streets. Fear of street crime and the atmosphere of these blighted streets had kept many people avoiding

Central Avenue for decades. The enjoyment that once characterized Central Avenue had simply vanished. However, with the opening of the CACSC

“the residents and occupants leveraged what the design was doing to create more positive change in the community”, Murdoch said as he explained the design in terms of security in community spaces. Yes, it is true that when more of the community is on the streets, the streets become safer. The building was also designed to be inward facing as it is supported by a safe space giving access to the public roof garden and to the parking lot. This design feature, coupled with elevating the park-like elements to the roof, provides a sense of security for occupants and building visitors. Hence, the building is a catalyst for positive change through good design.

>>Left: Conference room with skylight.

Right: Community room interior.



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Milena Murdoch reflected,“it is a great joy as an architect to see something you built being used as you expected. Then sometimes you create a place for people to use and for them to own it and say

‘I want to take care of this’ is even better!” The Murdochs believe it is forward thinking and pivotal to see a community such as South Los Angeles understand a need for such an innovative building even in its rougher neighborhoods. They recognize, though, that it takes a very special client to allow architects to create these influential projects and take the actions needed to realize it. “These are always team efforts. In order to do any kind of social type of project you have to have a client that is aligned with your values.” said Milena Murdoch. The Central Avenue Constituent Services Center not only was designed through the leadership of Ms. Perry, but it can also be interpreted that the community’s values led the design team’s efforts as well. This once thriving heart of culture in Los Angeles is on the mend due to collaborative efforts and thoughtful design. Though recent memories

of crime and hardship may cloud the community’s perception of South Los Angeles, it is in this revitalization that hope springs forth to encourage the memories of good times had there so that they return and expand. The great jazz legend Louis Armstrong once said, “the memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician.” Likewise, it is the memories of “things gone” that helps this community focus in its efforts to bounce back.

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Bottom: Planted roof trellis.

For additional information on this project, make sure to visit paulmurdocharchitects.com

It gives the community more cause to engage

Central Avenue and offer so many more options

for its neighborhood residents and visitors


G R E E N R O O F S

IMAGINE A NEW BUILDING that has the power to transform a neighborhood, to provide a safe place for people of all ages to congregate, to promote sustainable solutions, to serve as an example for civic engagement, and to spur economic development on its surrounding streets. Imagine that all of this happens without even stepping inside the building. This is exactly what Paul Murdoch Architects achieved in their project for L.A.’s Central Avenue Constituent Service Center (CACSC), highlighted in this month’s article

“The Civic Heart of Central Avenue” on page 54. Conceived as a park with city buildings in it, CACSC is an 8,000 square foot public, municipal roof garden built by the City of Los Angeles. According to researchers at Michigan State University, building rooftops account for a staggering 21-26% of urban space in American cities. For some, this figure may simply bring to mind images of lonely pieces of mechanical equipment. For many others, rooftops are seen as underutilized space ready and waiting for design expertise to transform them into habitable environments. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities has researched the benefits of green roofing which range from public benefits such as waste diversion, storm-water management, and the moderation of urban heat island effect to private benefits that improve day-to-day operations of building owners and tenants (such as energy efficiency, fire retardation, improved air quality and reduction of noise and electromagnetic radiation). As more people become aware of the benefits of green roofing, the demand to incorporate them into projects steadily increases.

Despite the name, green roofs still require a properly installed conventional roof system. Regardless of the type of waterproofing membrane type proposed for a green roof, the component parts remain largely the same. In the NRCA Vegetative Roof Systems Manual, now in its second edition, the National Roofing Contractors Association recommends all green roof systems include the same components to ensure a quality roof installation. These component parts include:• A root barrier layer, which protects the

waterproofing membrane from being damaged by roots.

• A protection layer is a perforation resistant mat that is designed to prevent damage of the root barrier and roof construction during the installation phase.

• A drainage layer that allows excess water a clear path to move to the roof drains. This layer also functions as a water storage layer, aeration space for the system, and protection for the layers below.

• A filter fabric layer to separate the plant and substrate layers from the drainage layers below. It ensures that small particles, humic, and organic material are kept out of the drainage layer and retained for as nutrients for the plants.

• An engineered growing medium supports the plant life of a green roof. It should be made of lightweight mineral material and have a high water retention capacity with good permeability.

• Plantings selected for the appropriate climate zone of the project.

Text: Jessica Metz

Building rooftops account for 21-26% of urban space


TECHNICAL CORNER

A valuable resource to professionals designing, specifying and installing green roof systems, the NRCA Vegetative Roof Systems Manual is a technical document intended to complement the NRCA Roofing Manual series. Divided into four main sections, the manual provides information on green roof project considerations, system guidelines, construction details, and a helpful glossary. Green roofs have traditionally been divided into two different categories: extensive and intensive systems. As green roof technology continues to develop, a third system, semi-intensive, has emerged. Extensive (shallow) green roofs typically contain an engineered soil-based growth medium ranging from 2 to 6 inches in depth. These systems are designed for smaller plant material, such as succulents and grasses that are not meant to support active human use. Extensive systems can be used on roof slopes up to 30 percent and greater (for typical detailing, see Figure 1). Semi-intensive (moderate depth) green roofs typically contain an engineered soil-based growth medium ranging from 6 to 10 inches in depth and can accommodate a greater diversity of plants. Typically used on roof slopes less than 30 percent, semi-intensive systems have a greater initial cost and require greater maintenance than extensive systems (for typical detailing, see Figure 2). Intensive (deep) systems can range from 6 inches in depth to several feet. These systems can accommodate the greatest amount of plant diversity as well as architectural features such as pools, gardens and structures. Although intensive systems provide the greatest range of design and biodiversity potential, these systems are associated with the highest initial and maintenance costs (for typical detailing, see Figure 3).

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Above: Figure 1. Extensive (shallow) vegetative roof systems with insulation.

Below: Figure 2. Semi-intensive (moderate depth) vegetative roof systems with insulation.Gr

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When deciding whether a green roof is appropriate for a project, it is important to consider the positive benefits as well as the potential challenges associated with design and construction. Structurally, the dead load of the roof system can be impacted by a variety of factors such as contractor skill, the type of growing medium selected, and water retention in soil. Additionally, roof landscaping may change live loads resulting from publicly accessible spaces, snow drift patterns, and seismic loads. Feasibility studies should be performed on existing and historic structures to determine if the building has the capacity to carry the weight of a green roof. During the design phase of a project, the architect should consider several things that help reduce the risk of an improperly installed system.• All waterproofing details should be reviewed

to anticipate any potential problem areas resulting from difficult geometries or complex interfaces.

• Providing guidelines for the roof slope will ensure that the slope provides enough water to plants while carrying any excess water to the drainage and retention system.

• Minimize inaccessible penetrations. Plantings can make it difficult to access a large portion of the roof creating maintenance challenges if the waterproofing layer needs to be repaired. Locate any penetrations that must remain within maintenance corridors for future access.

• Consider the height of flashings. Flashing must be high enough to accommodate all layers of the roofing system.

• Protect all membranes and flashings from vegetation and root growth. Any root barriers used as protection must be compatible with the selected roof system. Root growth barriers may also impact the integrity of future electronic leak detection testing.

• Consider the impact of wind uplift on your roof system. In vegetated roofs, ballast consists of growth media, the trays or containers holding the growth media, large stones, paver systems or lightweight interlocking pavers.

• Impact of plant selection on fire resistance rating. Some plantings that retain high amounts of water or, a design that incorporates programmable irrigation controls with motion sensors to monitor and maintain moisture levels, can significantly reduce the risk of fire.

Architects continue to push the envelope of what a green roof can be.

Above: Fig. 3. Intensive (deep) vegetative roof

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TECHNICAL CORNER | Green Roofs


Common construction pitfalls of inexperienced contractors include poorly-timed installation of filter fabric, drainage and growth medium layers, which causes them to miss the optimum window for planting. This can lead to schedule impacts, budget overruns and, in some cases, improperly installed systems. During construction, the architect should ensure the details are correctly implemented during construction and the design is executed as intended. Additionally, it is vital to test the waterproofing assembly to ensure water-tightness prior to installing the vegetation and for some mission critical projects it may be prudent to install a permanent water testing system that allows for future in-service leak detection. The specific water testing method is dependent on the systems involved; however, flood testing, high voltage, and low voltage testing are among the most common. As demand for green roofs has increased, many roofing manufacturers have developed complete systems-- a welcome change for architects who were at the forefront of green roof design. “When we were designing CACSC, all the components for the roof system were established products

available separately in the market, but we were using them together in a new way,” recalls Paul Murdoch of Murdoch Architects. At the time of CACSC’s design, when complete systems weren’t an option, Murdoch Architects relied on their professional experience-- industry established standards for detailing, as well as the expertise of outside consultants and installers to ensure the entire system would function as intended. For these architects, functionality was as important as the design: a pedestal system was used for the hardscape to provide access to the waterproofing membrane if necessary, foam was installed before the soil medium was applied to reduce dead loads as well as the cost of the building structure, and drain extensions to the surface of the plantings provide access for periodic maintenance. Like Los Angeles, many cities throughout the United States recognize the public benefits of green roofs and are working to enact various policy measures, such as legislation and tax incentives, to encourage their widespread installation. Cities such as Washington DC, Chicago, New York City and Portland see green roofs as a critical component of a healthy city with major

environmental and economic advantages. And as the public continues to demand green roofs, architects continue to push the envelope on what a green roof can be. The Hills at Vallco, designed by a collaboration between Rafael Viñoly Architects and landscape architecture firm Olin, is currently the largest proposed green roof in the world. A vast 30-acre mixed-use development in Cupertino, California, this green roof would provide 3.8 miles of walking trails, meadows, vineyards, organic gardens and a nature reserve. Whether it’s roof as a public park, roof as garden, or roof as nature preserve, it is clear that creative projects leave us wanting more.

These systems can accomodate the greatest amount of plant diversity as well as architectural features.

WORKS CITED- “The Future of Green Roofs in the United States” Green Roof Research. Michigan State University, n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.- Dessent, Thomas R., Kevin Bechtel, Michael Gaulin, and Michal Sasse. “The NRCA Vegetative Roof Systems Manual” 2nd ed. Rosemont: National Roofing Contractors Association, 2009, Print.


THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

HOW GOOD DESIGN AND THE SPIRIT OF SPORT

ARE SPURRING SOCIAL CHANGE ACROSS AFRICA.


Text: Paul KeskeysImages: Open Architecture Network

FEATURE

The sun is setting. An excited crowd has assembled. The floodlights are shining. Kick-off is imminent… When the final goal post was erected in Kimberley, South Africa in early 2015 it signaled the completion of one of the most ambitious public interest programs in the world to use sport as a catalyst for social change. The Football For Hope movement was established in 2005 as a collaboration betweeninternational governing body FIFA and streetfootballworld, a global NGO that uses the planet’s favorite sport to lift up under-resourced communities. The initiative was conceived to help deliver training facilities, playing venues,

and homes for local NGOs across Africa in time for the arrival of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. But the real aim extended much further: the partners, together with international humanitarian design organization Architecture for Humanity, envisioned a network of centers that could bring social, economic, and health improvements to local communities in a sustainable manner. The key to success in this respect was one that runs to the heart of Architecture for Humanity’s work over the past 15 years: The centers could not be viewed in isolation as stand-alone architectural projects, but rather as vehicles for native development. The process to bring projects to life would incorporate training local people in construction, as well as teaching local communities about the real added value that good design can bring to their environment.

There was also a need to respond to Africa’s complex array of social conditions and evolving demographics — who were these centers to be used by, and who was best placed to maintain and develop them going forward? In attempting to answer these questions, Architecture for Humanity’s design fellows generated a wide array of approaches across the continent, leading to a vibrant collection of public buildings. Even as they taught a large number of people about the potential of collaborative design, they also learned valuable lessons along the way. Here, we take a look at some of the key considerations that influenced the design and delivery of Football for Hope, highlighting notable examples that illustrate the multifaceted nature of football’s humanitarian set-piece.

>>|71Spring 2016PUBLIC

FEATURE | The Beautiful Game


Beyond ‘One and Done’ The primary goal of the FIFA/streetfootballworld’s initiative was to create a

“tangible social legacy” for communities across the continent, with facilities that could act as a hub for local people long into the future. The question was: How does one create a true “legacy” through architectural design and construction? Many of the design processes were characteristic of Architecture for Humanity’s rally against conventional “one and done” methods, which culminate in commendable but ultimately short-term solutions. One of the program’s flagship projects, the Manica Football for Hope Center in Mozambique, is a case in point. Members of the community participated in workshops led by professionals, learning how to utilize locally sourced clay to make eco-bricks. The lively sessions culminated in the design and construction of a bread oven for neighborhood use, with participants receiving certificates upon the completion of their training. Although the bread oven is of long-term benefit to the community, the key outcome for the exercise was to demonstrate a “proof of concept” to local people. By witnessing the project’s progress, from the creation of the first brick to the completion of a useful (not to mention beautiful)

structure, people quickly understood the potential of the versatile building material. The lifespan of quality construction is good, but the longevity of skills developed during this process is better. Long after the Football for Hope initiative draws to a close, there is hope that local workers will develop further projects to benefit their communities. The qualities of brick as a construction material can be described at length: high strength and durability, excellent fire and weather resistance, good thermal and sound insulation, and so on. For people unfamiliar with the material, however, it is crucial that these properties be illustrated in palpable ways to convince them of its usefulness. The bread oven formed that tangible demonstration and proved to be an effective catalyst for inspiration: the community went on to build more ovens, as well as the center’s main building, out of brick. The center itself is a standout performer within the program. The warmth of the terracotta-colored bricks, together with a simple, instantly identifiable silhouette, embodies the program’s aim to produce structures that act as local landmarks. The best examples form an architectural heart, around which the community can develop their future social and economic infrastructure.

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“One of the most ambitious public interest programs in the world.”

Previous Spread: Kimisagara Football for Hope Center, Rwanda.

This Spread: Manica Football for Hope Center, Mozambique.


Eco-Friendly Strategies The use of local materials, like the clay of Manica — one of many sustainable features incorporated in centers across Africa — is considered essential in aiding the long-term environmental and economic viability of the projects at the post-completion stage. Multiple designs, including the center at Kimisagara in Kigali, Rwanda, feature roofs thatserve as rainwater collectors are ideal for those countries that experience intense biannual wet seasons. Further, pitches were built with integrated drainage tanks, the water being utilized to flush toilets, to wash clothes, and to irrigate. Kimisagara also features a water tower, with solar panels installed to power the pumps throughout the center. Solar power was also adopted extensively for pitch floodlights, crucial in allowing local children to play during the cooler hours of the evening. Indeed, local climate dictated the design of many

elements, with canopies and deep roof overhangs incorporated to shade and cool interior spaces. Materials chosen for landscape features and external finishes were selected for their availability in the local area, as well as their robust qualities: at Kimisagara, gabion-walled seating was installed pitch-side, with earth and volcanic stone being used for surrounding pathways. Intensive planting of indigenous trees was undertaken to restore the riparian edge of the adjacent watercourse. Further, trees throughout the center provide shade, soil conservation, and a green aesthetic within an urban district containing limited natural vegetation. These features were considered early in the design process, with the acknowledgment that the centers are not just for the players — spectators, families, and friends were also considered key clients for the program, increasing the prospects of the facilities being harnessed as a social hub beyond the ostensible agenda of sport and fitness.

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“Produce structures that acts as local landmarks.”

This Spread: Kimisagara Football for Hope Center, Rwanda.



Context Matters The choice to adopt vernacular designs instead of employing a standard template for all 19 centers was a key decision at the outset of the program in 2010. Conventional wisdom — particularly on the part of funders concerned with economic viability of the program — dictated that standardized design could allow for prefabrication and potential savings through the volume production of components. However, to follow this simple formula would have belied the truly complex nature of delivering public buildings across this vast continent. Environmental, social, and cultural conditions of each country vary widely, and as a consequence, the design brief for each called for an idiosyncratic program and aesthetic approach. A case in point may be found in the program’s very first center, located in the World Cup’s 2010 host nation, South Africa. The chosen site was in the heart of Khayelitsha, a township within the city of Cape Town that suffers from notably high crime rates. As a consequence, local urban design guidelines specify interactive edges on every elevation that borders a public space.

As a result, the design team elected to orientate the center along an adjacent high-traffic pedestrian route, thus enhancing the interaction between the community and Grassroot Soccer, the managing NGO. As they are located across the breadth of the continent, center designs were often driven by highly varied environmental conditions; Mogalakwena Football for Hope Center, for example, also located in South Africa, is subject to summer temperatures in the upper 90s F/30s C, with a drastically cooler climate on winter evenings. To accommodate for this, cavity walls were chosen to act as a moisture barrier and provide thermal massing, leading to a cooler internal environment in the intense summer heat. In conjunction with this, eco-insulation composed of recycled, donated paper materials was specified to curb the effects of heat loss through the roof during winter. While these designs responded to the unique nature of each site, there remained a desire to incorporate a unifying element, ensuring that the



program would maintain a collective brand identity despite the huge distances between centers. This thread of common architectural language came in the form of shipping containers, painted vibrant colors and providing a dual function of signage for each center and additional storage space for football equipment. Although the centers were conceived on a case-by-case basis, communication and coordination remained essential in ensuring that the program could be delivered with a strong, unified aesthetic. Ultimately, this has provided FIFA and other funders with a compelling portfolio of images from the program that embodies their global reach, their international brands, and their wide-ranging missions.

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“To raise each center above the utilitarian norm.”

This Spread: Khayelitsha Football for Hope Center, South Africa.


A Sustaining Style Another key aspect of the initiative was the desire to harness contemporary design as a social driver, with the belief that increased pride in each center would incentivize the community to take good care of their facilities long into the future. With limited budgets and challenging site conditions, there were understandable doubts over the feasibility of breaking away from conventional designs when conceiving each project. However, numerous examples among the 19 centers serve to illustrate how cutting-edge style can be maintained despite such contextual constraints. Take Tanzania’s center in the city of Iringa, for example: slender floor-to-ceiling windows are interspersed with extruded brick courses, creating a surface that is dappled with light and shade throughout the day. Beneath the mono-pitch roof toward the end of the building, the front and rear elevations are punctuated by an in-vogue, nonlinear pattern of fenestration reminiscent of modernist works by major studios such as avant-garde Japanese firm SANAA. These carefully considered details are not usually synonymous with humanitarian design due to tight financial constraints and unforgiving

timeframes. However, the team involved recognized the power of contemporary design to raise each center above the utilitarian norm, injecting a stylistic swagger usually associated with high-end public projects. This increases the likelihood of the center being viewed as more than just a sports facility, but also as a local landmark around which communities can gather, grow, and flourish. As Darren Gill, Architecture for Humanity’s regional program manager, put it in a post on the group’s blog: “Particularly in the townships ... there is an attitude that good design and good construction is just not part of the landscape, it’s not part of the culture ... So when you go into those communities and do things at those standards, people are really shocked ... they say ‘wow! Why is this happening here? That’s amazing!’ The pride, the dignity and the enthusiasm that comes from that is truly astonishing ... it offers people an anchor in the community.” The real value of such an anchor is undeniably difficult to measure, but the long-term development of the area in Iringa will surely prove to be a testament to this ambitious approach to design.

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This Spread: Iringa Football for Hope Center, South Africa.



Social Change The tradition of football as a tool for social cohesion within local communities has long been inherent in the sport — its accessibility and team-building qualities have ensured its legacy in youth culture around the globe, especially countries in Africa. However, in order for Football for Hope to achieve its overriding aim of kickstarting social change, it was vital for further programmatic drivers to be present within each project. This is why the establishment of partnerships with local NGOs was crucial to the success of the program. Architecture for Humanity, FIFA, and streetfootballworld sought to locate the centers on sites of existing organizations, already contributing to the facilitation of education, the promotion of health services, and the implementation of social integration strategies for local communities. FIFA cites two particular partnerships as exemplars within their online manifesto: its work with the Mathare Youth Sports Association (Mathare), and its collaboration with Grassroot Soccer in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Zambia. Mathare provides leadership training and environment cleanups in the 16 most deprived areas of Nairobi, while Grassroot Soccer delivers an interactive, football-themed behavior

development curriculum to empower young people; both NGOs also run extensive HIV/AIDS-awareness programs. These partnerships illustrate the increased influence that the architectural industry can have when professionals collaborate not just with clients, but also with local third parties. This tripartite chain of communication has helped to provide a solid foundation upon which local people across the continent can build, providing hubs that communities can feel both supported by and responsible for. As a testament to this approach, Mavis Augustina, a student from the Football for Hope center in Manica, was quoted in FIFA’s final report about the initiative as saying of the Mozambique project: “I can’t express how happy I am to see a center like this being opened in my community. We are facing many challenges, like poverty, gender inequality and limited access to education, and a lot of people here don’t believe they can ever become something or add value to their society. But projects such as this empower and help us learn to respect ourselves and each other.”

“Projects such as this empower and help us learn to respect ourselves and each other.”

This Spread: Kimisagara Football for Hope Center.



Lessons Learned It has been a roller-coaster ride for all involved, an inevitable fact given the context in which the program has unfolded. There have been some disappointments: The Addis Football for Hope Center in Ethiopia eventually had to be cancelled due to complications in securing the land — a sad end to a two-year journey involving great design endeavors comparable with the 19 completed centers. Ultimately though, the program can undoubtedly be seen as a huge success story in the realm of public interest design. The long-term benefits of the centers will become clearer through ongoing reviews of the facilities: not just their physical state, including the challenge of maintenance and repair, but also their effect on the wider social context of each area.

Will the health of young people improve? Will crime rates drop? Can the projects act as a catalyst for further development, improving each region’s economy in the process? It will take time to discover definitive answers to these questions, but there is room for substantial optimism. The simple act of delivering completion on these projects in such challenging contexts and climates should show everyone — from funders, to NGOs, to local people — that with effective collaboration and a generous helping of determination, anything is possible.

ORGANIZATION Football for Hope ESTABLISHED 2005WEBSITE www.fifa.com/sustainability/football-for-hope.html.com

FURTHER READING- “Celebrating Sports for Social Change with Football for Hope” architectureforhumanity.org/blog/08-5-2014/celebrating-sports-social-change-football-hope- “20 Centres for 2010: Football for Hope: Final Report of the Official Campaign of the 2010 FIFA World Cup” www.fifa.com/mm/document/afsocial/ffh-centers/02/21/92/99/20_centres_for_2010_final_report_neutral.pdf


Open courtyard between living and communal buildings at the children's home.Open courtyard between living and communal buildings at the children's home.


NAKURU PROJECT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ODYSSEAS MOURTZOUCHOS

GALLERY


The children explore their new home. The children explore their new home.


The home features a range of social spaces including this raised study and reading gallery.

The home features a range of social spaces including this raised study and reading gallery.


Left: Bedrooms are limited to just four children each and feature views across the local area.

Right: Spacious bunk beds aim to ensure the top bunk isn't always best!






Left: Local worker, George Kuria, constructing the earthbag walls of the home.

Right: Pre-assembled timber frames are lifted into position on the earthbag walls.


Nakuru ProjectLOCATION: Nakuru, KenyaARCHITECTS: OrkidstudioCLIENT: The St Jerome’s CentrePROJECT DIRECTORS: James Mitchell, Tom Woodward, Guylee Simmonds, Gaynor Duthie, Paul DuffySTRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Structure ModeWATER SYSTEMS CONSULTANTS: Barr+WrayCONSTRUCTION PERIOD: 8 weeks, starting 7.19.14FLOOR AREA: 396m2

TOTAL COST: £50,000MAIN CONTRACTOR: Orkidstudio PHOTOS © Odysseas Mourtzouchos

DESCRIPTION: Built with a diverse group from a small Kikuyu community in the rapidly developing agricultural outskirts of Nakuru, Kenya, humanitarian design organization, Orkidstudio, have recently completed a new home which will house local disadvantaged and abandoned children. Challenging the typology of the typical African orphanage where children sleep en mass in large dormitories, the new home limits each room to just four children providing ample space and natural light, and is characterized by a range of different social spaces from open communal areas to quiet nooks and crannies offering space to study, read or simply relax. Orkidstudio, whose focus is to benefit children and communities worldwide, operate with the belief that the process of design and construction can be a powerful tool for affecting social change and empowering people through the sharing of skills and knowledge on site.

The local area is widely populated with stone and concrete houses, many of which are typically left incomplete as their owners struggle to fund the materials to complete each phase. In response, the new home, known as the St Jerome’s Centre, is made from earthbags, utilizing the large quantities of soil generated from foundation, sanitation and rainwater storage excavation. The local soil, which has around 20% clay content, is packed into everyday grain bags and laid like oversized bricks to create deep, durable walls which also effectively absorb heat from the sun, helping regulate temperatures during the cooler nights. Completed in just eight weeks and with added help from a small group of architecture students representing schools across the UK, there were as many as seventy people on site each day, including local women who worked alongside their male counterparts for an equal wage, setting a rare precedent for employment in the area. Many of the team, men and women, have since been approached for work in direct connection with the project, including a couple of commissions to build more earthbag homes and help pass on these skills to others. The new home also features a timber cladding made from pillar cores, a by-product of veneer processing and a material which is often discarded as waste. Additionally, a rainwater harvesting system and integrated community tap provide a unique source of clean running water.

VISIT: www.orkidstudio.co.uk


I have been organizing in the Public Interest Design realm for over three years, most recently as the Acting Chair of the Architecture for Humanity Chapter Network. This movement continues to grow as many young designers emerge from school with the intention to do good within their local communities. But as a group we have not built the capacity to transform all this good intention into action. While there is incredible work to speak of, the people doing the work have not prioritized talking about, sharing, or documenting their practices. They’re just too busy doing the work. This is a problem. If we do not establish goals, drive for outcomes, or even critically share our experiences how are we to know what success looks like? Or failure for that matter? There needs to be more coordination between organizations and knowledge sharing from practitioners in order to grow this movement. It’s time for us to come together, practitioners, organizational leaders and funders. Over the past decade many socially focused design organizations have sprung up, now they can partner, creating an accessible and aligned movement. From my experience this past year at Code for America, a leading organization in the civic technology movement, I’ve learned that being outcomes-driven, open-source, and inclusive can help galvanize and support people in a shared effort. Taking Code for America as a movement building model, I believe there are a few key principles that can set us on the path to realizing the full potential of participatory and inclusive design.

Designers: Let’s Get Organized

First, we occupy and get to know each other. Then we pause and take ongoing control of some patch of

reality so as to make possible further joint activity.

Staughton Lynd

GARRETT JACOB’S CALL TO ARMS


EDITORIAL

1. Organize Around OutcomesWhile specific needs must be identified and addressed locally, our movement must begin to establish desired outcomes that we wish to see. If we are aligned in our high level goals, the local practitioners will have a clearer pathway to deliver services to those who haven’t had a voice or seat at the table. This could be more in person gatherings and an ongoing digital dialogue creating collective goals, building on the SEED principles set in 2005. 2. Operate in the OpenThe current pedagogy of design teaches individuals to be sole visionaries of proprietary creativity. If we truly intend on advancing the mission of civic participation in the creation of our environments, then we need to share our processes, build on one another’s work, and contribute to an open community working in collaboration. We need to establish a shared database of work, a discussion forum, and ongoing events. The result being a platform that allows us to dive deep into the practice, our failures, and accomplishments — to go beyond the projects. 3. Establish Strong PartnershipsThere are many organizations contributing to a shared vision within the Public Interest Design movement, but many people are still trying to do a bit of everything. Doing more is not always doing better. If we gather and discuss our unique value add to the movement, clearly identify our constituencies, and agree to partner, we will be able to refine practices and programs to dive deeper into the actual work and identify where we can best contribute within a larger coalition. 4. Own the Politics of Our WorkWe are privileged in our knowledge of how spaces and buildings are created, from legal codes and permits to funding structures and project coordination. Acknowledging our participation in a capital driven and politically charged system is the first step in understanding that we have a powerful voice as advocates and facilitators. We need to see these policies, codes, and processes as design challenges that can be questioned. Currently designers get involved after many of the important decisions are already made. Instead, we can get ahead of this current process and identify new ways to allocate resources for those we work with, in hopes of building capacity for people to advocate for themselves. As my friend Anne Guiney from the Van Alen Institute says, “we can shift from problem solvers to problem definers”.

Most of this comes down to increased communication and collaboration in the Public Interest Design movement. Designers need to move beyond design, invite their community partners to accompany them in the creation process, work across disciplines, and allow unforeseen partnerships and opportunities to bloom. Together we can build the trainings and digital platforms to skill up the thousands of designers intent on working with their neighbors who might not be able to afford services. Design is constant change driven by who is around at the time, and we have the power to invite anyone to the table. Let’s dream bigger.

When we pull our collective head out of the sand, we can no longer deny the undeniable: space and

its making are political. The return of the political to architecture does not involve designing a building but

designing a process of political engagement — one by which architectural ideas, strategies, practices, and

values are developed and disseminated in collaboration and contestation with greater society.

Jose L. S. Gamez and Susan Rogers


BUILDING THE FUTURE TOGETHER.

TO OUR INDIEGOGO CONTRIBUTORSBraulio Agnese . Kristie Ronsin . Cameron Hempstead . Lyle Hansen . John Cary

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Adam Goodwin . Tom Di Santo . Charlie Klecha . Alex Ceballos Thomas Fisher . Sharon Davis . Bryan Bell . James Wheeler . Prescott Reavis David Witte

Paden & Michael Hughes . Emily Nelson . Andrew & Bonnie Burger Akil HolmesAndrew Humaydan . B. Gaudio . Ashley Marsh . Dre Marinez

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