- . Digg It
- . Sphere It
- . E-mail This
- . Save to del.icio.us
- . Permanent Link
We Can Rebuild It
Architecture for Humanity: Design Like You Give a Damn
The photos: dusty, battered hands reaching through the rubble of Sichuan as the magnitude of the 7.9 earthquake is dug up; pole-thin people standing in the mud in Myanmar, dazed from no food or water for a week. People living in makeshift tents on sidewalks, people huddled together under sheets. Visiting my father these past few days, these recent tragedies just kept coming up. "Millions of people suddenly have nowhere to live," my father said as we took an after-dinner walk along his very wealthy stretch of Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, past the local Williams-Sonoma with its $8,600 La Cornue stove on display. "It's confounding, possibly impossible," he said fretfully. When we headed back in (for ice cream), we rode the elevator up with neighbors who are selling their apartment for about $4 million.
Upstairs, I stared at the fresh bouquet of orchids glowing on the polished hallway table and resolved to go online and show my father that things are being done. I took him to the website for Architecture for Humanity.
What we need is an architectural revolution, he read off the home page as he spooned out Butter Pecan.
AfH is an amazing organization based in San Francisco that brings professional design services to communities that need it. It did it in Sri Lanka, in Northern Afghanistan, in New Orleans, and it's hoping — I should really say planning — to do it in Myanmar. This is the opposite of wait and see architectural activism; very much like their hands-on approach to volunteering and building: Just do it. In the gruesome wake of Cyclone Nargis, which left 2 million people displaced (just close your eyes and say 2 million homeless people to yourself and see what it does to your appetite for $8,600 stoves), AfH started a fund drive to support post-disaster design and construction there. In two days, more than 240 people contributed over $20,000, most giving in amounts so small you could have bought cheap dinner instead. I know I'm always saying that, but why not give $40 and have a PB&J for dinner one night?
Upstairs, I stared at the fresh bouquet of orchids glowing on the polished hallway table and resolved to go online and show my father that things are being done. I took him to the website for Architecture for Humanity.
What we need is an architectural revolution, he read off the home page as he spooned out Butter Pecan.
AfH is an amazing organization based in San Francisco that brings professional design services to communities that need it. It did it in Sri Lanka, in Northern Afghanistan, in New Orleans, and it's hoping — I should really say planning — to do it in Myanmar. This is the opposite of wait and see architectural activism; very much like their hands-on approach to volunteering and building: Just do it. In the gruesome wake of Cyclone Nargis, which left 2 million people displaced (just close your eyes and say 2 million homeless people to yourself and see what it does to your appetite for $8,600 stoves), AfH started a fund drive to support post-disaster design and construction there. In two days, more than 240 people contributed over $20,000, most giving in amounts so small you could have bought cheap dinner instead. I know I'm always saying that, but why not give $40 and have a PB&J for dinner one night?
What People Are Saying…
Leave a Comment