#design corps

"The best individual intentions do not make a professional ethical standard. If public interest design is going to grow from a 'movement' of individuals into a valued field of professional practice, we need clear measures of performance for ourselves and for the public. These measures need to be made explicit."

Title : Expanding Architecture - Design as Activism

Author : Bryan Bell (Editor), Katie Wakeford (Editor)

The following is a summary from Design Corps's Website on the project: http://www.designcorps.org/projects/community-design-planning#CP

   In the last ten years, Sampson County, NC, has witnessed a 1,000% increase in its Latino population. The farmworker population accounts for most of this growth as over 90% of the farmworker population is immigrant from Mexico and other Central American countries. With 6,213 farmworkers, not including dependents, Sampson County is home to one of the largest migrant and seasonal farmworker populations in the state.

Despite this remarkable increase in number, farmworkers live isolated from the rest of the society; their poor working and living conditions go unnoticed. Farmworkers have the lowest annual income of all wage earners in the United States, and, because of their immigration status, they are excluded from federal and state work protections and many do not qualify for public benefits or food stamps. Indicators of poverty include poor access to health care and preventive care (including nutrition), substandard housing, low educational performance, and repeated demonstrated need for food, clothing and other charity. With few rights and very low income, farmworkers are a vulnerable population with little power to secure basic necessities.

Website : http://www.designcorps.org/ 

Mission : Create positive change in communities by providing architecture and planning services. Our vision is realized when people are involved in the decisions that shape their lives, including the built environment.

Founded : Design Corps was founded in 1991 and became a 501-c-3 in1996.

Description : Design Corps' community service program that is ten years old and has a proven record of success. It brings the skills of recent architecture and planning graduates who provide technical assistance to communities in need. We primarily serve small rural communities composed of low-income families who do not have access to the technical services needed to shape their physical needs. The design and planning expertise provided by these interns allows communities to shape their physical environment and create positive change. Design Corps' community service program offers technical assistance in planning, design, and grant writing. Known as Community Design Fellows, they bring their technical educations and experiences to bear at each local site where they are placed and are supported by trained professionals. Once at the site, Fellows work to identify challenges and pool needed resources through community involvement and participation to ensure that the community shares in identifying challenges, creating a vision, and implementing design responses.

Founder / Executive Director: Bryan Bell, is the editor of Good Deeds, Good Design: Community Service through Architecture, published by Princeton Architectural Press. He received a 2007 National Honor Award for Collaborative Practice from the American Institute of Architects. Design Corps co-hosts an annual conference that addresses design for the underserved called Structures for Inclusion.