Humanity-Centered Design describes the active practice of designing with entire ecosystems of people in mind. This means designing with the people you’re designing for, and supporting their designs derived from their unique lived experiences.
Houses
Sandbag Houses
https://inhabitat.com/sandbag-house-mma-architects/
MMA Architects recently completed a home built out of timber and sandbags – and became the winner of the Curry Stone Foundation Prize this year. The prize is awarded to individuals or groups that create architecture that has the potential to make positive changes in a community by offering shelter, community health, peace, or clean water, air and food. This sandbag house was built for a mere $6,000, making it affordable for low-income housing. The design also utilizes uncomplicated techniques- and was constructed with the help of its future residents who were able to gain a sense of ownership through the building process.
Bamboo Houses
https://ramboll.com/projects/ruk/lombok_bamboo_housing
From the website:
In 2018, Lombok was struck by several earthquakes measuring up to magnitude 7. These events had a catastrophic effect on local communities, leaving over 500 dead, 129,000 damaged houses and 445,000 people homeless. The disaster could have been even worse had the island not been shaken by pre-shocks sending inhabitants out of their concrete buildings before the main quake struck. …
But project success depends on local adoption. To ensure the spread of knowledge we have employed local bamboo craftsman and supplemented the building team with unskilled in bamboo works locals. The teams will build two community centres as template houses and learn from one another the crafts. Ramboll volunteers will facilitate the process and ensure safe implementation of the design.
To encourage the adoption, we have created step-by-step design guides which will be freely available to all. Furthermore, we have devised a series of workshops around the most important aspects of the houses as we believe that through education, people will understand why the design can save their lives.
A Success Story: Health Care in Rwanda
https://www.pih.org/country/rwanda
This program is run by Partners in health, a nonprofit organization. Here is how they describe their work on their website.
The Role of Communities
Even the best clinics and hospitals are insufficient in guaranteeing care if people cannot access them. That’s why community health workers are key to building strong health systems. They are the bridge between communities and clinics, finding the most vulnerable among their neighbors and accompanying them through care.
Often, that care extends beyond the medical and addresses the whole patient. A mother cannot undergo cancer care and lose work without receiving economic support. A tuberculosis patient cannot endure strong medications on an empty stomach. And a patient showing symptoms of COVID-19 cannot take public transportation to her local testing site.
Rise Against Hunger
https://www.riseagainsthunger.org/
Rise Against Hunger is growing a global movement to end hunger by empowering communities, nourishing lives and responding to emergencies.
From the implementation of sustainable community development projects to our meal packaging program that harnesses the passion of local volunteers, we strive to make an impact on hunger. Targeting remote, last-mile communities within hunger pockets worldwide, we work through local leaders to build resilience, self-sufficiency, and empowerment.
The Role of Communities
Even the best clinics and hospitals are insufficient in guaranteeing care if people cannot access them. That’s why community health workers are key to building strong health systems. They are the bridge between communities and clinics, finding the most vulnerable among their neighbors and accompanying them through care.
Often, that care extends beyond the medical and addresses the whole patient. A mother cannot undergo cancer care and lose work without receiving economic support. A tuberculosis patient cannot endure strong medications on an empty stomach. And a patient showing symptoms of COVID-19 cannot take public transportation to her local testing site.
Habitat for Humanity
With Habitat for Humanity, you have the opportunity to build in your community and also in communities around the world.
Because of the help of people like you, whole neighborhoods improve and completely transform. Through this transformation, families achieve the strength, stability and independence they need to build a better life.
UN Volunteers: A job bank for volunteers
Literally: A job book, advertising positions all over the world.
Engineers Without Borders
https://www.ewb-international.org/
The first URL, above, is in the United States,but they have a global reach.
The second URL is the International group.
From their website:
Engineers Without Borders USA’s (EWB-USA) International Community Program collaborates on more than 370 projects in 40 countries. These projects are driven by 233 chapters across the United States partnering directly with communities to meet their self-identified needs.
Our approach to development is based on more than blueprints and measurements; it’s based on real relationships and five-year partnerships with communities. We do more than build latrines for communities – we equip them to build and maintain latrines themselves.
Community-Driven Projects
EWB-USA’s commitment to our hundreds of partnering communities is founded upon the premise that community-driven projects result in long-lasting and sustainable infrastructure solutions. Throughout this partnership, we bring together volunteers and community members of all backgrounds and experience levels together to promote educational and leadership opportunities not typically provided in traditional academic settings.
Transition Design
From the Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) Design Department.
https://design.cmu.edu/tags/transition-design
Although transition design started at Carnegie-Mellon University’s school of Design (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA), I could not find a definition on their website. All it had was their recent activities. So, I turned to my faithless companion, ChatTPG (as implemented on the Microsoft Bing browser).
Here is what Chat told me:
Transition Design is an approach for intentionally shifting the transition trajectories of our communities, organizations and societies toward more sustainable, long-term futures. It acknowledges that we are living in transitional times and takes as its central premise the need for societal transition (systems-level change) to more just, equitable, and sustainable futures
You can see why this is relevant. Chat thoughtfully provided It provided two references: