Design With, Instead of for, the Other 90%

"Design with the Other 90%: CITIES," a new exhibit opening this month at the United Nations in New York and curated by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, reveals how the design community is attempting to define a better role for itself than in prior years, one that's more collaborative than pedagogic or paternalistic. The designers featured immerse themselves in needy communities in order to provide valuable knowledge and skill sharing, and mostly refrain from the sort of design tourism that have defined (and continue to define) many "socially responsible" design projects. (Some day someone will curate an amazing show called "Socially Irresponsible Design," but I digress.)

The exhibition couldn't come at a more opportune time. The challenges faced by rapidly growing cities are huge and the number of people destined to be affected by them is massive: almost one billion people live in informal settlements, better known as slums, worldwide. That number is project to double by 2030, and by that time, all less economically developed countries will have more people living in cities than in rural villages. Exhibited projects engage directly with these challenges. Some, like architect Luyanda Mpahlwa's 10x10 Sandbag House, strike me as extremely successful: costing just 50,000 rand, or $7,000, the design borrows from indigenous mud and wattle building methods, and actually feels very much in character with its community. Another smart solution is the Community Cooker in Kibera, Kenya, created by architects James Howard Archer and Mumo Musava. A far safer alternative than Kenya's typical use of wood and charcoal cooking fires (which cause respiratory diseases and environmental degradation), this communal oven not only helps eliminate those risks, it also runs on trash, thus reducing a significant waste management problem the community had been experiencing. The Community Cooker not only makes people (let's not call them "users") safer, it promotes social exchange and entrepreneurship within communities.