Recently in Sustainability Category
May 27, 2015
Affordable Housing: Moladi's Hennie Botes on Innovation & Perseverance
January 13, 2015
Adrian Woolridge: "Capitalism begins at home"
January 29, 2014
Whatever Happened to the $300 House?
September 3, 2011
Dartmouth Team to Visit Haiti
On the trip they will meet with community members, leaders and various organizations.
Team members include:
Vicki May, Professor, Thayer School of Engineering
Vicki May is an Instructional Associate Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering and she is a registered Professional Engineer in the states of New Hampshire and California. At Thayer School, Vicki teaches solid mechanics, integrated design, and structural analysis. Prior to joining the faculty at Thayer, she was a professor of Architectural Engineering at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo. She also worked in the Los Angeles area for a firm that specializes in seismic rehabilitation of historic structures. She earned her BS in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota and her MS and PhD degrees in structural engineering from Stanford University.
Jack Wilson, Professor, Studio Art
Jack Wilson is an architect and planner and is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Studio Art at Dartmouth College where he teaches courses in Drawing, Architectural Design and Landscape Art & Design. He also teaches a course on Integrated Design at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering. Until 2009 he was responsible for supervision of campus planning as well as project development, architect selection and design review for large scale capital projects at Dartmouth. In addition to teaching he currently also consults on the planning, design and construction of health care, institutional, commercial and residential projects. Prior to coming to northern New England Jack worked for a number of architectural firms in Philadelphia PA. Jack earned his AB in Art at Vassar College and his Master of Architecture degree at the University of Pennsylvania. He has given invited talks, and presented papers nationally and internationally and is active both at Dartmouth and locally on numerous committees and boards, including the Board of Directors of The Family Place, a non-profit organization in Vermont focused on building strong families in order to build strong communities.
Molly Bode, Global Health Program Officer, The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science
Molly Bode is a Global Health Program Officer at The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science. Molly also serves as the Dartmouth Haiti Response Coordinator for medical and educational initiatives with partners in Haiti. In addition to working on Haiti projects, she helps coordinate other global health activities at the College including projects in Rwanda, India, other countries, and in the US. Prior to her current position, Molly served in a two-year fellowship in the President's Office and The Dartmouth Center working on projects for President Jim Yong Kim. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2009 with a Biology and Film major and is currently taking Masters in Public Health courses.
Tyler Pavlowich, PhD student, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Tyler is a second-year PhD student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program at Dartmouth College. He has worked with fish and aquaculture for seven years, both as a researcher and extensionist to rural communities in Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer.
His most recent research has focused on the use of algae as a feed source for tilapia in integrated food-energy systems with Professor Anne Kapuscinski from the Environmental Studies Program. He is starting his dissertation and interested in how appropriate aquatic food production systems can contribute to ecological and human well-being.
Special thanks to Dartmouth for making this happen!
June 15, 2011
$300 House: Open Design Challenge Winners
What began as a challenge in a blog post on the Harvard Business Review website has resulted in a collection of 300 design submissions from around the world. The $300 House Open Design Challenge is complete, with judges picking their final selections after much deliberation, and an extension, in order to go through the entries in detail.
Winners were selected in combination with votes from
the community and a panel of judges
comprised of expert designers, architects, and thought leaders. The winners share
$25000 in total prize money which includes $10,000 in cash awards to the top 16
placements as voted by the community itself, and $15,000 in scholarships to
attend a prototyping workshop for six participants (three selected by the
community, and three by the judges panel).
The winners of the prototyping workshop scholarship are
(listed by username):
"We're delighted
by the depth and breadth of the submissions we received," says Vijay
Govindarajan, Professor of International Business and the Founding Director of
Tuck's Center for Global Leadership. "Hosting
this contest on Jovoto's open, co-creation platform gave us a wealth of ideas
and identified the people who we believe have the passion, skill, and
commitment, to take the project to the next level, prototyping and actually
building a $300 house for the poor. We invite all the participants to continue
the discussion at www.300house.com."
May 27, 2011
299 Design Ideas for the $300 House
Special thanks to the Jovoto team - Nathalie, Nadine, Peter (x2), Bastian, and Shaun at Mutopo for making this happen - without your generosity we'd never have gotten off the ground. Thanks also to Scott Tew from Ingersoll Rand for your willingness to try this experiment.
Now, let the judging begin!
April 20, 2011
Rafael Smith: More Notes from Haiti
Smith is a judge in our Open Design Challenge.
April 9, 2011
Shraya's Interview: The $300 House
The following questions were sent to VG and Christian by Shraya, a 4th grader in Miss Mancosh's class. Her mentor for this project is Miss Emily Pasquale. Thanks for your questions, Shraya!
We
are not a formal organization - simply a collection of concerned
individuals and companies trying to find a solution to the problem of
low-cost housing for the poorest people on our planet. So our "job" is to
help people come together - across organizations, businesses and
governments - to solve the problem.
How do you plan to get the money to construct these houses?
Does your organization operate all around the world?
Yes
and no. We have members from all the different continents who have
signed on because they are interested in solving the problem. But we
are not a formal organization, so we don't spend any money operating
anywhere.
What are challenges in building houses outside the USA?
Great
question. The biggest challenge for poor people anywhere is money -
they don't have enough money to buy land or to buy a house. Sometimes
they lack the money to even rent a place to live and have to resort to
living in anything they can find that gives them some protection from
the elements.
Our hope is that we can create affordable houses which are comfortable
and durable enough to provide the poor with a safe place to live. Every
country has different issues, and we're going to have to understand what
they are to be successful.
Are you constructing any houses in India currently?
No,
not yet. But India is one of the countries we want to build a few test
houses, to see how they work. Other countries we are thinking about to
start this project are Haiti and Indonesia.
Are you working with other charities? If so what are they?
We
plan on working with charities and businesses. You see, we think
businesses can make money and help poor people at the same time. It's
simply a matter of designing the house at a price that poor people can
afford. We are also working with non-profits like the Solar Electric
Light Fund, and shortly, we hope, with Partners In Health. In India we
are talking to a number of non-profits as well. Of course, we welcome
everyone!
What type of problems have you encountered so far?
What
problems? If it was easy, the problem would have been solved a long
time ago. So we don't really view our difficulties as problems, but
rather as a way to learn. You can't run without falling, and we're
learning to fall quite well!
How has the response been so far about this initiative?
Tremendous.
We have people like you writing us - and we have almost 800 people from
all over the world who want to do something about this issue. It's
great!
What is it like being in this organization?
It's fun to
try to do something that most people think can't be done. And what will
be really cool is if we succeed! Wish us luck - and send in your design
for the $300 House.
VG and I love that kids are getting into this project along w/ the adults. Here's an example of a submission from another concerned citizen of the planet >>
March 24, 2011
Shigeru Ban's Paper Loghouses
paper loghouses in kobe, 1995
courtesy shigeru ban architects
Is Artificial Photosynthesis the Disruptive Solution to the Energy Problem?
Looks like the Tata Group thinks so. They’ve just partnered with Sun Catalytix to save the planet. In this Fast Company article, we learn that MIT’s Daniel Nocera and his team stuck an artificial cobalt- and phosphate-coated
silicon leaf into a jar of water and managed to create power—at an
efficiency that surpasses today’s solar panels!
Here’s the official propaganda:
Bring it!
March 10, 2011
February 26, 2011
The $300 House in the City: Sunil Suri on the Urban Challenge
Read all about the Urban Challenge on the Harvard Business Review blog>>
February 13, 2011
Design for the Other 90%
“The problem is that 90 percent of the world’s designers spend all their time working on solutions to the problems of the richest 10 percent of the world’s customers. A revolution in design is needed to reverse this silly ratio and reach the other 90 percent.”
Paul Polak in Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail
Here are Paul’s 12 steps to practical problem solving for the poor:
- Go to where the action is.
- Talk to the people who have the problem and listen to what they have to say.
- Learn everything you can about the problem’s specific context.
- Think big and act big.
- Think like a child.
- See and do the obvious.
- If somebody has already invented it, you don’t need to do so again.
- Make sure your approach has positive, measurable impacts that can be brought to scale.
- Design to specific cost and price targets.
- Follow practical three-year plans.
- Continue to learn from your customers.
- Stay positive: don’t be distracted by what other people think.
For all the designers out there, these principles should be applied to the design and implementation of the $300 House. Paul Polak’s approach at D-REV and IDE is the direction is which Design must go if is to make a difference in the world.
Watch:
February 12, 2011
$300 House Submission: Javier Tenorio and Fernando Garcia-Landois of Owens Corning
Even as we were trying to organize an Open Challenge for the $300 House, we received this submission from Javier Tenorio and Fernando Garcia-Landois of Owens Corning. Thanks guys! In addition to helping design a $300 House, your paper helps us set the standard format for the entire project!
The paper has six sections:
1. essential house areas definition
2. customer needs approach
3. design association for needs
4. a design proposal
5. proposed materials
6. costs and conclusions
Of particular interest to us are sections 2 and 3 - because they help us see the connections between customer needs and design:
Download the entire thing here >>
February 4, 2011
David Sands: The Sustainability Challenge
Bamboodist and architect David Sands blogs about the $300 House in Harvard Business Review:
"It's easy to say a $300 House for the poor should be designed a sustainable solution, but it's no easy feat. To be sustainable, all the elements must be good for the user, good for the environment and good for those who made them. Where do the materials come from? Of what are they composed? Are they nontoxic? Or better yet, are they biophilic: Is life on earth improved for everyone and all creatures because this product is being made? Also, if it is not affordable, it is not sustainable! With their reduced economic means, fewer choices are available to the poor and cost precludes many otherwise sustainable options."Read the entire post >>
January 22, 2011
Inspiration: Samuel Mockbee
The late Sambo Mockbee:
Watch the full episode. See more Citizen Architect.
The Rural Studio lives on…
January 21, 2011
Rafael Smith's Über Shelter
Meet the Über Shelter, from $300 House advisor Rafael Smith:
December 23, 2010
The House of Bamboo
Wasn’t there a song about this?
December 12, 2010
Dai Haifei's Egg House
Dai Haifei, 24, a newly graduated architect, decided to make his own egg-style home after being unable to afford Beijing's sky-high rental prices. The two-meter high house with two wheels underneath is made from sack bags on the outside wall, bamboo splints on the inside and wood chippings and grass seeds in between.
"The seeds will grow in the natural environment and it's cold-proof," Dai explained.
More here >>
November 28, 2010
Why $300? Is it a real house?
Why $300? That’s a question that keeps coming up.
To answer this question, let’s look at what inspired the $300 house. It all started with this video of Partners In Health in action [disclosure: at the time I was putting together a project involving PIH, SELF and the reggae group Steel Pulse at www.holdon4haiti.org].
Watch Dr. David Walton’s story at the 4:24 mark >>
At 4:57 we see Dr. Walton visit a girl with a heart ailment. She lived, as you see, in a one room hut with 11 other family members. Her house is what started this $300 house idea rolling - first as a blog post, and now as a project to bring together the people and organizations to make it a reality.
So why $300? Three reasons:
1) the Tata Nano was built around the idea that a car should cost $2000/- They then engineered everything to fit that price point - which in turn forced a lot of innovative design thinking. So our point was that if we set a hard number like $300, well, then we’ll be forced to innovate to meet that number. We’re simply setting a target.
2) We then used an old formula which we used to use when I was a kid in India - anything that cost 100$ in the US, you could get re-engineered for 10$ in India. Following that logic, a $3000 shed available at Sam’s Warehouse should then cost $300 in an emerging country like India or perhaps even less in a poor country like Haiti.
3) Finally, we looked up the cost of what a poor person’s house is in a place like Bangladesh. From Yunus’ book - where he describes 10 attributes of people who have escaped poverty in Bangladesh - we found an estimate for $370 for a house of Grameen members who have escaped poverty.
So we set $300 as a target price; for a social business that should be doable.
Now, can we do it? Join us >>
November 27, 2010
The $300 House in Harvard Business Review
The concept of the $300 House owes its genesis to the Harvard Business Review:
- The Challenge by Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar
- The Financial Challenge by David A. Smith
- The Design Challenge by Bill Gross
- The Energy Challenge by Bob Freling
- The Co-Creation Challenge by Gaurav Bhalla
- The Marketing Challenge by Seth Godin
- The Performance Challenge by Doug Smith
- The Corporate Challenge by Stephanie A. Burns
- The Sustainability Challenge by David Sands