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Design Blog Design Blog » Design for the Other 90%

Straw and Earth


An energy-efficient straw bale house is being built on the Mall, across the street from the US Capitol. Natural builders from around the country converged on Washington DC to construct the straw shelter and a bamboo shade structure. Rose Morin, a green builder from New Mexico and one of the over dozen volunteers with Builders Without Borders who built the structures, notes “the strength of homes is in their essential simplicity.”

The eco-house is part of the US Botanic Gardens’ One Planet-Ours: Sustainability for the 22nd Century which features displays from over forty organizations and individuals, including the United Nations Environment Program and the US Department of Energy. It is on view from May 24 through Oct 13th, 2008.

Straw bale construction can be used for a variety of climates. Architects in a colder region like Finland use this building technique to keep the heat in, while in Mexico it protects from the intense heat. Designing with straw bale improves insulation, limits waste and reduces energy requirements while utilizing a renewable recyclable material. Builders Without Borders find because of these super-insulating qualities and their lower cost as an agricultural waste material this construction method can be highly suitable for solving the housing shortage in economically marginalized communities where culturally appropriate.

Summer in Minneapolis


Design for the Other 90% reopens at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 24 and will be there right through the summer until September 7, 2008. The design solutions will be displayed within several second generation larger Global Village Shelters in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, one of the largest urban sculpture parks in the United States. It is part of the Garden’s 20th Anniversary Celebration and is free to the public.

Design for the Other 90% Wins

Webby Awards

For the second year in a row Cooper-Hewitt wins a Webby, the “oscars” of the internet! Congratulations to our very talented web creator, William Berry, for his amazing work.

This Web site, Design for the Other 90%, is the official Webby Award Winner for Cultural Institutions. Hailed as the “the Internet’s highest honor” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Web sites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile web sites. This years Webby Awards received a record 9,500 entries from over 60 countries worldwide.

Out of Poverty

Out of Poverty

International Development Enterprises’ founder Paul Polak has just released his much anticipated book Out of Poverty, What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail. Based on his 25 years of experience he tells why traditional poverty eradication programs have fallen short and how his alternative approach works. Paul’s work and dedication to developing practical design solutions that attack poverty at its roots was the inspiration for the Design for the Other 90% exhibition. He works in co-creation with thousands of farmers in Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe to design and produce low-cost, income-generating products that have helped 17 million people emerge out of poverty. His pioneering alternative approach serves as a successful model of what is possible.

The book has met with favourable reviews from the Economist, Business Week and the International Herald Tribune. In the coming months Paul will be discussing both his new book and the start of a design revolution in a series of public lectures.

Voûte Nubienne Affordable Housing

Voûte Nubienne Affordable Housing

In sub-Saharan Africa, traditional building techniques are no longer feasible; due to increased deforestation use of timber for roofing and posts is not viable. Adapting an ancient architectural technique used in Sudan and Asia to West Africa, provides an affordable alternative. The Voute Nubienne (VN) or Nubian Vault technique uses local materials (mud bricks dried in the sun) and local labor to construct low cost vaulted roofs. Earth roofs in the Sahel, a program of the Association La Voûte Nubienne, is providing communities with a practical option to building with imported metal sheet roofing materials and expensive timber. The first VN building was built in Burkina Faso 10 years ago. Since then over 340 vaults have been built, 60 VN builders have been trained and are setting themselves up as local entrepreneurs, and 100 apprentices are undergoing training on VN building sites. The method has spread from Burkina Faso to Mali, Senegal, Togo and Ivory Coast.