Design Corps

In a week where we were all introduced to some of the core concepts and ideas of social innovation and enterprise, I wanted to focus my blog post on one of the organizations that introduced me to this field. Design Corps.

In 1991, Bryan Bell and Victoria Ballard Bell founded Design Corps in Raleigh, North Carolina. The organization originally set out to design and build affordable and appropriate housing for the migrant farm workers in the Bells’ hometown. Design Corps has since provided similar services to migrant workers in other low-income rural communities, as well as design and more long-term planning services for these same communities. These are groups traditionally neglected by the design community. As Bryan Bell says, “Fifteen years ago, people didn’t get the idea of bringing design to social issues. They saw design as something for the wealthy that really had nothing to do with social issues…[Designers] thought [affordable housing] was a budget issue and not somewhere for real design talent and energy.”

Using a system of “design thinking” similar to the methods described by Brown and Wyatt in “Design Thinking for Social Innovation,” Design Corps has successfully executed projects for clients in North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Their projects all involve close interaction and collaboration with their clients to address the specific needs of the particular situation. This allows for Design Corps to maximize the physical space they create. Not necessarily in the amount they build, but the use they are able to get out of the space. Square footage, or space, in a building costs money. Given their budget constraints, square footage is a limited resource.

A majority of the funding for Design Corps projects comes from federal and state grants, with the remainder coming from the farmers or communities themselves. Design Corps is not a profit-making social venture in the vein of Tata’s Nano or Godrej’s ChotuKool, but they are still able, as Bryan Bell says, “to pay their staff living wages.” Additionally, he does not see the grant writing process as a distraction from the organization’s primary work. Rather, he sees the grant writing process as simply recording answers to questions that should already be asked during the design process.

With thoughtful design and thinking creatively about how to structure funding, organization and labor, Design Corps provides affordable housing to a group that's traditionally neglected by the design community. The homes and structures built by Design Corps are perfect case studies to illustrate that good, aesthetically pleasing design doesn't have to be bound by small budgets. So take a look at some of their projects and let me know what you guys think. Does it appear as if the designers had to make any concessions to the limited financial means of the clients? Do they use the smaller budgets as an opportunity for invention or do you feel they used the budgets as a crutch and came up short of what the building could have accomplished? Do you simply like the designs from an aesthetic point of view?

Thanks.

-Kyle

The following articles and web pages were used in composing this post:

Liao, Janet; " Design Philanthropy"

Cameron, Kristi; "More from the Notebook of Bryan Bell"

Spatial Agency: Design Corps