I Give A Damn!
This past weekend, at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Center for Architecture – a diverse, multidisciplinary, and international group of professionals gathered for the second annual Design Like You Give A Damn: LIVE! The event was hosted by the nonprofit organization Architecture for Humanity. This year’s event was wildly successful and attendees stood shoulder to shoulder as they soaked in the ideas and inspiration being shared among them.
The event in New York this past weekend featured dynamic and collaborative presentations, including a Design Open Mic and a Panel Discussions. All day long, a steady stream of short presentations were performed at seven minute intervals in the Design Open Mic, a technique borrowed from the weekly lunchtime event at Architecture for Humanity’s headquarters in San Francisco, and reminiscent of TED talks. The presented projects, created by architects, engineers, students, professors, and others touched on innovative ideas from a variety of topics and locations. Some projects focused on disaster relief in places like Japan, Haiti, New Orleans, and Afghanistan. Other presentations proposed solutions to environmental problems facing humanity. Still, other presentations looked for a fix to economically depressed populations on global as well as local scales. Through a total of forty quick presentations there was no shortage of creative ideas from which the audience could be inspired and engaged.
The other component of the event involved three panel discussions followed by one-on-one workshops with the panelists. The topics of the three panels included: investing in social and sustainable real estate, disaster response and reconstruction, and greening our schools. Each panel was comprised of business people, bankers, academics, writers, politicians, and designers from a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints, all leaders in their respective fields. These panel discussions were recorded and streamed live by Architecture for Humanity as a way to reach out to an audience that could not attend the event live.
Design Live You Give a Damn: Live! provides Architecture for Humanity a chance each year to invigorate and inspire a growing number of believers in the power of design to create positive change. The organization encourages continued support and participation through its Chapter Network so that design is not merely celebrated in an annual event, but used as a tool for positive change everyday. Architecture for Humanity encourages all designers to get involved and design like you give a damn!
