SciDev.Net – Rachel Mundy – Open-Source Opens Up Architecture For The Poor

trust.org. August, 12, 2013. Architects and community leaders are combining forces to lead the way in creating many types of innovative housing in developing nations as part of an open-source collaboration.
In 2011 the non-profit design company Architecture for Humanity, which finds architectural solutions to humanitarian crises, merged its Open Architecture Network with Worldchanging, a website featuring green solutions to improve inadequate housing.

The outcome of the merger was a unique online repository making sustainable design ideas freely available to communities in need.
The website can be accessed from anywhere in the world and allows people to see projects progress in real time from design to construction.

“Countries in need deserve good design, no matter what their income,” says Karl Johnson, a representative for Architecture for Humanity.
“Architects are armed with the tools to solve sophisticated problems,” he adds, and architectural ideas to solve common challenges in low-income countries can be shared globally.