Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural
Responses to Humanitarian Crises
ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY, editors
Metropolis Books, 2006
336 pages, illustrated
$35.00 (paper)
Michel Foucault once suggested that architecture,
although an inherently political act, cannot by itself
liberate or oppress. In his mind, liberation and
oppression are practices, not objects, and neither
practice can ever be guaranteed by artifacts func-
tioning in the ‘‘order of objects.’’ At the same time, it
is equally foolish to pretend that the exercise of
freedom (or oppression) is completely indifferent
to the spatial concepts suggested by artifacts.
Indeed, as Foucault acknowledged, ‘‘space is fun-
damental in any exercise of power’’ and it is incon-
ceivable that we ‘‘leave people in the slums, thinking
that they can simply exercise their rights there.’’ To
realize liberation, technicians of space, including
architects, must align their ‘‘liberating intentions . . .
with the real practice of people in the exercise of their
freedom.’’1
Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism
BRYAN BELL and KATIE WAKEFORD, editors
Metropolis Books, 2008
288 pages, illustrated
$34.95 (paper)
Unfortunately, it is impossible for the architect
to achieve this convergence using conventional
academic and professional mechanisms. Architec-
ture’s techne is anchored to a very specific set of
supports. To challenge or expand the conscious goal
of architecture, the practitioner must also challenge
or expand the rationality designed to realize this
end. Thus, the creation of humanitarian and activist
architecture is not simply a matter of offering serv-
ices to new clients. It is a matter of creating a new
field.
Reviews j Documents, Exhibitions 1 Events 132
 Cameron Sinclair confronted this reality in
1999, when he saw The Valley, a documentary by
Dan Reed that depicted the ethnic Albanian upris-
ing in Kosovo in 1998. Reed’s powerful film put
a face on the plight of refugees who lost their
homes in the conflict. Sinclair was moved to see
how he, as an architect, could help the people of
Kosovo respond to housing crises created by the
war, only to find that it was virtually impossible for
a New York-based designer with little experience in
refugee settlement to align his liberating intentions
with the real practice of people operating a world
away. In response, Sinclair shifted his energies from
designing a project to designing a competition
through which others might contribute their per-
spectives to the crisis. Eventually, this competition
would attract designers from 30 countries, stimulate
220 proposals and initiate an international con-
versation about Kosovo. It also set an important
precedent for Architecture for Humanity, the non-
profit organization Sinclair would later found with
Kate Stohr. Instead of producing work to address
humanitarian crises, Architecture for Humanity
would act as a conduit, inspiring artists, designers
and architects to offer their creative talents in
response to humanitarian crises around the world.
These responses are collected in Design Like You
Give a Damn.
Bryan Bell confronted similar issues in 1999
when he established the non-profit Design Corps to
offer community service through design. Bell, like
Sinclair, believes that designers possess the capacity
to address critical social issues. However, unlike
Architecture for Humanity, which places great
importance upon creating the work, Design Corp has
historically emphasized a prolonged design investi-
gation of the problem that can also critique the
educational and professional processes through
which architecture is realized. This is not to say that
Architecture for Humanity does not share this con-
cern. Indeed, both organizations understand that
133 reviews j documents, exhibitions 1 events
humanitarian and activist design requires not only
a new type of work, but also a new type of practice
based on the unique conditions of this sphere. The
difference is in approach: Architecture for Humanity
uses the work to find the process; Design Corps,
through activities such as the Structures for Inclusion
conference, emphasizes a careful examination of
process to find the work, as evident in the recent
publication Expanding Architecture: Design as
Activism. The distinct positions assumed by both
Design Corp and Architecture for Humanity have
a profound effect on the work produced by each
organization, as is reflected in their most recent
publications.
Design Like You Give a Damn opens with
Sinclair’s candid, behind-the-scenes look at the
design-based humanitarian organization he co-
founded. This is followed by Stohr’s 100-year
history of humanitarian design. In both pieces, the
authors use humanitarian design work to chart the
evolution of humanitarian design practice. In so
doing, they not only remain faithful to Architec-
ture for Humanity’s mission, but provide a fitting
preamble to the book’s central focus: the work of
the humanitarian designer. The book is about their
work and is almost entirely dedicated to docu-
menting more than 80 projects organized pro-
grammatically as housing, community, sanitation,
or policy. The desire, clearly, was to include as
much work as possible. In fact, aside from a few
key interviews with contributors such as Bruce
LeBel of World Shelters and Nader Khalili of Cal-
Earth, each project is presented in only two to four
pages in order to maximize the number of entries.
To describe work well in such limited space requires
great conciseness from the contributors, as well as
an obvious emphasis on finished work rather than
the processes that informed it. Although this
brevity enables the volume to showcase an
impressive body of work, it does distance the
reader somewhat from the principles that permit
each work to align with the ‘‘real practice of the
people’’ and move beyond the ‘‘order of objects.’’
The principles that define the body itself are sim-
ilarly vague; aside from a casual reference to the
values of ‘‘innovation’’ and ‘‘inclusivity,’’ the
reader is given little sense of the objective ratio-
nale used to determine what works to include in
the volume. It is as if one is viewing the results of
a design competition without any sense of the
brief, the jury, or the standards of judgment. Yet,
perhaps this is the point. Architecture for Humanity
has a history of humbly empowering others to
address humanitarian crises without ever
assuming the mantle of author. Their initiatives are
generally not about building a single, consensus
vision, but of creating an infrastructure that will
aggregate the ‘‘wisdom of crowds’’ in a manner
very much in line with the scientific studies
featured in James Surowiecki’s book of that name.
And, in this regard, Design Like You Give a Damn is
quite successful. It is both even-handed and
incredibly varied, offering the reader an extensive
compendium of work that will inspire much dis-
cussion and undoubtedly draw new designers into
the movement.
Editors Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford chose
to feature only 30 projects in Designs Corps’
Expanding Architecture. This allows contributors
to more fully develop their projects presentation
with comprehensive descriptions and discussions
of theoretical and formal precedents. As these
descriptions overlap within the publication,
a connective tissue emerges among projects,
inviting readers to enter into an ongoing discus-
sion. The fact that this discussion is framed by
a range of perspectives and fields of knowledge
only opens the conversation further. Especially
useful in this regard are the project-based
narratives of Chia-Ning Yang and Hsu-Jen Kao
and Darl Rastorfer and the more speculative
writings of Barbara Wilson, who examines
reflective practices, and Roberta Feldman, who
looks a manufactured housing. These contribu-
tions help collapse the distinctions between dis-
course and action, allowing the reader to draw
connections among projects, both theoretical and
realized, and among the social, political and
economic forces that shaped them. It is clear
throughout the
book that we are meant to fashion ‘‘a counter-
point to the current postcritical turn’’ as described
by Jose L.S. Gamez and Susan Rogers in the
introduction.
Design Like You Give A Damn showcases the
creative capacity of the designer and demon-
strates the power of design to address urgent
needs. Expanding Architecture emphasizes the
connectivity of activist ideas and navigates
design’s contradictions, complexities, clarifica-
tions, and affirmations. Although the writings and
projects in both books are provocative in them-
selves, when viewed as discrete artifacts func-
tioning in the ‘‘order of objects,’’ they become
much more meaningful when considered as
a body. When viewed in this way, these books
serve as a conduit for ideas: heuristic devices
that will instigate new conversations, inspire new
work, and forge new fields of inquiry. Whether
seen as compendia or conversations, humanitarian
architecture or activist design, these publications
are more than a simple design resource or a
tribute to the organizations whose work they
contain. They are a precursor to a new field of
study and the first steps toward Foucault’s call for
convergence.

Scott Shall

Note
1. Michel Foucault, ‘‘Space, Knowledge, and Power’’ (1982 Interview
with Paul Rabinow), in Neil Leach, ed., Rethinking Architecture (London:
Routledge, 1997), pp. 372, 376.

Reviews j Documents, Exhibitions 1 Events 134