Finalists for Humanitarian Innovation

Thanks to Architecture for Humanity's email newsletter I leant about the Curry Stone Design Prize Finalists... some of which I found to be doing interesting work!This is a school in Bangladesh built with natural building materials designed by Anna Heringer.

“People are becoming interested now in finding their own solutions, not just copying the West,” said Heringer, who currently lectures at University of Art and Design Linz and is completing doctorate studies at the Technische Universität München. “What I hope is that we’ll be able to set a trend in a fresh and regional architectural style that motivates people to bring their traditional construction methods.”

Another was The Transition Handbook: from oil dependency to local resilience by Rob Hopkins, which speaks to saving the world by acting local.

“Transition” is centered on the idea of building resilience to crisis by “unlocking the collective genius of the community,” in Hopkins words. The first Transition Town developed in 2006 in Totnes, England, where local residents, led by Hopkins, joined together to grow more local food in community gardens, plan more pedestrian- and bike-friendly streets, lower their energy use, and even create their own local currency to encourage spending and investment in the local economy.