After training as an architect, Cameron Sinclair (then age 24) joined Kate Stohr to found Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit that helps architects apply their skills to humanitarian efforts. Starting with just $700 and a simple web site in 1999, AFH has grown into an international hub for humanitarian design, offering innovative solutions to housing problems in all corners of the globe.
Whether rebuilding earthquake-ravaged Bam in Iran, designing a soccer field doubling as an HIV/AIDS clinic in Africa, housing refugees on the Afghan border, or helping Katrina victims rebuild, Architecture for Humanity works by Sinclair's mantra: "Design like you give a damn." (Sinclair and Stohr cowrote a book by the same name, released in 2006.)
A regular contributor to the sustainability blog Worldchanging.com, Sinclair is now working on the Open Architecture Network, born from the wish he made when he accepted the 2006 TED Prize: to build a global, open-source network where architects, governments and NGOs can share and implement design plans to house the world.
“Cameron Sinclair is doing his best to save the world, one emergency shelter and mobile AIDS clinic at a time.” — Washington Post
English-born photographer Robert Leslie drove a total of 10,000 miles across the American South and Southwest. What he found was not a prosperous land of opportunity but a storm-torn region in decay.
Continue readingAt TEDGlobal U, Cameron Sinclair shows the unreported cost of real estate megaprojects gone bust: thousands of migrant construction laborers left stranded and penniless. To his fellow architects, he says there is only one ethical response. (Recorded at TEDGlobal University 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 3:06) Watch Cameron Sinclair’s talk on TED.com, where you […]
Continue readingFrom TEDGlobal’s speaker list of more than 90 — including 18-minute talks, demos and TED U courses — 13 of our scheduled speakers already have TEDTalks online from previous TEDs and partners. To find them, check out our new theme, Speaking at TEDGlobal 2009, and watch archive gems from these returning speakers. All of these […]
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