Archinect - News

Cameron Sinclair to lead Airbnb humanitarian team for temporary-housing project

2017-04-25T19:47:00-04:00

Sinclair has been working with Airbnb over the past year on various pilot projects, with the official [temporary housing] project launching this summer. The ultimate goal is for one million Airbnb users to register as “hosts for good,” signaling that they will provide housing for people impacted by natural disasters or otherwise displaced.

Sinclair will lead Airbnb's in-house humanitarian team as part of the company's goal to provide free, short-term housing for 100,000 people in need over the next five years. Airbnb announced the #weaccept project in a commercial (linked below) that aired at this year's Super Bowl, not long after Trump's travel ban was issued and also in light of Airbnb guests reporting that they experienced racial discrimination from hosts on the website.

Weekly News Round-Up for August 4, 2014: Musk, Martha and monuments

2014-08-11T15:53:00-04:00

Friday, August 8:

Guggenheim Bullies Journalist: Molly Crabapple reports for Vice on inhumane immigrant labor conditions on Saadiyat island in the UAE, where a new arm of the Guggenheim (and Louvre, and NYU) is being built. The Guggenheim holds its cards close and skirts responsibility when Crabapple pushes for answers.
Controversial new app will keep you away from "sketchy" areas: "SketchFactor" rates an area's "sketchiness" based on crowd-sourced local data. Critics are worried that the app will amplify racial profiling and encourage stereotyping.

Thursday, August 7:

Gentrification and the Persistence of Poor Minority Neighborhoods: Harvard sociologists identify another determinant in the gentrification debate: racial composition. Their report, focusing on Chicago, found that a neighborhood's economic redevelopment depended on certain thresholds of black and white residents.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu called for the suspension of the Israeli Architects’ Association from an intern...

New "DEAD PRIZE" launched by Cameron Sinclair

2014-08-04T19:38:00-04:00

In the past decade we have seen an explosion of honors and awards for the most innovative and forward thinking solutions. Yet no one recognizes the projects that have caused harm to the environment - designs that are helping shorten our existence on this planet. This is why we created the DEAD prize. Let's recognize the bad, honor the failures and hopefully do something to rectify these designs against humanity.

The Dead Prize may be the first ever anti-prize in architecture. Launched by Cameron Sinclair, the Executive Director of the Jolie-Pitt Foundation and co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, Dead Prize opened its nominations today for architecture that has caused remarkable environmental harm. The goal is to create an anti-standard, by which architects can understand what makes a design harmful, how to not repeat that harm, and hopefully, how to form solutions to the winning Dead Prize design. To curate a set of "worst practices" in architecture.

The Prize's website makes clear that this is a satirical mix of serious and tongue-in-cheek commentary on the architecture profession. Once a winner is chosen, sometime in early 2015, the Dead Prize committee will reach out to the designer for their side of the story, to gain the widest angle on why things went wrong.

If the Prize acquires sufficient funding, a complementary competition will be launched to design a solution to a Dead Prize ...

Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, co-founders of Architecture for Humanity, to step down and help form a five-year strategic vision

2013-09-09T16:41:00-04:00

In planning for the organization’s further growth, Sinclair and Stohr are transitioning out of their roles to push the advancement of Architecture for Humanity, while also enabling the founders to explore new ventures. “It’s great to see something you started evolve into an institution. We are excited about the future of the organization and plan to continue lending support in whatever ways we can,” says Kate Stohr, Co-Founder, Architecture for Humanity.

Full press release...

Architecture for Humanity Launches 5 Year Strategic Plan and Fund To Offer Expanded Design Services to Build Resilient and Healthy Communities.

After 15 years of Leadership co-founders, Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr to Transition from Organization and Launch Fund to Support Future Growth.

Since 1999, San Francisco based non-profit Architecture for Humanity has been committed to providing architectural design and construction services to communities in need around the world. Co-founded by Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, the non-profit has responded to 15 natural and man-made disasters, completed over 300 projects in 47 countries, expanded to 63 chapters across the world, and has nurtured a network of more than 75,000 architects, professionals and volunteers committed to making a positive impact through architecture.

Architecture for Humanity was founded as an initiative of Sinclair, an architectural designer and Stohr, a journalist and TV/web produc...

Just released: Design Like You Give A Damn [2]: Building Change From The Ground Up

2012-05-02T18:56:00-04:00

Architecture for Humanity front man, and long-time Archinect contributor, Cameron Sinclair is proud to announce the launch of the second edition of his game-changing book, Design Like You Give A Damn - a "handbook for anyone committed to building a more sustainable future."

Dear Friends,
It has been 6 years since the release of Design Like You Give A Damn [1] and we are honored to announce the release of a follow-up companion artfully titled Design Like You Give A Damn [2]. Packed with more than 100 case studies, one-on-one interviews, an extensive 'how to' financing section and the history of Architecture for Humanity 2006-2011. Like the first, ALL PROCEEDS will go to supporting our programs but this time we will let Amazon do all the shipping....

Get it today, buy for your 10 closest friends and make us the number one design book in America!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0810997029

Get the book before May 24th and tweet/facebook a photo of yourself (or a pet) holding your f...

Cameron Sinclair Becomes Advisor to Obama Administration

2011-05-20T11:51:16-04:00

Earlier this month, the Obama Administration under the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) launched the advisory committee on voluntary foriegn aid (ACVFA). On that list advisors was none other than Cameron Sinclair, a person who has revolutionized the way we think and speak about people and architectural spaces, and actually acts and implements these thoughts and words into reality.