While this work is about billions, it is also about one.
One billion leftover people--typically called squatters, self-builders, slum dwellers, informal settlers, or displaced persons (it's a big category)--claim leftover spaces in cities and live in unauthorized dwellings made of scavenged, leftover materials.
One billion leftover people--typically called squatters, self-builders, slum dwellers, informal settlers, or displaced persons (it's a big category)--claim leftover spaces in cities and live in unauthorized dwellings made of scavenged, leftover materials.
If you know even one of the one billion, you've been touched by her or his life, even if briefly and reluctantly. www.onesmallproject.com shares the good work of other architects, designers, and artists, each acting as one person learning from another:
Ana de Brea finds a three-generational family living under an overpass in Buenos Aires, Renu Khosla establishes “official” status for informal settlers in Delhi, Rufina Wu lives among migrant workers in underground bomb shelters in Beijing, Kathrin Löer talks with homeless men and women in Berlin, Vijitha Basnayake designs temporary dwellings for construction workers in Colombo, Amal Cavender documents informal settlements in Istanbul, Alan Frakes paints unseen landscapes in Tulsa, Oklahoma; David Stairs helps shape Uganda’s first product design curriculum, Kurt West appropriates an abandoned house in Muncie, Indiana; and Tülay Günes questions the political-spatial use of mobile caravans on the West Bank and in Gaza.
This is what they do.
Wes Janz, this project’s founder, unites professional education (MArch, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and scholarship (PhD, University of Michigan) with building activities at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The three projects featured in the images above —an arbor made of scavenged materials, six structures built of timber pallets, and thirty post-tsunami houses in Sri Lanka—involved his participation as designer and builder, facilitator, and catalyst, respectively.
Ana de Brea finds a three-generational family living under an overpass in Buenos Aires, Renu Khosla establishes “official” status for informal settlers in Delhi, Rufina Wu lives among migrant workers in underground bomb shelters in Beijing, Kathrin Löer talks with homeless men and women in Berlin, Vijitha Basnayake designs temporary dwellings for construction workers in Colombo, Amal Cavender documents informal settlements in Istanbul, Alan Frakes paints unseen landscapes in Tulsa, Oklahoma; David Stairs helps shape Uganda’s first product design curriculum, Kurt West appropriates an abandoned house in Muncie, Indiana; and Tülay Günes questions the political-spatial use of mobile caravans on the West Bank and in Gaza.
This is what they do.
Wes Janz, this project’s founder, unites professional education (MArch, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and scholarship (PhD, University of Michigan) with building activities at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The three projects featured in the images above —an arbor made of scavenged materials, six structures built of timber pallets, and thirty post-tsunami houses in Sri Lanka—involved his participation as designer and builder, facilitator, and catalyst, respectively.
