Web 2.0 Goes to Work

Cameron Sinclair's Open Architecture Network shows how new collaborative technologies can transform industries and projects worldwide

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With roughly 5,700 members and 1.3 million visitors in June, the Open Architecture Network may seem like an irrelevant blip when compared to such Web 2.0 darlings as Flickr (owned by Yahoo! (YHOO)), MySpace (owned by News Corp. (NWS)), or Google's AdSense (GOOG). But most of the early 2.0 successes are consumer-focused, with many dedicated to social networking. Like AdSense, which has given Madison Avenue executives the collective jitters, the Open Architecture Network suggests that 2.0's cocktail of collaborative technologies can have an equally radical influence on business and industry practices. In the case of the OAN, the industry in question is architecture.

The OAN is a free, Web-based network that's part database of architectural projects, part design tool, and part community, and its ambitious goal is to improve the living standards of 5 billion people—a number that includes not just the 1 billion people living in abject poverty today, but the one in three people who, by 2020, will be living in slums. It's a goal that Cameron Sinclair, the architect-cum-activist who spearheaded the site, knew could only be achieved by tapping the collective intelligence of the Web.

"The one-size-fits-all solution for low-cost housing has failed a million times," says Sinclair. And even though aid organizations often know that the current dependence on standardized solutions doesn't take into account relevant cultural, climactic, geographic, or other considerations of a specific area, they aren't good at developing new ones. "I was at a closed meeting with a major international aid organization that was looking for a way to improve its success rate for new initiatives from 32% to 37%—my jaw was on the floor!" says Sinclair.

Expertise from Many Corners

You can blame the low numbers on entrenched thinking; bureaucratic resistance to change; an organizational structure in which decision makers are far removed from the field; or the need to react to a crisis quickly, leaving little opportunity to consider the particulars. OAN, he says, promises to raise that success rate, both by casting a wider net for ideas and by giving architects and organizations a place to share projects and garner feedback from experts.

"An architect may put up a design for a project in Sri Lanka and someone with experience there will say, 'You're dealing with a Malai Muslim population, and that design is never going to work. Here's my advice….'" Sinclair says.

Ben Spencer, a Seattle designer who joined the network in early March, several weeks after its beta launch, attests that the venue, "helps architects share knowledge…and avoid technical mistakes and cultural misunderstandings that could undermine a project." While organizations such as the American Institute of Architects have far more members, the OAN may well already constitute the most global professional network.

Cutting Costs, Dissolving Hurdles

The U.S. accounts for just half of OAN traffic, with much coming from Sub-Saharan Africa and India. Perhaps more significant than its size is what the network allows its members to do: Members pay nothing to join or to post work; they can make a project public in order to garner feedback or limit access to project team members; and they can choose from several copyright licenses, ranging from "I own this but you can learn from it" to "This design is free." To Sinclair's surprise, around half of the projects have been posted under public domain, meaning that other architects or organizations may use the plans.