Open-Source Goes Hammer and Nail

Cameron Sinclair's Open Architecture Network aims to connect architects around the globe to struggling communities

by Jessie Scanlon

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At 10:30 on a Friday morning in February, Cameron Sinclair dropped two heavy bags onto the floor and sank onto the leather banquette at Balthazar, the bustling New York bistro. The executive director of the San Francisco-based Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit dedicated to finding architectural solutions to humanitarian problems, was in town to speak with journalists about his new Open Architecture Network (OAN).

Launched officially at last week's TED Conference, the free Web-based network is part database of architectural projects, part design tool, and part community for anyone dedicated to improving living conditions through innovative and sustainable design—be they architects, engineers, non-profits, government agencies, or donors (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/12/07, "The Talk of TED"). As its name implies, the OAN aims to bring the philosophy and collaborative methods of the open-source software movement to architecture, in the hope of meeting the housing needs of the millions of people living in slum settlements and/or displaced by war or natural disasters, as well as the general need for healthcare, education and civic buildings.

But before he can get into the details of the project, Sinclair says, he needs to call the organizers of a conference he's speaking at in South Africa.

"It's probably too late to call, but they've had to rebook my flight to Cape Town tonight," he explains. The restaurant is already filled with the clinking of plates and glasses, and the chatter of SoHo's breakfasting class, but Sinclair pulls out his Treo and starts dialing. After a brief conversation, he checks e-mail for the new itinerary, and groans. "You don't want to know how much the new ticket cost," he says. "We could build a house for that."

Early Focus

The "we" is Sinclair, his wife and Architecture for Humanity co-founder and Managing Director Kate Stohr, and the quick-response network of nearly 30,000 architects around the world ready to respond to the next humanitarian crisis (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/14/05, "From the Rubble, Foundations of Hope").

Founded in 1999 while Sinclair was a project architect at the New York firm Lauster & Radu, and run on a shoestring budget out of the couple's 300-square-foot studio in downtown Manhattan, AfH initially focused on three things.

First, Sinclair became an advocate, talking to any person and conference audience who would listen about the 1 billion people in the world living in abject poverty, and the ham-handed approach of traditional aid organizations to housing needs. Second, AfH organized competitions—to design, for instance, housing for refugees returning to Kosovo and an AIDS clinic in South Africa—that generated both media attention and entry fees, the organization's then sole source of funding.

And finally, as the organization's network grew, AfH became a connector, linking architects with relief agencies and communities in need of architectural aid, and sometimes even funding some of the resulting projects. For instance, the day after an earthquake rocked the Iranian city of Bam in December, 2003, Sinclair located a Japanese architect on vacation in Tehran and sent him to the crumbled city to find out what was needed.

Mechanistic Model

Sinclair and Stohr have been vocal critics of old-school humanitarian efforts in which thousands of tents are shipped from far away, often at great cost, and assembled into refugee camps. They aren't the first critics of the tent-mentality. "In emergency-response situations, it often behooves those responding to have pre-established methodologies and equipment," says Mark Frohardt, the vice-president for Africa, Middle East, Health & Humanitarian Media at Internews who formerly held many jobs in the humanitarian world. "It's more expensive, but it allows them to move more quickly and to save more lives. So they just say, 'Let's deliver as many tents as quickly as possible.'"