Open-Source Goes Hammer and Nail

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Suddenly, AfH could do more than just talk. Since then, it has poured $600,000 into the construction of 18 structures in India and Sri Lanka. After hurricanes devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, the organization connected local families with national architecture firms and poured $1.3 million toward a total of 14 construction projects—and Stohr says AfH consulted on or gave advice to architects working on dozens more. In total, AfH is now involved in 49 building projects around the world.

But with the funding and the projects came the realization that the group's technical infrastructure—AfH and its collaborators communicated with e-mail, Meetup, Google (GOOG) Groups, and other Web-apps—wasn't up to the task. The founders also recognized that even with deeper pockets, a "larger" staff (recently increased to five full-time people), and working relationships with establishment organizations such as the Red Cross and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), they would be hard-pressed to raise the living standards of 5 billion people.

"No Silver Bullet"

Rather than growing larger, the organization aims to stay small and agile and to focus on funding pilot projects, often in collaboration with organizations such as U.N. Habitat and faith-based groups. Their hope is that such efforts will have ripple effects, whether by giving a community building skills that can be used down the line—as happened in Bam—or by bringing new thinking to more traditional relief organizations.

The group has helped provide professional pro-bono architectural and engineering expertise to established organizations who are "great at raising money and mobilizing people but can easily be hoodwinked by prefab homesellers," according to Sinclair. And of course, through the OAN, they hope to establish a "platform for innovation" that will take the movement open-source.

"There's no silver bullet for housing issues," says Sinclair. Today, one in seven people live in slum settlements. By 2020, it will be one in three. And Sinclair and Stohr have little faith that established agencies using traditional approaches will be able to meet that challenge. "It took the U.N. 20 years to reinvent the tent," quips Sinclair. "What did they do? Add a space divider."

Remodeling Architecture

To be fair, in addition to the privacy screen, the remodeled tent has a new shape to maximize interior space, improved insulation and air circulation, and, because it's made of synthetic materials, it's smaller and lighter to store and ship than the traditional canvas version. It's currently being tested, and the UNHCR may introduce additional changes when the model is fully adopted.

But even the perfect tent is hardly the perfect solution to most humanitarian crises, as Internews' Frohardt and others make clear. "A tented site may not be the ideal solution for the displaced," Stephane Jaquemet, UNHCR's representative in Lebanon, admitted when tents were shipped to that country after fighting there ceased last summer. "But there's an urgent need to find alternative housing."

No single organization is going to meet the global challenge. But by building out the AfH network and empowering architects and aid agencies alike with the OAN, Sinclair and Stohr hope to find the solutions that will improve the living standards of 5 billion people. And the OAN may end up reshaping the architecture industry in developed countries in the process.

Jessie Scanlon is the senior writer for Innovation & Design on BusinessWeek.com.