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Good Deeds, Good Design
Community Service through Architecture
Bryan Bell
ISBN 9781568983912
Publication date 12/1/2003
6.125 x 8.75 inches (15.6 x 22.2 cm), Paperback
240 pages, 150 b/w illustrations
Rights: World;
Carton qty: 22;
(334.0)
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$34.95
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It may come as no surprise that only two percent of new homebuyers work directly with an architect to design the space in which they will live--indeed, architects are usually seen as a luxury most of us, the other ninety-eight percent, can't afford.
Yet, why shouldn't more people call on the services of architects? With fierce competition for few commissions, why do architects not seek out other sources of work and income? Now, acting within larger institutions or on their own, many architects are taking local initiatives to address the underserved, particularly the poor. Good Deeds, Good Design presents the best new thoughts and practices in this emerging movement toward an architecture that serves a broader population.
In this book, architecture firms, community design centers, design/build programs, and service-based organizations offer their plans for buildings for the other ninety-eight percent. Twenty-eight essays and case studies illustrate successes and failures and raise both design and social issues.
The success of Rural Studio suggests that there is a large and growing number of people who would like to see good design for all. With its clear, direct, and inspiring message, and numerous illustrated examples, Good Deeds, Good Design follows this important story.
Bryan Bell is founder of Design Corps, a nonprofit agency providing architecture to those traditionally underserved by the profession. Design Corps will be included in this year's Cooper Hewitt Inside Design Now exhibition. Bell organizes the Structures for Inclusion conferences and resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Backorder this title
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Editorial Reviews
Azure:
"This collection of engaging, inspiring essays raises a challenge that should be fundamental to architects everywhere...Through this small book, one finds compelling evidence that even a single modest project by a single modest design team can make an enduring difference in individual lives - and in whole communities - that have been hard-pressed and disenfranchised."
Architectural Record:
"...disarmingly honest.
This book is a good starting point for...all designers interested in combining good design with good deeds."
ReadyMade:
"A great primer on how to build for the underserved. It even includes an essay by the late archangel of reuse, Samuel Mokbee. Get to work."
Less Is More, City Magazine:
". . . explores the best new ideas and practices in an 'emerging movement toward an architecture that serves a broader population.'"
Period Homes:
"This book is as much a how-to manual as it is a how-to-think-about-it text. It's publication is an event, offering hope at a time when so many Americans are forced to reside in substandard housing. . . .Readers can open the bookto any page and find themselves quickly drawn into a fascinating and informative account of how disadvantaged people have been able to triumph over the odds against them. Simply as an inspirational tool, the book is impressive; but it's how-to case histories raise it to a higher level,making it a compendium of available pathways to respectable and responsible architecture for the underprivileged. Whether you're an architect, teacher, urban planner, or social activist, GOOD DEEDS, GOOD DESIGN will be one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal, a treasure trove of information on how to go from the way things are to the way they ought to be. "
I.D. Magazine:
"For Bryan Bell, the fact that 'only 2% of new home buyers work directly with an architect to design the space in which they live" is a problem...in this book, he is helpingbring good design to the other 98 percent."
Architectural Review:
"Here is an American equivalent of the useful 'Community Planning Handbook' that Nick Wates edited for Earthscan in 2000. It begins with the finding that in the United States only two per cent of new home occupiers have the services of an architect.
The authors also remind us that low-income people are not simple. They know what their needs are and what measures might give them choice in the environment that they seek. It is important that professionals should grasp the key fact that what the poor lack is access to the finance needed to manage the habitat."
Reader Comments
Two Questions (rating 5 out of 5):
Every line of this book addresses the two questions asked in Robert Gutman's introduction. "What can the architectural community do to increase the supply of housing for low-income groups?" and "How can architects enlarge their contribution to housing design and production?" The essays describe new kinds of partnerships that address these questions and the crisis of inaction that we feel in our bones. For those who would seek to engage these problems, these essays show portals to social justice, the work of building of a civil society and the joy of linking community with design.
- Rex Curry from Pratt Institute (PICCED) (11/21/2003)
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