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[ humanitarian architecture ]

• Oppenheimer, A. and Hursley, T. (2002) - Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency, Princeton Architectural Press

This book celebrates the genius of an architect who made beautiful and functional buildings out of inexpensive materials. It showcases work Mockbee (1944-2002) undertook in Hale County, Alabama, where he worked with architecture students from Auburn University to help design and build homes and community spaces for impoverished residents.

• Oppenheimer Dean, A. (2005) - Proceed and be Bold: Rural Studio After Samuel Mockbee, Princeton Architectural Press

The projects described in this book show how the Rural Studio has moved on since Samuel Mockbee's death. Andrew Freear, who used to work alongside Samuel Mockbee, has taken over the lead and continues the work that has been set up by Mockbee, working with the students of Auburn University. 

• Smith, C. (2008) - Design for the Other 90%, Cooper-Hewitt Museum

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum exhibition catalogue for the show Design for the other 90%. Of the world’s total population of 6.5 billion, close to 5.83 billion, or 90%, have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted; in fact nearly half do not have regular access to food, clean water, or shelter. Design for the other 90% explores more than thirty projects which reflect the growing movement among designers, engineers, students and professors, architects, and social entrepreneurs to design low-cost solutions for this other 90%. Through partnerships both local and global, individuals and organizations around the United States and throughout the world are inventing unique ways to provide better access to food, water, shelter, health, education, and energy to those who most need them.

• Bhatia, G. (1991) - Laurie Baker: Life, Works & Writings, Penguin Books 

This book describes the concepts and projects of the late architect Laurie Baker, who lived and worked most of his life in India. Laurie Baker's architecture focusses on using local materials, climatic and environmentally friendly design, whilst keeping his buildings low-cost.

• Architecture for Humanity (2006) - Design Like You Give a Damn, Thames & Hudson Ltd

Edited by Architecture for Humanity, Design Like You Give a Damn is a compendium of innovative projects from around the world that demonstrate the power of design to improve lives. The first book to bring the best of humanitarian architecture and design to the printed page, Design Like You Give a Damn offers a history of movement toward socially conscious design and showcases more than 80 contemporary solutions to such urgent needs as basic shelter, health care, education, and access to clean water, energy and sanitation.

• Bell, B. & Wakeford, K. (2008) - Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism, Distributed Art Publishers

Expanding Architecture presents a new generation of creative design carried out in the service of the greater public and the greater good. Questioning how design can improve daily lives, editors Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford map an emerging geography of architectural activism or public-interest architecture that might function akin to public interest law or medicine by expanding architectures all-too-often elite client base. With 30 essays by practising architects and designers, urban and community planners, historians, landscape architects, environmental designers and members of other fields, this volume is full of work from around the world that illustrates the ways in which design can address issues of social justice, allow individuals and communities to plan and improve their own lives and serve a much larger percentage of the population than it has in the past. This new inclusionary practice must define new services and new processes, and these are illuminated in the generously illustrated texts as well. Examining evolving notions of socially conscious practice, this book serves as an essential guide for designers who are willing to take on the social, economic and environmental challenges we face today.

• Bell, B. (2003) - Good Deeds, Good Design: Community Service Through Architecture

With rare exceptions, we tend to think of architects as working in the domain of the rich and the commercial. Not so Bryan Bell or the other contributors to this volume who have often forgone high commissions to devote themselves to developing a real architecture for poor and underserved communities in the US and abroad. Much of the housing developed for the poor has been built using cookie-cutter models, making the units sterile in appearance, unappealing in design, and often lacking in critical elements that allow for functionality. In Good Deeds, Good Design, architects and designers who have been working among the poor share their experiences, challenges, frustrations and successes. From migrant housing in Georgia to low-cost housing in India, to middle class housing in America, Good Deeds, Good Design looks at the tools necessary for change: community involvement, government cooperation, and flexibility in design.

• Steele, J. (1997), Architecture for the People, Thames & Hudson Ltd

This is an account of Hassan Fathy, one of the most influential Third World architects of the 20th century. The ideas he formulated before his death in 1989 have become key elements in the global architectural agenda, with his influence being particularly profound in the developing world. Fathy's buildings are found all over the world, from Egypt to India to New Mexico. The author was able to conduct extensive interviews with Fathy himself before he died, as well as with clients, family, disciples and friends. The author's research in Cairo and Greece (where Fathy worked from 1957-1962) uncovered many previously undocumented projects and he has drawn on the architect's personal notebooks and journals. Fathy's entire career is chronologically surveyed from his graduation in 1926 to the most productive period of his life - the two decades after his return to Egypt in 1962.

• Hamdi, N. (1995) - Housing without Houses, IT Publications, London

This text presents a range of concepts and practical methods for housing with illustrative examples of actual projects, where resources are scarce, demand is high, urgency is acute, and where uncertainty is a way of life.