Make regular donations

 or

a one-off contribution.

Thank you!

About Us → What We Do

What We Do

 FAQs      The Architect's Role in International Development

Article 25 take on post disaster reconstruction and development.  We work with local, national and international aid organisations, charities and NGOs, aiming to promote capacity building, livelihood creation and skill sharing.   

• Shelter is not well addressed by many NGOs, as it's hard to get right. We aim to put expertise into charitable, humanitarian and development work to get long term shelter solutions back on the agenda.
• We believe adequate and dignified shelter is a basic human right and shelter should not stop after the immediate humanitarian response to a disaster.
• We want to take vulnerability out of the equation and help people take the first step; creating and building a secure and sustainable livelihood for themselves.
• We believe the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved without adequate built responses for those in need. The MDGs require schools for education and clinics and hospitals for healthcare.

Article 25 are the built environment’s charity for disaster relief and development. We provide the professional expertise to make built solutions possible for charities worldwide, wherever there is greatest need. We empower people to help themselves better and to rebuild. We also learn an incredible amount from every community we work with and try to maintain and propagate development knowledge – and build on it with original research. Disasters and poverty can be catalysts to “build back better” and an opportunity to break a cycle. It would seem at first glance that disaster relief is a sector where design is redundant and response is the answer. But a badly designed or knee-jerk response is exactly what makes things worse where need is greatest. Too often, short term shelters become long term ones and people are held in a limbo where they remain unable to fully recover and rebuild livelihoods. Architects are also vital in improving built solutions for communities in development projects. We work with small community projects as well as large international NGOs buildings work smarter and harder and make precious funds go further.

We work according to the needs of our beneficiaries partnering the NGOs and grassroots organisations who represent and support them. We work without adverse distinction against any group or individual on the basis of race, gender, political opinion, age etc. We advocate the long standing and respected principles espoused in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Code of Conduct:

http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/conduct/

We partner aid agencies, charities, NGOs and community groups who approach us with a need for building expertise. We can help them to undertake and achieve the best possible solution appropriate to their needs.  Often our partner charities are unfamiliar with how to build and do not know where to begin. We can give the skills and expertise and supplement and coordinate local solution providers. In many situations, perhaps post disaster or where there is endemic poverty,  or where the beneficiary group is marginalised, there is simply not sufficient access to expertise. We can provide this essential. Rather than provide cash we provide the expertise to maximise the value of charitable funds for organsiations who need best value and best information when deploying every penny of funding. Funds are very precious to our partners in every case.

Shelter is a very under-served sector in disaster relief and sustainable development. Charities often avoid building work because it is hard to get right, hard to project manage and can be costly when things go wrong.  Good buildings last and can be an integral part of the community for years, creating a truly sustainable project. With Article 25’s voluntary and not-for-profit help buildings can be done better, cheaper and more ecologically.  This is because the built solution we provide is cheaper, maximises utility, uses local resources and employs local people in the building process.  Article 25 brings voluntary design and project management input, skilled engineering, construction and community participation to every project that we are involved in.   

Article 25 has experienced, first hand, the need for our work as we have grown rapidly in our first few years of operations.  The number of international projects we have completed or are carrying out has already reached nearly 40.  We are expert in community action planning and know it is crucial to involve the beneficiaries. Due to our cost management and volunteering structure Article 25 donors can be assured that almost 100% of our fundraising efforts go directly back into projects in the field.  In our latest report and accounts our administration budget was under 3%. What is more, once our funds are deployed to supplement a project, the funding for the capital build is multiplied many times over. buildings are bigger, better deisgned and constructed, more fit for purpose, safer and more sustainable. We strive ensure that funds are used as efficiently and properly as possible. We are also providing skills rather than cash which means these resources are in a form that cannot be diverted from the target beneficiaries and do not distort, but rather benefit the local economy as well as the local ecology.

[ how we make the difference ]

An early project was a school in India. Our partner NGO thought that for about £50,000 they would be able to build a school for 300 children and they had a design for a small concrete structure. Their maximum budget was £80,000 but they had a total of 1300 children in their care in total. Our design and project managing meant that they got a far better, bigger school which in the end, stayed under the top end of their budget (£80,000) but was big enough to cater for all 1300 children. Our help multiplied their funding by THREE TO FOUR times. Our participation cost just £3000. This £3000 ensured access to a new school for an additional 1000 children. This leverage and value added is incredible.

[ this sort of work is typical of what we do ]

In Lesotho, we rescued a project that was being abandoned after going badly wrong when the contractor did not build safely and our Partner NGO had to start nearly from scratch when funding was almost exhausted;  In Ghana, on a tiny budget of £20,000 we managed to design and build a beautiful building for 30 children and their carers, (in only 4 1/2 months from start to finish) curving in a semi-circle round a grove of trees giving a safe shaded play area and outdoor space; In Romania, we pushed for community involvement in the restoration of Saxon villages and we heard from one of the locals later (after a trip to town to find email access many weeks later) he wrote, "you gave us a voice". This meant so much to all the architects who gave their time to the project over several weeks. We achieve what seems impossible in many cases for our partners.

In Pakistan, after the 2005 earthquake, there was a small amount of Government funding to self- rebuild houses and with the help of local NGOs people were starting work. Our help meant that people were able to build strong, seismically resistant homes where otherwise this would have been unlikely or impossible, either because skills were not available or because they were the most vulnerable groups (orphans, widows with small children and the disabled). Our work meant their houses were genuinely safer and not a danger to them in the inevitable next earthquake. This "building back better" was all undertaken by Article 25 at a cost of only £5-£10 per beneficiary served. Importantly though, we also campaigned for, achieved budget through logistical cost savings and implemented retaining walls on the slopes where we were building. This means that the new houses are not vulnerable to landslides, which the earthquakes can cause all too often. Many lives will be saved by this innovation to the project. All these, and many more, are examples of saving lives and changing lives - making a real difference.