If necessity is the mother of invention, then it should be no surprise that the challenges facing developing countries give rise to some very compelling designs. Last week I had the chance to go on a tour of the UN’s exhibition, “Design with the Other 90%: Cities” with the curator, Cynthia Smith. She explained that the title was carefully chosen to encourage an inclusive attitude toward design—since people in developing areas often know more about their problems than designers, they should participate in the process. Cynthia further described how one response in Brazilian favellas was, “we have all this trash…can’t we do something with it?”
One design that does so is a structural concrete beam that uses recycled plastic as part of the aggregate, shown above. Another is Design with Africa’s bicycle and wheelbarrow kit-of-parts project. The idea here is to provide only those mechanical elements that would be difficult to find or expensive in developing countries, and let users assemble the rest from readily available materials.
Other favorites of mine included a re-useable plastic formwork for concrete construction, free internet stations housed in re-cycled oil drums and a community cooking station that uses household waste for fuel.