Designers Give a Damn About Women

New designs for disruptive change in homelessness, hygiene and work for the world's women filled the Center for Architecture for the Design Like You Give a Damn and Curry Stone awards this week...

Now, the infant strapped Guatemalen woman who degrains corn 8 hours by hand can do so in just 1 hour by bicimaquina.

“Tools to assemble them are found in local bike yards, our customers are encouraged to reproduce them. There are no fuels involved, its an eco-intermediate technology.”

Maya Pedal Founder Carlos Marroquin

Carlos has never sought a patent for his Maya Pedal designs that have also powered coffee pulpers and aloe vera blenders. http://bit.ly/MayaPedal

With an ironic nod to I-Pad, Curry Stone Design award-winner, Elizabeth Sharf launched a new pad describing how she mounted an “unmentionable” parade about menstruation through the streets of Rwanda where an 18 % tax keeps sanitary napkins out of reach of women and girls causing them to miss work and school.

SHE sustainable health enterprises' new pad utilizes shredded waste fiber through a very simple process. Pad in hand, Sharf rallied the design audience to bring their expertise to more “unmentionables” http://bit.ly/SHEperiod

When Emily Spraque first posted the Homeless Shift to Open Architecture, Architecture for Humanity's open source site for sharing design plans, the New York shelter system counted 2,478 homeless women, up from 1882 in '08. Undaunted, Sprague and team created a replicable model to serve the diverse homeless populations throughout the city. Homeless Shifts is informed by a recent study of long term homelessness behavior and approved by the Park Slope Women's Shelter. The team includes: Shannon Beck, Sara Bayer, Brooke Smith, Becky Labov among other AFH volunteers ready to build when funded.
http://bit.ly/OpenArch; http://bit.ly/AFHny