Design Coalition Inc. is Wisconsin's only full-time non-profit architectural and planning office, a Community Design Center. We don't work for profit; we have always sought ways to serve a greater community good through our professional practice. We work with our clients for a successful project, and for positive change.
|
|
|
A Socially Conscious Practice: What does
that mean?
Design Coalition was founded in 1972 with the purpose of serving
and empowering people who are without access to quality design
and construction expertise. Responsibility equally to both the
community as a whole and to the client has historically been an
important ethic for architects, and it is one we embrace as our
mission. We accept our responsibility to help safeguard and restore
natural systems.
We bring the same values to our work whether for non-profit
groups or businesses. We look for clients and partners who bring
a social and ecological consciousness to a project. With their
collaboration, our projects demonstrate these values.
We've become convinced that mainstream building and planning practices
in the U.S. are driven too often by shortsighted profit-seeking
and inertia, and can no longer be supported by the planet. We
strive for lasting buildings and sites which are well-designed,
functional, beautiful, resource- and energy-efficient, non-toxic
and healthful for their occupants and less damaging to the environment.
We work to create sustainable communities that are intelligently
planned and truly livable, places that fully welcome all of us,
our children, the elderly and those with disabilities. Places,
in a word, which are whole.
Design Coalition works on two fronts, on our projects
and on community efforts.
To successfully operate a design practice in this way means that
we have to discover a mix: finding grant monies to provide needed
services and develop innovative projects, and working within the
market system as "normal" architects, all the while
trying to maintain humane working conditions and compensation.
This mix continuously changes and involves conflicting demands
to be balanced and sometimes compromised.
We take seriously our role in educating clients and in learning
along with them. We engage in the public debate questioning how
and why we all plan and build as we do. This is challenging for
everyone--the best long-term solution doesn't always appear to
be the cheapest or easiest in the short term. We're always eager
to work with people who share our vision and accept the challenge.
For more on Community Design Centers, see the Association for Community Design website
Design Coalition and staff are members of:
"There is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world.... Ironically, businessalso contains our blessing. It must, because no other institution in the modern world is powerful enough to foster the necessary changes."
-- Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce --
About
Design Coalition