University Site

The Socially Aware Design School

Integrated School of Design: Teaching Students and Professionals how to help others.

NOTE: The below study is based off of the winning program for the Socio Design Foundations competition to create a socially aware education system. [www.sociodesignfoundation.org]

The Site: Milwaukee, Wisconsin provides the school with easy access to both rural and urban environments. The city itself is small enough to ensure a sense of community and large enough to offer hands on learning about local relief efforts.  The school will be located along the river close to city bus systems, Amtrak and Mitchell International Airport.

Mission: This school is much like any design school except that it is specifically created to train architects, photographers, videographers, industrial designers and landscape architects the skills to be successful professionally as well as provide expertise in relief efforts for disaster zones and places that require social remediation.

Majors Available:

Architecture- A strong focus on the ability to physically rebuild with low cost, local materials with construction methods that are easily taught without a common language or dimension system.

Digital Photography + Videography- Photographers and videographers will have the capacity to be placed into highly hazardous and unsafe environments capturing at times unpleasant scenes to be brought back to the university and relief organizations for training.

Industrial Design- Design solutions from a new well system to a makeshift stove must involve readily available materials with the ability for rapid construction to ensure immediate relief.

Landscape Architecture-Landscape architects will focus on creating opportunities for growth and sustainability in developing communities by providing areas for agriculture.

Visual Communications- Most areas where aid is to be administered will have a strong language barrier. It is imperative to provide simple universal symbols that can be easily and quickly understood.

The students are:

Bachelors and Masters on a professional career path with specific focus on social remediation projects.  Along with their professional studies, students will be required to take anthropology, psychology and leadership courses. Students will be immersed in local relief efforts at shelters, clinics and food banks throughout Milwaukee beginning with the first semester of coursework. Students must be professionally as well as psychologically prepared for all potential relief situations.

The faculty are:

The faculty consists of three separate categories; full time, part time and off site.  All leaders must have a wealth of experience working with relief organizations in developing countries and disaster situations both locally and internationally. Full time professors are locally based leaders in their field. Part time professors are returning aid workers and graduate students that are returning from their first experiences in the field. Offsite professors are a network of working professionals both in practice and those doing aid work that will be connected with students via webcam.

Involved Organizations: Relief organizations such as Relief International, Action Aid and the Red Cross send individuals into potentially dangerous situations such as earthquake or hurricane zones. The health and safety training of students is essential for survival and capability of aid. The communities which are being helped are commonly from diverse backgrounds and familiarity with these cultures are seen by the university as a requirement to ensure respect and aid in communication. Students will require a deep understanding of language, social structure and the construction techniques of the local vernacular. Most of this information is not directly available until students/faculty are in the field. The university will connect with people/groups that are currently on site through an international communication system.

This university strives to create a new approach to organized relief aid that will be accepted by the local community for generations to come. The university will have no affiliation to a specific religious community, political party or government. The university will help all in need regardless of race, sex, culture or religious beliefs and strives to create students with open minds and open hearts. This nonprofit university relies on tuition and private contributions for its survival.