At EntreArchitect, we’re learning that we need to build a better business so we can be better architects. We want to make the work a better place. That’s why we became architects in the first place. We want to provide a positive social impact. What if by building better businesses we built a better world? What if a part of what we do benefits the public in an impactful way? Stay tuned as we share a new online resource to learn more on this idea.
This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, Public Interest Design Firms with Mia Scharphie and Gilad Meron of Proactive Practices.
Mia’s Origin Story
Mia has a masters in landscape architecture but feels that she’s secretly a social worker with designer skills. She’s always been interested in people who get left out and how to bring them back in for most of her life. She worked at a nonprofit in San Fransisco, Public Architecture, that takes on design challenges that the private market doesn’t have an incentive to be involved in.
Today she runs Creative Agency, a research and design consulting practice that works with affordable housing and arts organizations focusing on projects that use creative tools to make change and Build Yourself Workshop, an empowerment workshop for women in creative fields teaching women how to negotiate, be an advocate, and be proactive.
Gilad’s Origin Story
Gilad has a background in design from a program called Design and Environmental Analysis, an interesting mix of social science research and architecture and design. He got involved in participatory planning and design as a method to shake the environments we live in. That led to public design or community design, as some like to call it.
Currently he’s on the board at The Association for Community Design doing research writing with nonprofits and foundations who do different types of community development work. Living in New Orleans, he started a small coworking space and design collective, The Blue House, where others can come and have dialogue about civil issues.
What is Proactive Practices?
Proactive Practices is a web publication that collects case studies on socially impactful design firms. They’re mostly looking at the different ways that designers design for social impact and find ways to do that within their business models. They aren’t just telling the stories and the beauty of the project, but to look at the organizations that make these projects possible. They want to know how you can build a business where you can create social impact over and over again.
What inspired you to do this?
Mia, Gilad and Nick, their third teammate, had all previously worked or interned at Public Architecture in San Fransisco. At the time, with a limited amount of experience, they had to figure out what pieces were relevant for them to begin the work. Through that organization, they were connected with many people in the growing field of public interest design. There were a public interest projects in that area, but no examinations of the...