Architecture for Humanity, the non-profit responsible for propagating designers and designs around the world that "give a damn," has named its latest Executive Director. After co-founders Kate Stohr and Cameron Sinclair announced their decision to step down in September of last year, the organization began a global search for the person who would replace them. Today, the Board of Directors has announced the appointee: Eric Cesal, an experienced designer and author of the memoir/manifesto Down Detour Road: An Architect in Search of Practice who first joined Architecture for Humanity in 2006 as a volunteer on the Katrina reconstruction program and later established and led Architecture for Humanity’s Haiti Rebuilding Center in Port-au-Prince from 2010 to 2012.
The organization has identified two major goals that the organization, with Cesal at its helm, will strive towards for the future: (1) to equally assist stricken communities and educate/strengthen at-risk communities; and (2) use "its knowledge and experience to train, empower and mentor any organization or designer with the desire to change the world."
Cesal comments: “We will not be an organization that only responds to crisis and misfortune. We will be an organization that prevents crisis and misfortune. We will continue to stand on the side of communities that have been harmed by extreme weather, crisis and neglect. However, we will expand our focus to include communities at risk from harm, and help them strengthen against future calamities."
To learn more about Architecture for Humanity, including their current projects in Japan, the Philippines, and the United States, visit http://www.architectureforhumanity.org.
