by Erik Kojola — May 14th, 2010 |
At the Collaborative, Best Practices

The Community Design Collaborative is featured in the latest edition of the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal. Connecting Dreamers and Designers, written by Collaborative staffer Haley Loram and Bernard Brown, presents the Collaborative’s special brand of highly-skilled volunteerism.
Nonprofits and corporations tend to focus on philanthropy as monetary donations rather than skills-based volunteering that takes advantage of their employees talents and abilities. Nonprofits tend to be unaware of pro bono services offered by for-profit companies, while corporations often under estimate the impact of skilled volunteers. The Collaborative works to fill this gap by helping nonprofits leverage the skills of design professionals and creating connections between design firms and community organizations.
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by Erik Kojola — April 6th, 2010 |
Best Practices

“Pro-bono or professional volunteer work for non-profit businesses can be rewarding personally and professionally, improve the quality of life in your community and provide opportunities that may be outside the regular business of your firm,” writes Ellen Hunt, AIA, in the Small Project Practitioners Journal.
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by Linda Dottor — January 19th, 2010 |
Best Practices

The prefab 100K House designed by Interface Studio: Principal Brian Phillips says. "Just a small piece of construction is about construction. The other pieces are about politics and labor and money and environmental concerns."
Inga Saffron profiles four groundbreaking Philly architecture firms, showing a common thread shared by KieranTimberlake, Erdy McHenry, Onion Flats, and Interface Studio Architects: “architects who do not blush in saying that what they’re doing is socially important work.”
“They’re not the sort of architects you go to when you want just another pretty building… instead they dream of making buildings that can go up in weeks instead of months, that are manufactured rather than constructed, that penny-pinch on energy, and can be tossed into the recycling bin when the world grows tired of them.”
by Erik Kojola — December 10th, 2009 |
Best Practices

Professional schools are increasingly emphasizing pro bono work, according to a report recently released by the Taproot Foundation. Students in architecture, design, business and law are pushing for socially conscious careers, fed by baby boomer teachers and practitioners who are promoting the educational importance of volunteer work, which has created more opportunities for pro bono work for students in professional programs.
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by Haley Loram — October 27th, 2009 |
Best Practices, Clients, Housing
People call it “the Miracle on Seventh Street.” Between a brownstone church, a superblock apartment house, and a scattering of rowhomes, two North Philadelphia pastors built a 56-unit green-roofed, 55,000 square-foot “cyber village” that offers low and moderate-income seniors an affordable and engaging place to live.
Rev. Martha Lang and Rev Mary Lou Moore, pastors of Mt. Tabor AME Church and leaders of Mt. Tabor Community Education and Economic Development Corporation, were the driving force behind the creation of the Cyber Village.

Rev. Mary Lou Moore, PhD, and Rev. Martha Lang
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