Cameron Sinclair Builds the Case for Action at Sustainable Industries Forum

Mayor McGinn

In his introductory remarks at last week's Sustainable Industries Economic Forum, Mayor McGinn seemed to forget the word of the day was optimism, asking the audience had they all read Jared Diamond's Collapse.

McGinn referenced the "Who cut down the last tree?" question that is always asked about Easter Island--summing up hindsight's incredulity at completely using up a renewable resource.

As to how that happens, "we're getting a clue right now," he added, complaining that we set environmental and sustainability goals, and then ignore them when it comes to large transportation projects.

To be fair, McGinn was also preparing for a city budget address that called for laying off over 200 city employees, so some gloominess was perhaps inevitable. (In a later Q&A, David Williams, CEO of ShoreBank Pacific, noted that the economy was "still deteriorating" and that he expected it to take five to seven years for it to pull out of its slump.)

Cameron Sinclair, Architecture for Humanity

Then Cameron Sinclair--co-founder and "eternal optimist" at Architecture for Humanity--gave a keynote was supposed to be the antidote to any wet-blanketry, but if so, it came in the form of a tough-love caplet. Sinclair, now in his late 30s, is a "socially conscious architect" who won a TED prize in 2006 for his work, and used the prize money to fund what he calls "open source architecture," where people can share their ideas about camel-back clinics, among other things.

Culture, he argues, is a key element of sustainability. Without cultural integration, the project may be ignored, fall into disrepair, or otherwise add to a community's burdens. With a core staff of 12, he's connected to a worldwide network of 5,600, so that projects are driven by people on the ground. "Problems are local--solutions are local," he says; Architecture for Humanity makes a point of hiring locals (who make up 60 percent of their project staff) for their work.

Probably everyone has a few pages worth of Shit My Dad Says wisdom in them; I fondly remember my dad shouting, "Don't just stand there with your hands in your pockets. Do something--even if it's wrong!" As a kid, I was always slightly thrilled by the option of doing something wrong, but in later days I've come to realize that emphasis there was simply not to get hung up on the perfect outcome.

When you listen to Sinclair, head of the "department of small works," you hear E.F. Schumacher. Even Schumacher's subtitle, "Economics as if people mattered," seems echoed in Sinclair's Design Like You Give A Damn. (Of course, influences are everywhere. Speaking of his own childhood, Sinclair said, "My parents could have bought me more Ritalin, but they bought me more Legos.)

It's not that no one has ever taken the "small is beautiful" mantra to heart before, but Sinclair has amplified what's possible by joining low-cost, quick production to a decentralized management and funding structure (yes, there's an app that gives a damn, too, thanks to Kickstarter).

This relentless focus on finding buildable solutions and then building speedily, using the resources and talent at hand, is probably why the "Just do it" company is a proud supporter. Whether it's refugee, transitional, or replacement housing following natural disasters (Haiti, New Orleans, Biloxi), strawbale housing for Navajos (Arizona), or retail kiosks (Brazil), the commonality with each project is a surprising bottom line cost and an aggressive date of completion.

Because his clients frequently live on dollars a day, Sinclair said, sustainability is a requirement, not a feel-good option. In Africa, their buildings often double as water collectors. Maybe this is why he seemed to have trouble shifting gears when, during the Q&A, someone asked what was most relevant to design in Seattle.

My thought is, priorities. Sinclair is propelled by the urgency of real community needs. Seattle's architectural elite applauded with gusto when JCFO suggested, Sinclair-like, installing something while their waterfront-park work was in progress. I don't think our Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness has the same support for "early wins"; I doubt that Sinclair would go anywhere near a "ten-year" project.

In Seattle, we are constrained by process and act as if that's the price necessary for the absurdly diluted public input we can muster. Yet Sinclair rifled through instance after instance of direct community participation that resulted into substantive design changes, without slowing his breakneck speed. Again, what Sinclair has on his side is urgency. We have $4.2 billion transportation projects designed to save people time on stop lights. Significantly, we should finish that project up about the same time we end homelessness.