WHO ARE WE?

The International Design Clinic is an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to realizing much-needed creative work with communities in need around the world.

Since its inception in 2006, the IDC has completed dozens of socially-responsive creative works around the world. In each case, the work produced was the product of an intensely collaborative creative address, based upon persistent or emergent situations and undervalued, indigenous materials and resources. In so doing, the IDC aligns our motivations, means and methods with those of our community partners, ensuring that those with whom we work are well positioned to possess and evolve the offered work long after we have left. Instead of a fish, the IDC offers not teachings, but a creative process through which we could collaborate with those in need to create new poles, raise new fish, and craft new teachings.

GET INVOLVED

Ready to take the next step with the IDC? You can become a contributor to our cause, or participate yourself.

WHY DO WE EXIST?

We BELIEVE that our world is in need.

In the developing world alone, 1.7 billion people lack access to clean water and over 640 million children (1 in 3) do not have adequate shelter. In these countries, eleven million children younger than 5 die every year. Worldwide, almost one billion people live in slums, including 56 million in developed countries.

We BELIEVE that these needs require creative solutions.

Most of the situations faced by those in need, such as homelessness, hunger, and education, require an address that can be adopted and evolved by the communities they are intended to help. Only then will the work become part of the community, surrounded by individuals who are motivated and equipped to advance it over time. Thus, although money and effort are required to address every need, long-term change is quite often less a question of time, effort, or money, than it is the strategic allocation of each.

WE BELIEVE that designers, architects, artists and other creative professionals possess the unique creative talents to offer a solution.

Gifted with a broad education and a subsequent ability to solve complex problems, students and creative professionals are uniquely equipped to offer creative design solutions. They are some of the greatest visionaries of our world – professionals whose creative talents enable them to find and utilize previously untapped resources within even the most restrictive situation.

Within the hands of the artist and designer, formerly overlooked materials find a new voice, and existing traditions are given new life. More importantly, these creative professionals desperately want to help. They simply lack the infrastructure to offer their talents to the global community.

The IDC exists to fill this need.