Empowering those who empower others
We are a nonprofit organization committed to bringing creative solutions to communities in need around the globe.
Transforming community
through design
Since its inception in 2006, IDC has completed over two dozen impactful projects across five continents. These include building a school in South Africa out of reclaimed materials in under two weeks and for less than $1,400, realizing outdoor classrooms and gardens from the components of abandoned lots in Philadelphia, constructing a communal play space for Romanian orphans from construction debris, and developing dispersed school systems for children working the streets of Bolivia and living on the construction sites of India.
Each of these projects is the result of a deeply collaborative process, utilizing local materials and resources to ensure that the work is sustainable and can be possessed and evolved by the members of the community for years to come
“This hands-on, collaborative method is effective because it fosters a sense of ownership, empowers participants with new skills, and demonstrates that meaningful architectural solutions don’t require large budgets—just creativity, adaptability, and a commitment to social impact”
Nicholas Persuki, Architect and 2021 IDC Volunteer
From ideas to action. From action to change.
The world’s challenges are too complex for simple “teach a person to fish” solutions. Many communities face problems that require more than resources alone — they need new, strategic ways to use what they already have.
IDC provides solutions tailored to each community’s unique needs. Through a collaborative process, we help partners uncover the potential in local materials, build sustained teamwork, and create lasting change.
Rather than offering a fish or a lesson, IDC offers a creative process — one that empowers communities and designers to imagine new tools, discover new possibilities, and shape new futures together.
Building Lasting Solutions Together
Twenty years of success has created an overwhelming demand for our work. In response, the IDC is currently seeking out new partners so that we might continue to create the poles, fish and teachings desperately needed by people around the world.
We need help spreading the word, so that those who are empowering others might learn about us and get the help they need. We need help getting the equipment and tools our volunteer teams require to design and build new work. And we need financial support so that we can pay for the work we are already doing and build even more work in the years to come.
In the Press
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Bricolage Sustainability: Redefining Environmental Practice
This chapter explores how conventional, top-down design practices misalign with deep sustainability goals, and argues for a “bricolage” approach that leverages local materials, community knowledge, and adaptive methods.
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Designing for Emergence: Collaborative Practices in Participatory Architecture
This chapter investigates how participatory architecture projects co-create adaptive built-environments by engaging community stakeholders, emphasizing emergent design processes over predefined blueprints.
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chainlinkGREEN: Reclaiming Vacant Lots for Urban Life
The chainlinkGREEN system transforms abandoned urban lots into vibrant gardens, parks and community spaces using recycled materials like chain-link fencing, steel pipe and rubble in a lightweight, easily built structural framework.
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Reclaimed Sky: From Waste-Filled Yard to Urban Learning Garden
This initiative transforms a trash-filled lot behind Treehouse Books in North Philadelphia by redesigning the groundscape and constructing a playful, reclaimed-material canopy to lower heat and create an outdoor learning space for youth
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chainlinkGREEN: Constructing Commons from Constraint
chainlinkGREEN reimagines the abandoned urban lot as elastic civic infrastructure, leveraging reclaimed materials, simple 90° geometries, and community-led construction to transform waste into gardens, shade, and permeable public space.
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Reading the Flow- Also known as chainlinkGREEN
How does work that functions at the intersection between art and design challenge popular conceptions of: Art and Public Sphere?
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