In Tamil Nadu, India, on the Bay of Bengal, it has been four yearssince the tsunami hit, tearing houses from their foundations,shattering walls and filling the streets with rubble.

“It was very emotional. We lost hope,” a villager namedPoorani tells FRONTLINE/World reporter Singeli Agnew. “Everything waslost. We asked ourselves how we would live.”

Poorani tells Agnew that in the months after the tsunami, reliefpoured in – medicine, food and clothing. But, as often happens with bigdisasters, the world’s attention moved on.

For Purnima McCutcheon, an American-trained architect, the tsunamiwas only the beginning. For 14 years, her life was on the traditionalarchitect’s track – but after the tsunami, she picked up everything andmoved to India to help.

“It’s always been my aspiration to, at some point, work with acommunity and do something that was more personally meaningful,” shesays.

Now her clients are villagers and fisherman, instead of bigcorporations, and her new job is to help them rebuild for thelong-term.

To get started, she gathered the town and asked them to drawsketches of what they needed – a preschool, a bathroom, a place to holdcelebrations and lead study groups. She took this long list and came upwith a plan for one village hall that could meet all these needs.

This idea – that a building can make a difference – is what hergroup Architecture for Humanity is all about. It all started withanother crisis, ten years ago, when a young couple watching televisioncoverage of refugees in Kosovo got an idea.

“Their homes were in rubble and winter was coming, and we sort oflooked at that and {Cameron} said, ‘I think this is an opportunity forarchitects to help,” Kate Stohr tells Angew. Stohr and her husband,architect Cameron Sinclair, launched a design competition for Kosovo –and were stunned by the results.

Their tiny apartment was soon overflowing with hundreds of designboards. New ideas for refugee housing poured in from all over theworld. They included everything from recycled rubble houses toinflatable hemp tents.

Since then, they have created a network of architects around theworld ready to help when needed. Their motto has become “Design LikeYou Give a Damn.”

“One aspect of our business is matchmaking. We’re kind of like thedating service between humanitarian groups and communities andarchitectural designers,” says Sinclair.

Back in Tamil Nadu, Purnima McCutcheon presents her designs for the new village hall.

“The tiles will help cool the building and the overhang, it’s for ventilation,” she explains.

While the community likes the design on a whole, an argument breaksout about the placement of a bench. Purnima knows these little detailscan make a difference, so it’s back to the drawing board.

“It is hard, but you have to listen otherwise it becomes your building more than theirs,” she tells Agnew.

With the community’s seal of approval, the expressive, curved walls of the new village hall start to take shape. Local workers are hired for the construction, generating income and a sense of ownership. The whole building will cost less than $6,000.

Back in San Francisco, Architecture for Humanity is raising thefunds and cutting through the red tape to make sure buildings likePurnima’s can break ground. Their best resource is the untappedcreative energy of designers, who are eager to bring their idealism tothe drafting table – turning waste materials like carpet tiles intowalls.

Thousands of designs are in an open source library anyone in the developing world can access.

“This isn’t about getting one solution for one client,” saysSinclair. “It’s about how do we get hundreds of really well-designedideas into the hands of people that are looking for them.”

Architecture for Hum
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