BUILDaCHANGE is a non-profit organization that promotes architecture as a human right and tool for social empowerment. It designs and builds facilities like schools, clinics, and sanitation infrastructure for vulnerable communities in developing countries. Its projects are developed using participatory design and focus on capacity building, appropriate technology, and sustainability. BUILDaCHANGE operates through both practical action like collaborating on social programs, and theoretical research into improving cooperation approaches.

1. BUILDaCHANGE
BUILDa
CHANGE

2. BUILDaCHANGE
Architecture should
be regarded as a
human right, to be
extended to all
those who today are
excluded from it.
human right

3. BUILDaCHANGE
About
BUILD a CHANGE is a non-profit
organization [NPO] set up to
promote the right to a suitable
built environment as a crucial
factor in fostering social
empowerment.
The name of the organization,
BUILDaCHANGE, stemmed from the
will to stress the potential of
constructions to transform and
improve the physical, economical
and social nature of the
environment.
Our work is focused on providing
the ‘outskirts of the world’
with essential services such
as educational, health and
sanitary facilities, through
the realization of buildings,
prototypes and theoretical
researches.
Our aim is to promote human
rights, facilitating the access
to essential services and
contributing to the achievement
of the Millennium Development
Goals [MDGs] agreed by the main
world’s leading development
institutions.
BUILDaCHANGE www.buildachange.org
FAREstudio www.farestudio.it

4. BUILDaCHANGE
construction
is a powerful
embodiment
of values

5. BUILDaCHANGE
MISSION
and
values
BUILDaCHANGE strives to be
at the forefront in the
implementation of projects aimed
at fostering social well-being
through appropriately conceived
architecture and urban projects.
BUILDaCHANGE wishes to provide
even the most disadvantaged
communities with the quality,
safety and comfort of a built
environment at the same time
innovative and adapted to local
contexts.
In this way we would like to
improve the living conditions
of deprived communities
facilitating their access to
dignified housing and adequate
basic facilities such as schools,
clinics, sanitary services,
community buildings, etc.; and
in doing this, we try to be
always accurate, responsable,
accountable, innovative and
professional.
We believe that:
architecture should be regarded
as a human right to be extended
to all those that today are
excluded from it
the quality of space can
have a huge impact on social
empowerment and cooperation must
go beyond emergency management
or poverty mitigation, planning
and investing on longer term
solutions
designing sustainable buildings
based on capacity building
approach, technical innovation
and context analysis, is the best
support we can give to local
communities, charities and NGOs,
also with the aim of putting in
value the financial efforts behind
every physical realisation
apart from its instrumental
function, construction is a
powerful embodiment of values,
priorities and finalities, and,
if carefully planned, it can
be an efficient tool for the
self-promotion of operators and
investors;

6. BUILDaCHANGE
Multidisciplinary approach
participatory design
Appropriate technology
sustainable design
Capacity building

7. BUILDaCHANGE
what
we Do
We base our projects on:
Multidisciplinary approach
and participatory design:
paradoxically, working in a
context of scarcity requires
a wide and multifold range of
skills; disseminating information
and sharing competences during
every step of the process, from
planning to construction, is the
only way to assure inteventions
acceptance by local communities,
positive feedbacks and good
results;
Appropriate technology and
sustainable design: we always
incorporate in our design locally
available skills and materials,
and we use them according to
contextual analysis and local
tradition;
Capacity building strategies:
each project introduces
appropriate design techniques
to local communities and make
them learn how to use those
techniques independently; our
partnerships with local workers
and contractors contributes to
the improvement of the whole
local building industry;
A ‘more with less’ approach:
our experience in contexts of
scarcity taught us how to design
high quality projects with poor
[material and financial] resources
Social innovation: our projects
never deal with buildings only,
but we always try to set up
comprehensive processes of social
cohesion and employment occasions
through innovative proposals
BUILDaCHANGE actively
promotes research in a field
that is barycentric between
built environment and social
empowerment programs.
BUILDaCHANGE tries to enlighten
how important the interaction
between those entities can be
by associating a dimension of
research and interdisciplinary
exchange to a precise
determination of practical
commitment on the ground.

8. BUILDaCHANGE

9. BUILDaCHANGE
BUILDaCHANGE operates combining
practical action and theoretical
research:
Practical action
During the formulation of new
social programs we collaborate
with other international
or locally based non-profit
associations
Our specific expertise can support
new projects started by other
organizations or promoted by us
In both cases we involve local
communities in the definition
of goals and strategies, in
the financing or co-financing
procedures and in the socio-
economic sustainability of all
initiatives.
Theoretical research
Research, dissemination and
communication are an essential
part of BUILDaCHANGE’s activity;
We are actively investigating the
current paradigm of cooperation
in order to attain a new, more
effective approach to the
subject;
We collaborate with academic
realities in order to improve
and disseminate architectural
principles and actions related
with social interventions.
HOW WE
WORK

10. BUILDaCHANGE
History
and
Team
Erika Trabucco
President
[and founder]
Emanuela Valle
Honorary president
[and founder]
Eljor Kerciku
Vice-president
Chief Project
coordinator
Riccardo Vannucci
Scientific Director
[and founder]
BUILDaCHANGE was founded in 2012
by initiative of the architects
of FAREstudio with a common
desire to give a more effective
personal and professional
contribution in the field of
social architecture and urban
development, in low income
countries and other disadvantaged
circumstances.
FAREstudio is a Rome based award-
winning socially-oriented design
firm and it is the result of
over 25 years of experience in
architectural design, technology,
management. FAREstudio has been
working in the last decade in
several international cooperation
projects in partnership with
UN Agencies, NGOs, and local
communities; from all those
experiences emerged the idea to
create an independent non profit
organization for social design
and community enhancement.

11. BUILDaCHANGE
Giovanna Vicentini
Financial strategy
and
business planning
luciano
cardellicchio
Research Mentor
Lecturer in Design
and Technology &
Environment at
University of Kent[GB]
Joao Sobral
Site coordinator
Flavio Giaccone
Project coordinator
and communication
designer
Cecilia sabelli
Communication and
Content manager
Giovanni
Quattrocolo
Operator in the
field
Burkina Faso

12. BUILDaCHANGE
architecture is a way to foster
social promotionsocial promotion

13. BUILDaCHANGE
Projects
We aim to design, build and
manage architectural and urban
projects in order to provide safe
and appropriate buildings for
the most vulnerable communities,
and use architecture as a way to
foster social equity.

14. BUILDaCHANGE
safe and
appropriate
buildings
the most
vulnerable
communities
vulnerable

15. BUILDaCHANGE
developing
countries
The selection of developing
countries as the favorite place
for BaC’s activity stems from
various considerations, from the
scale and magnitude of social
injustice that affects those
situations to the fact that
developing countries are already
the recipients of remarkable
amount of resources coming
from the developed world, and
these resources not always are
‘productive’ as they should.

16. BUILDaCHANGE
2.5 billionpeople have no access to an
advanced sanitation system
1.0 billionpeople have no alternative to
defecating in the open air
748 millionpeople lack
access to safe drinking water
88%
Burkina
Faso
of deaths by
diarrhea
are caused by
inappropriate
personal hygiene
and by the
lack of access to
improved
sanitation
facilities and
water sources
Countries where
have access to
Countries where less than 50% of total population
has access to improved sanitation facilities
2.5billion
people have no access to an
advanced sanitation system
people have no alternative to
defecating in the open air
people lack
access to safe drinking water
= 100.000.000 people
Source: JMP[Joint Monitoring Programme
for Water Supply and Sanitation] 2014
billion
million
1.0
748
SANITAtion
world
situation

17. BUILDaCHANGE
Progetto
zero
2015
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Women of the association
La Saisonnière
Research, concept design, design
development, final design
The issue of absent or inadequate
sanitation affects Burkina Faso
as many other low income coun-
tries, and not only in Africa.
Figures are astonishing and refer
to an endemic situation of risk
and emergency.
The causes of this condition are
related to the plague of pover-
ty, articulated in its various
phenomena: [recent] urbanization
of a large number of deprived
people, structural lack of in-
frastructures, and, last but not
least, cultural factors mainly
related to the concept of privacy
and decency of corporal issues.
Given such a scenario, it is
understandable why the area of
water, sanitation and hygiene
[WASH] is one of the priorities
of international cooperation.
Several programs tried solve WASH
problem in Ouagadougou capital
city of Burkina Faso. They sug-
gests that it is probably the
case to go for an alternative to
the model based on the household
Date
Location
Final user
Activities /services
Description
- ongoing -

18. BUILDaCHANGE
as the minimal unit to be served.
In fact, if the ‘one family /one
toilet’ principle might be a rea-
sonable goal but it is not sus-
tainable from an environmental,
economical and social point of
view, then something that changes
one or more terms of the equa-
tion, at the moment unsolvable,
must probably be introduced.
Progetto Zero proposes therefore
a structure that is:
• shared, in terms of access
and ownership, rather than indi-
vidually/family-run;
• multifunctional, incorpo-
rating other activities of pub-
lic interest [showers, laundry,
store, battery chargers, bicycle
shed, hotspot wireless, educa-
tional facilities like black-
boards and hygiene promotion
kits, etc];
• integrated and self-con-
tained, constituting a complete
and independent unit in and of
itself, provided with drinkable
water and following the full cy-
cle of input-outputs;
• modular, so to be easily
replicable and adjustable to var-
ious circumstances;
• pleasant in terms of
light, odors control, space,
safety and security, in order to
offer the users an experience
that is at the same time reward-
ing and unusual.
In this way the main endeavor
of Progetto Zero, alongside its
functional connotation, would be
evident:
to provide a deprived area with a
basic urban infrastructure with
strong identity, spatial quality
and architectonic character, giv-
ing self-respect to the community
by dignifying what is normally
disagreeable, hidden and misera-
ble.
Obviously nothing prevents the
[desirable] possibility to re-
gard, one day, the facility as
part of an extended network where
each single module can act as
part of a wider system spread-
ing a variety of interconnected
services around the neighborhood,
and as a terminal for data col-
lection and the supply of social-
ly relevant information.
services
WC
Mobile phones charger
Public lighting
Fertilizer
Showers
Washbasin
Laundry
Improved
Sanitation Hub
Water
tank
Sanitation
module
Public
space
Satellite
facilities module

19. BUILDaCHANGE
click here and watch the video!

20. BUILDaCHANGE
new
strategies,
concepts
and ideas
to extend and
strengthen
civil society.

21. BUILDaCHANGE
social
innovation
Social innovations include new
ideas, strategies, practices
aimed at meeting social needs.
They might refer to education,
health, working condition, gender
equity and so forth and operate
on the background of existing
alternatives.
In fact, despite ideological
assumptions, the market alone is
not able to fix the same issues it
produces, and politics is rarely
in the position to act on behalf
of the most disadvantaged.
The potential ambiguity of every
philanthropic approach can be
reduced if not eliminated by
investing on capacity building,
the intention to strengthening
the abilities, skills, and
competencies of people and
communities in developing
societies so to overcome the
reasons of their exclusion and
suffering.
Similar emphasis has to be put on
the sustainability of proposals,
whereas sustainability is
intended in its broad economic,
environmental, social meaning.

22. BUILDaCHANGE
social innovation
recycle
cooperative design
urban
regeneration

23. BUILDaCHANGE
urban
faber
2015
Rome
Concept, financial proposal
Urban Faber project wishes to
activate new virtuous processes
where traditional values such as
quality of products and Italian
design may interlace with the
respect of resources and the
promotion of social innovation
and sustainability. Urban Faber
is the place where, in the city
of Rome, all this can happen: a
physical and telematic laboratory
whose activities try to have a
gradual positive impact on the
plague of unemployment, on the
decline of the art of handicraft,
on the poor development of
innovative technologies and
on the degradation of urban
outskirts of Italy’s capital
city. In fact Urban Faber’s
action will be focused on the
context of Rome and, by re-
using waste products, promoting
cooperative working and creating
an on-line multi functional
platform, it aims at becoming a
catalyst of new, creative social
and professional experiences.
Date
Location
Activities /services
Description

24. BUILDaCHANGE
circles and
ramifications,
protected and
interconnected
shapes, are inputs
for the project

25. BUILDaCHANGE
casal
bianco
Park
2012
Rome
Local citizens committee
Local community
Concept design, design
development
The project is located in the
outskirts of Rome, an area of
relatively recent development,
quite representative of an
expansion that is not illegal
as many others in the past but
shares the same lack of quality
and the inadequacy of public
facilities.
A committee of citizens raised
the need to realize a public
garden in an area adjacent the
housing development.
The land is owned by the Rome
Municipality and officially
dedicated to green space.
In order to counteract the
inertia of the department in
charge of the design, realization
and maintenance of landscaped
areas of the city, the committee
asked the preparation of a
proposal for the garden.
Date
Location
Client
Final user
Activities /services
Description

26. BUILDaCHANGE
The right to a shelter should
be regarded as a basic
condition for human beings,
the true symbol of humanity.
The right to a shelter
the true symbol of humanity.

27. BUILDaCHANGE
Homeless
The issue of homelessness is
possibly the most striking form
of social injustice. The capacity
of a social system to provide
protection, dignity and identity
to its members gives the measure
of a community’s development.
The right to a shelter, a
home, or a roof as in the
Italian expression ‘senzatetto’
[roofless], should be regarded
as a basic condition for human
beings, the true symbol of
humanity.
For this reason BUILDaCHANGE
includes homelessness among its
priorities, and this interest is
addressed to both the facilities
for the homeless [night
shelters, toilets and showers]
and the provision of housing,
conventional and/or alternative.

28. BUILDaCHANGE
spaces must be
generous and well lit,
finishes
robust but nice.

29. BUILDaCHANGE
showers
for
homeless
2012
Rome
Centro Sociale Vincenziano
Homeless of Rome
Concept design, design
development, final design,
procurement, construction quality
control
Refurbishment of a toilet and
shower facility part of an
existing diurnal centre for
homeless people.
The requirements of these
premises are related to the
reality of the users: normally
they do not like to leave their
poor things unattended, sometimes
are quite reluctant to self-
control and discipline in the
use of the facility, but their
dignity and privacy must be
preserved. As a consequence, the
spaces must be generous and well
lit, the finishes robust but nice
so to trigger a form of refrain
from abuse.
The sense of the realization lies
therefore in its humbleness,
but the adoption of technical
solutions aimed at achieving
durability and ease of
maintenance has not affected the
intention to provide a friendly
and comfortable place.
Date
Location
Client
Final user
Activities /services
Description

30. BUILDaCHANGE

31. BUILDaCHANGE
get
involved
As a small charity,
your help makes a real difference
to our work.
There are many ways to get
involved in BUILDaCHANGE:
Give your Corporate Support:
instead of Christmas presents,
why don’t you offer your staff a
donation to BUILDaCHANGE?
Become a Partner: you can support
our activities with your products
or your expertise
Sponsor: being at our side
financing some of our activities,
you can make things happen!
Build a Change ONLUS
Bank Banca Popolare Etica
Rome branch
c/c 00000144261
IBAN IT43T0501803200000000144261
BIC: CCRTIT2T84A
Tax code 97684270586
If you are a Foundation or a
Corporation:
data

32. BUILDaCHANGE
build a
change
Via Latina 43
00179 Rome ITALY
+39 06 9727 6340
www.buildachange.org
Architecture should
be regarded as a
human right
to be extended to all
those who today are
excluded from it