How can we start a Freedom by Design Project?
Declare your project via the National AIAS form. We can declare an FBD project at any point in the year. After finding a client and defining a project, declaring allows the AIAS National Office to feature your project nationally and provide support.
Apply for *grant funding via the National AIAS application portal. Grant application close dates: November 15th, March 15th, May 15th.
*Grants are allocated based on quality of grant application, grant availability, and attendance at Grassroots.
Project Types
Service
A one-day long (or recurring) project, not requiring construction, aimed at helping people with their daily needs and challenges, improving people’s lives through mutual aid and care
+ Providing educational service (i.e. sharing professional experience, tutoring, leading volunteer workshops, etc.)
+ Creating social action (i.e. raising awareness of environmental issues such as climate change, writing to local MPs about necessary changes, etc.)
+ Assistance to socially unprotected citizens (led by you or by helping existing non-profit organizations)
+ Running food, toy, and winter drives
Design Engagement
A project that provides conceptual design and problem-solving to address and visualize a solution —improving the community’s quality of life through socially-oriented design. The community-driven initiatives may or may not require a constructed solution. The result does not have to be a physically built object, so the focus is rather on using collaborative design methodologies
+ Pre-design and schematic services
+ Graphic and visualization services
+ Assembly of mutual aid kits
+ Architecture and fabrication workshops for students in low-income neighborhoods
+ Designing a wayfinding system
+ Development of informative design (i.e. design of various information, taking into account ergonomics, functionality, psychological criteria for human perception of information)
+ Development of a strategy for convenient use and functional design with community partners
Design-Build
A traditional architectural/design approach for projects. The use of architectural design skills is necessary to address the existing challenges, and the solution/end result must be physically constructed and built
+ Installations, little libraries, play pieces, ramps, renovations, landscaping, and so much more
+ Design-build projects have been broken down to four level to distinguish where projects may lie based on timeline, budget, scale, commitment, and so on
Project Levels
Level 01
A project that can be completed in a single workday with a team of 4-6 people
+ No building permit required
+ Less than $500 in materials required
+ Can be completed within 60 days of Declaring the Project
+ Single work period requiring no prior knowledge or training (Ex: Saturday morning)
Example: Forming/pouring a ramp to replace a single exterior step, painting playground’s pavements, etc.
Level 02
A project that can be completed in four workdays with a team of 4-6 people
+ Building permit may be required
+ Less than $2,000 in materials required
+ Can be completed within 90 days of Declaring Project
+ Willing to work on a series of directed tasks or work periods requiring no prior knowledge or training. (Ex: Multiple mornings or during a consecutive day break)
Example: Designing and building play pieces for playground, Providing a public pavilion with a little library, etc.
Level 03
A project that can be completed in 10 workdays with a team of 4-6 people
+ Building permit will be required
+ Less than $10,000 will be required
+ Can be completed within 120 days of Declaring the Project
+ Willing to be accountable for a specific task within a project phase and has expertise within that task (i.e. tile setter, carpenter, draftsman or architect, electrician, etc.)
Example: Demolition and replacement of kitchen, installation of an accessible roll-in shower, landscaping playgrounds, etc.
Level 04
A project that can be completed in 10-30 workdays with a team of at least 6 people
+ Building permit will be required • More than $10,000 will be required
+ Can be completed within 200 days of Declaring Project
+ Requires to have people accountable for a specific task within a phase of the project and has expertise within that task (i.e. carpenter, draftsman, electrician, plumber, etc.)
Example: Renovation of a large campus garden that requires demolition and grading of the site, planting trees and shrubs, installing irrigation, construction of a shed, etc.
Past Projects
Check out our Freedom by Design Instagram page to learn more about our past projects.