Sharon Prince, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Grace Farms Foundation, announced Design for Freedom, a new movement to eradicate forced labor from the built environment.
Design for Freedom includes the publication of a new report providing analysis and data on how forced labor is cemented into the foundations of buildings. The publication also follows the launch of a dedicated website with tools, resources, and original content, and partnerships with academic institutions to educate future architects and the public about this pressing humanitarian issue.
Design for Freedom began in the fall of 2017, when CEO and Founder of Grace Farms Foundation, Sharon Prince, and the late Bill Menking, Founding Editor-in-Chief of The Architect?s Newspaper, discussed the fact that acknowledging forced labor in the building materials supply chain or what could be done to eliminate it was not on the industry?s agenda. From their initial conversation at the SANAA-designed Grace Farms, they convened leading principals across the architecture, engineering, and construction sectors for the Design for Freedom Working Group (formerly the Grace Farms Foundation Architecture + Construction Working Group).
Since then, an expanding group of more than 60 experts and leaders from sectors that actualize or influence the built environment joined to raise awareness and create outcomes that will ensure a clean, ethical building materials supply chain.
?Examining our building materials supply chain is...